Young Love Was Such Dumb Love

Bennett Fallon kicked off her covers, unable to sleep with everything that had happened. Matt had come back and apologized, saying that he would be willing to wait until she was ready and she smiled wanting to put everything behind her. She didn't want to fight with Matt, she just couldn't, she had turned complacent from apathy. Something was still bothering her, she looked around her old room from high school seeing pictures of smiles and old memories plastered on the walls. The room seemed foreign now, it just wasn't home any more.

She turned on a lamp as she sat on the floor, finding a box of old pictures she had taken from her mother's massive stash of pictures as well as the pictures she had taken herself. She held a stack in her hand and smiled at the top picture, the color was fading, but it was still a cute picture. One of her personal favorites and she smiled remembering the day like it was yesterday.

The parents were sitting on the backyard all in chairs, three small children crouching down in front of two lawn chairs their mothers were sitting in. Benny smiled remembering the floral dress her mother had forced her into, with a giant grin on her face and her wild curly hair had a bow in it. Two boys on each side of her with seemingly matching outfits wrapping theirs arms around her begrudgingly, but with the smiles on their faces you could never tell. Mrs. Fallon sat wrapping an arm around a standing Taylor, who looked simply miserable, but he was an adolescent and it was to be expected. Mrs. O'Callaghan sat with a newborn little boy in one arm and a newly three-year-old on her lap. Everyone was happy.

Benny felt a pang of sadness after the happiness wore off, where did the time go? It seemed like yesterday she met John, he and Max galavanting off and crusading with out her. She smiled remembering how she promised to hate John till they were thirty, which seemed incredibly old at the time, but secretly wanted to still hang out with him. If only she had hated him, things would've been simpler. She flipped through the photos again and traced her fingers over it, her heart nearly stopping.

It was her and John standing over the edge at a pier, she had to be about eleven or twelve holding a fishing pole over as a fourteen-year-old John was instructing her, holding a pole of his own. He was teaching her how to fish since Max was being Max, lurking in the background and pouting, and his mother told him to be nice. It was nice, them getting along, she remembered laughing at John's jokes and his kindness causing a school girl crush for the entire summer. That was the summer John kissed her on roller skates, her first kiss ever, was him. Somedays she wished she had a first that wasn't him, he was deep-rooted in her history.

Benny cursed under her breath, feeling the butterflies creeping back into her stomach. This didn't seem fair at all, the fact that almost all her memories had him in them. She flipped through a couple more pictures before stopping at one from after one of his baseball games. She had sat through triple digit heat and cheered him on, after the game he ran straight up to her in the bleachers and gave her a big kiss. The moment had been perfectly captured in the picture, the smiles could be seen on both their lips even though they were pressed together. The way his baseball hat lifted up from the kiss, the ribbon in her hair with their school colors matching it, his arms wrapped around her tightly.

She flipped to the next picture, that had been taken seconds after the kissing picture, both of them laughing. They literally looked perfect together, she looked at the faces, amazed at how young they were. John's hat had fallen completely off his head at this point and they both had a faint blush painted on their cheeks. She remembered how he smelt like sweat, his uniform was damp with it, but she didn't care she wrapped her arms around him too. Mr. Fallon was making fun of them and threatening John to watch his hands, which was what caused them to laugh. She felt her heart race, that was the night John told her loved her for the very first time and she said she would love him forever.

John's hands were clammy from nervousness, but Benny kept her hand in his no matter how wet it got or how desperately she wanted to wipe her hand she didn't want to let go. And she didn't, he noticed this and smiled. They walked from their neighborhood, despite the fact the sun had fallen it was still ridiculously hot. Her heart was racing wildly, just from being with him. They finally got home and made their way to her backyard, before her hand slipped out of his and she bolted for the tree, her lips turned into a juvenile smile.

"What are you doing, you're gonna wake up our parents," John said in a hushed voice as Benny started climbing up the sturdy trunk like they had done numerous times before in their youth. She just grinned and finally sat down on a big branch, towering over him.

"Having fun, ever heard of it, O'Callaghan?" She laughed softly, trying to keep her voice down as she scooted further away from the trunk and patted the branch next to her. John shook his head laughing and began climbing until he was finally sitting next to her with a big grin on his face. "What are you so smiley about?" Benny said, biting her bottom lip flirtatiously.

"I'm just thinking about how I'm the luckiest guy in the world, 'cause I got you," He smirked, knowing full well it was cheesy, but it was exactly how he felt and she knew it too.

"You'll always have me," Benny laughed tilting her head slightly, her hair flowing behind in the breeze. They had only been dating for three months, two weeks and five days at this point, she knew because she kept track. She pressed his lips to his and felt her heart leap out of her chest, just like the first kiss. It was like every moment they spent together was the best moment of her life. They sat in silence for a while, looking up at the stars through the green leaves of the tree, but Benny felt him staring at her and she raised an eyebrow as she met his gaze.

"Benny, I-I-I," He started and stopped, a panic filled up in her. She couldn't help but think to worse, that he was about to break up with her until the words finished coming out. "IthinkI'minlovewithyou," He said so fast it was pretty much incomprehensible.

"What?" Benny asked, scrunching up her nose in utter confusion.

"I, uh, think I'm in love with you," John repeated slowly this time, trying to keep his nerves tamed. He had wanted to say it to her all night, but now seemed so perfect he couldn't let his nerves stop him. "Actually, I am in love with you," He corrected himself to see her big brown eyes filled with shock.

"You think you're in love with me or you are in love with me, I'm confused," She dragged out, wondering what exactly he was trying to say. She felt her heart swelling in elation, and beating so fast in anticipation. They were two completely different notions, thinking and being, she wanted to know for sure before she reciprocated.

"I am in love with you," John nodded, feeling the return of nerves from the lack of response on her part. He had been practicing in front of the mirror for about two weeks now, trying to work out and perfect himself. As if she would love him more if he was better looking, but he was naive about just how much she loved him just as the lanky, awkward boy-next-door.

"Good, because I'm in love with you too," She smiled and a rush of relief came over them, John leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, the same fireworks going off because they were absolutely crazy about each other.

"Fuck," Benny whispered before putting the photos neatly into a stack and replacing them into the box, wiping a single tear that had strayed from her eye. She knew that she was still in love with him, just as much as the night in the tree. Love made her feel powerless and there was nothing she disliked more. She glanced and saw the framed picture of John kissing her cheek at graduation and the feelings brewing in her stomach doubled.

She climbed back into bed after turning off the light and clamped her eyes shut. There was nothing in this world she wanted more than to just go back in time when she was his and he was hers, before all the complications and shit went down. When she finally drifted to sleep, it wasn't her boyfriend in her dreams, it was the boy next door and his giant smirk. You'll always have me, she didn't know how true the words were when she said them.