Tonight

Johnny pulled up to a secluded part of the road, where trees grew thick and no houses stood. There was a small part that was just dirt road and that was what people used when they came here for parking. He hadn’t been back here, back to their spot in a while and he didn’t know why he had an urge to visit it tonight.

Putting his car into park on the small dirt indent, Johnny shut his car off. The last thing that Johnny ever worried about was car thieves in this neck of the woods. Barely anyone came down the road and there were a handful of people that knew about this spot and all that did know about it, Johnny knew them.

Getting out of his car, he locked it and slowly made his way to the small clearing in the trees. He was planning to propose to Lacey soon and Johnny was nothing but a nervous wreck. He was ready, he knew that he was ready for marriage but there was a part that was holding him back. A part that had been holding him back since the first date that he had with her.

But this was the place he knew he had to go. He knew that it was the only place that could clear his head and the only place that he would be able to settle his heart. He knew what, or better yet who, was holding him back the entire time. He knew that the only way he would let her go is by coming here, coming to the spot that they had deemed theirs.

Johnny made his way through the obstacle course of trees. The place was about a half mile away from the parking site and though it was always hard to get through, it was more so now. He hadn’t been there in five years and he knew that people rarely went there. But he was willing to put the fight up with the forest just to let go of her, let go of the girl that kept a part of his heart and didn’t allow him to give everything to Lacey.

His pocket burned with the picture, the only picture that he had kept of Fae. He couldn’t part with it. He feared that if he threw it out a part of his mind, body and soul would be gone with it. But he knew, he understood, that if he wanted to take the next big step with Lacey he had to let go of the photo, let go of Fae in every aspect.

He saw the moon shine on the water in front of him as a clearing opened up to the wild beach that he used to be at all the time. A beach that he claimed as his own; a place where he would be able to let himself go in every way possible. But the closer he got to the beach the slower he walked. There was a figure that stood by the water, a figure that he knew all too well.

She stood there a plaid red and blue shirt covering her body. She wore it as a dress and it wasn’t the first time that she didn’t that when she thought she was alone or with someone close. A bottle of wine hung loosely in her hand as I watched her dig her feet deeper into the sand. She picked her free hand up and tossed her hair so that it hung in front of her, exposing her back to me. Just looking at her brought back memories that I had been fighting for years on end.



”What are you doing Fae?” Johnny asked his girlfriend as they walked down the street a laugh in his voice. She always mesmerized him, blanking his mind of any thought that didn’t involve her.

Fae simply turned to Johnny and pointed her camera at him, taking a side shot view of his face. She always loved his profile view; it showed his boyish side that no front photo could ever display. It was his bad boy character that first made her agree to date him but it was the boyish charm that had her staying.

“It’s a beautiful day on boardwalk today and I’m taking photos of everything that I find stunning.” She told him as she snapped another photo of him. Johnny simply laughed at his girlfriend as he turned to look at her. She pulled the camera down from her face. Her front bangs fell perfectly in front of her face, making her ocean blue eyes pop out.

“So you think I’m stunning?” Johnny asked her as he pulled her body closer to his, wrapping his arms tightly around her face. His eyes darted between her lips and her eyes, his two favorite features on her face. He could get lost in her eyes for hours on end, they were as deep as the ocean and her lips were plump and perfect to kiss and tug on. There was nothing that was wrong with her.

He connected their lips together, not caring that it was the middle of the day and they were on a boardwalk where parents walked with their kids. He wanted to show her that he loved her, that she meant to him more then the entire world did. He knew that he could live perfectly well if everything was taken away from his life, but didn’t know if he would be able to function if she ever disappeared from his life.

He heard the click of the camera and smiled into the kiss. Fae pulled away and brought the camera between their intertwined bodies. “Want to see the picture baby?” She asked him lightly. Johnny simply nodded as she pressed the play button on her professional camera that cost her thousands of dollars to get. But she didn’t mind, photography was her passion.

Looking down at the photo Johnny saw them in the center; their lips connected a smile clearly visible. In the background they saw the pier that stretched forever into the ocean and the sun sitting softly above it. . He instantly knew that this was going to be his favorite photo of them



Johnny reached into his back pocket and pulled the old photo from his back pocket. He remembered that day clearly in his mind, it was fresh but then again all of the memories in his mind felt fresh. She lurked in every crevice and no matter how hard he tried to get rid of her, he simply couldn’t. He rubbed his thumb over the old picture, the colors fading and he took note of the yellow coloring that began to appear.

He walked over to her slowly. He knew that she wouldn’t get scared; she would know it was him. She was able to sense his presence every time that he didn’t make it known. There was an otherworldly connection that they had that would never disappear.

“What are you doing here Fae?” He asked her quietly as he walked up too her and stood right be her side, his flip flops dug into the sand and the small pebbles tickled his feet. She simply shrugged her shoulders and the plaid shirt fell further down her arm, exposing her back more.

“I come here to sometimes think.” She told him as she threw the bottle down on the sand, it was empty of its contents and he knew that she must have drunk it all. Though she didn’t drink to get drunk, she drank wine to clear her mind of all of the anger and sadness that would build inside of her. She would rationalize it and make everything right again.

