The Past is Only the Future with the Lights On

Only one word could be used to describe what hanging out with Skyler is like; crazy fun! Okay…maybe that was two words. I just never realized how much fun he could be. He always seemed so quiet, I guess I just assumed we’d be doing something mellow - not what he actually had planned for us.

After meeting up at a small burger joint in town around 7 o’clock andeating having a french fry and chocolate milkshake eating contest - which I so proudly won - we walked around the mall, eventually entering the arcade where I challenged him to a round of DDR.

I wasn’t expecting him to be so good at it.

He seriously owned my ass at that game. No wonder he was so in favor of playing that game.

“Don’t feel too bad, Kelly,” he’d told me after winning the third song in a row, a smile detectable in his voice. “You get used to it after the first five or so songs.”

And so that led to us getting into a food fight at the salad bar of the eatery as we were leaving and he was still boasting about his victory.

So, as you can guess, we were kicked out of the mall. And then banned for six months.

That was a new one for me. Sure, I’d been kicked out of stores before, a prime example being Saturday, but never banned. Especially from the entire mall.

Frank was gonna be proud of me for sure.

We began walking down the street in the direction of our houses, both of us laughing too hard to even mutter a word, and leaning on each other to keep our balance.

“We definitely have to do this again,” Skyler said minutes later once our laughing subsided and silence had overcome us.

It was dark outside, but, with the assistance of the glowing moon and passing cars’ headlights, I could easily see the small, sincere smile on his face.

“Ha, why don’t you call me in six months,” I joked with a light laugh.

He agreed and we continued our walk to my house in a nice, comfortable silence.

But that silence didn’t last long. Pretty soon, we were quoting some of our favorite movies, which continued until we were at my house and ended with Skyler’s, “You just got patty-slapped!”

“Well, thanks again for tonight. I had a lot of fun,” I told Skyler honestly, nodding my head for emphasis.

“No problem. Sorry we couldn’t actually do this on your birthday…I didn’t really have much of a notice, you know?” he chuckled, making me feel a bit guilty for not telling him last week about my birthday. “Hopefully we can do this again sometime.”

“Absolutely.” I agreed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” I watched as he nodded, grinning from ear to ear. I really could get used to ‘hanging out’ with him.

“Bye, Kelly.”

Opening my front door, I happened to catch a glimpse of my ‘ring’ under the lighting of the porch, only reminding me of the boy I really wanted to be with.

And never would be.