“Did you drink all of that?” Johnny didn’t look at her as he continued to watch the moon’s shadows dance along the black water. Her head turned to the side as she examined the bottle

“Nah, I drank maybe a quarter of it and poured the rest out. There’s too much alcohol for me in that bottle.” Johnny couldn’t help but smile at her words. She enjoyed drinking but she was never able to process it, her body would get intoxicated quickly no matter what she ate before hand. “I can’t believe it’s been ten years since everything ended.” She told Johnny as her arms crossed over her chest and the shirt rode her up her legs.

“Yeah it has.” Johnny told her as he dug his feet further into the sand. He knew that she was here for a reason, she was brought here to him so that they could settle everything. There were questions that were left unanswered and emotions that needed to be handled. “Do you ever think that we could have made it.”

Fae turned to look at Johnny and he had done the same thing. She hadn’t changed in all of those years. Her hair still had the same cut that made her best features pop and her make up was light. She was a natural beauty and though she had aged a bit, she still looked the same way when they had ended it all six years ago.



“Johnny I can’t do this anymore. This whole relationship is tearing me apart. You are out there, traveling the world doing what you love while I’m stuck back here in Huntington. I don’t know what you are doing, I don’t know who you are doing.” Johnny instantly turned from being angry to being upset. He couldn’t believe that she had actually believe that he might cheat on her. Sure they had their problems and they saw each other not as often as they did before he left to travel the world, but he thought that she knew that he respected her more then that.

“How can you think that Fae? I don’t want any other chick, I wouldn’t cheat on you.” Fae simply shook her had as she stood up from the couch, looking Johnny in the eye.

“Because there are girls that are throwing themselves at you, I’ve seen the photo’s. I don’t know if I can handle it. I love you more then anything in the world, but I want to protect myself from the heartbreak.” Johnny ran his hands over his face, he was scared, their argument had turned for the worst and he was afraid of losing her.

“Baby I would never hurt you. You need to trust me, I love you too much to lose you babe.” Johnny told her in a soothing voice as he walked closer to her but Fae simply stepped backwards, she didn’t want to be close to him because she knew she would cave into him.

“Johnny, I just think we need some time apart. Okay, I just need some room to think.” She told him as she grabbed her jacket off of the couch and ran outside. Johnny had no time to catch her as she got in her car and drove off.

In that moment he knew that nothing was going to be the same. She drove holding a large piece of his heart that he knew he would never be able to get it back. It was hers forever and a day. But he had hope, he prayed that someday she would realize that what they had was real, that they belonged together.



Johnny watched as her facial reactions changed, but more importantly he saw the change in her eyes. There was still love in them, the raw unadulterated love that they always had for each other. Lacey had long been forgotten in Johnny’s mind as all of the questions that had been building up started to come up. He wanted to know so much, yet he was afraid of the answer. He didn’t want to know that her feelings changed yet his stayed the same so many years later.

“I think we could have made it. I was just scared of what you could be doing when you were gone. I couldn’t make it though I wanted too. I gave my whole heart to you, not holding anything back, I was afraid that you would have broken it.” Johnny simply sighed as he ran a hand over his face. They were so young when they fell in love and the youth had in a way drove them apart. “I heard stories of how girls throw them selves at band members and that they take it most of the time even though they have their girls waiting for them. I didn’t want you doing that to me.”

“I would have never done that to you Fae. I loved you too much to ever hurt you.” He took the photo once again from his back pocket and looked down at it before turning it to show Fae. Her eyes lit up as she saw the photo that she had taken so many years ago. “I was never able to let you fully go.” He told her as Fae took the photo out of his hands and ran her fingers over their faces.

“I can’t believe you still have this old thing.” She told him with a light chuckle but he could hear the happiness that lingered in her tone.

“It was always my favorite picture of us. I came here to let you go, let the last piece that I had holding on to you go and then what happens, I run into you. I always said to my self that someday I’ll know why I wasn’t meant for you, why our love couldn’t last but I never wanted that day to come.” Fae looked up at Johnny and he knew that in that moment he could still get lost in her eyes no matter how much time had passed between the two of them. She always made him question his life and reality in the most tantalizing of ways.

“Maybe you were never supposed to know the answer to that question. Maybe we were just waiting for the day to realize that we were always meant for each other, but jut missed our moment.” She told him looking down at her hands, they had suddenly became interesting to her, she didn’t want to know how he had moved on and she certainly didn’t want to tell him that had dated men after him and had loved after him.

“We were young Fae, but what we ha was real. I would do it all again with you, maybe this is a sign, a sign that we were always meant to be together.” She looked back up a sad smile on her face.

“We both have other people in our lives. Maybe someday in this life or the next we’ll be together again, but I want you to know that I always knew that you were the one for me. There was nobody before you and nobody after you. You were always the one.” Fae told him a smile on her lips. She had been holding back those words since she walked out on him six years ago. He needed to know the truth and all she could hope for was that the feelings were the same.

She hoped that they would be together again, together until their dying days and then into forever.