It didn't rain too often, but when it did, you could feel the sandy dustiness being swept away from the air. Oh, the fresh night air! He looked up at the sky. The depth of the rich clouds as they drifted past were illuminated by the unusually bright moonlight. It wasn't often he saw the vulnerability of the night sky.

"I don't like to lose control." She huffed loudly in disdain.

He couldn't tell how inebriated she was.

"There's nothing wrong with losing control. We can't control the life around us." He grabbed her arm to pull her from running into the two beach bums staggering down the sidewalk.

"Yes, but we have control over our lives! We should at least always be in control of ourselves."

He had nothing more to offer.

A bar was emptying out - they walked around the group over a gridlock of bricks. She nearly tripped.

"Why did you take me this way?!"

"Well, how would we avoid the people, then?"

She huffed again.

"Do you know where we're going?" Maybe she doubted his sobriety.

"Of course. Don't you trust me?" He hadn't anything to drink in hours. He only had the pangs of emotional confusion to cloud his mind. Was there such a thing as secondhand drunkenness?

"I do." 

A group of males accosted a single female walking down the street, as they walked past. Were they friends?

"I don't like those guys. I don't trust them. That girl wants to leave." As usual, she worried about others to a fault.

"Should I do something about it?" They stopped, and he looked back - the girl didn't seem too uncomfortable.

"No, let's keep walking." They turned and kept walking.

A car drove past, skooshing a puddle. The brakelights reflected off the sheen of water from the earlier showers. The original din of happy inebriation died down this far north. There were only the absent lights from houses and shunted glimmer from the streetlights, broken by the overhanging trees.

She huffed again. He sensed her displeasure again.

"What do you like about this moment?" Why focus on the negativity?

"I like that it's quiet. I like the peacefulness of it." He should have been invisible.

He said nothing. The silence loomed between the distance he kept from her.

All he wanted was for her to enjoy the night.  For her to know that there was nothing wrong with letting go of oneself every once in a while. To know that even when she wasn't in control, there were people to take care of her. To know that she didn't have to be everything right now.

All she had to be was herself. To enjoy the present. To spread the joy that she gave him to the others in her life. And everything else would work itself out.

But he said nothing. And the self-doubts lingered in the air like the clouds of that night sky, slowly drifting past the two as they walked back to the life they knew.

As the glowing embers faded, the youthful exuberance of the night gave way to the rising gravitas of the day. A new dawn, so beautiful!

He knew it was the right moment. As he walked over to her, she could sense what was coming. She turned a shoulder, in hopes of deflecting the coming revolution. He blithely ignored her and spoke with an assertiveness that was rare for him.

"I can't stand this."

"What would that be?" she replied coyfully.

"This platonic relationship. This can't be it."

"Oh?" Like a cat pawing with a mouse.

"Look, this doesn't end well for me. I've felt something, and I can't sit around and hope these feelings go away, or that you'll wake up one day and see me standing here, waiting for you. The more we stay in this hazy zone, the more my feelings for you grow stronger. And I can't bear to think of losing you to some other guy... that would devastate me. I want to know that you stood here, on this morning," (the first cawing of the seagulls could be heard, what serendipitous timing!), "and decided I wasn't your second choice. I was your first. I want to know that you saw me, warts and all, and chose me. I can't be your fallback guy. That isn't me."

It was a rare moment for him, to speak with such singularity in unmuddled tones ... the clarity of his emotions for her unified his thoughts. What a beautiful dawn!

Nobody had really understood him.

Against the backdrop of the sun's last moment he sat, overlooking the endless ocean. The soft flicker of the fire, originally birthed from drunken boredom, now warmed the close group of friends.

He dug his feet deeper in the sand. The sand barely covered his ankles. He reached over and scooped up some sand and sprinkled it over his legs. The cool warmth of the sand brought relief.

The beer, which once unleashed feelings of brazen raw joy, ushered over the group a warm feeling of quiet contemplation.

His mind raced with questions. He had long since quashed his self-doubts, and the self-esteem issues that had long dogged him were long behind him. He didn’t bother asking the big philosophical questions anymore - too many sleepless nights had taught him better. Instead, the minutia of life … the little battles of everyday replayed in his mind.

There she sat, next to him. They both watched the embers from the fire carry into the azure night sky laughters of the day.

His mind raced back into the present. He looked over at her. Like a camera, his mind captured her profile at that moment. Like a child capturing a firefly in a glass cup, the longer he stared at her features, the long he held that sense of perfection. A sudden gust played with her hair. She carefully tucked her hair behind her left ear and huddled closer to the fire. She then noticed his admiring gaze and smiled back at him.

Their hands reached out to each other. He pulled her closer. She rested her head on his shoulder and pulled his hand into her lap.

There they sat, as one, silently enshrining the memories of that day eternally.

He stood on the train platform. As an observer of human nature, he always had his canvas, the weather-beaten Canon, readily accessible. His eyes glanced around the platform as businessmen busily hurried to their trains. A little girl was drawn to the newspaper stand with its wares of chocolates laid out, but her mother quickly jerked his hand as the Orange train approached.

He loaded his camera with Tri-X. The drabness of wintertime could only be ameliorated with the high contrast of black and white film. As he closed the film housing, his eyes caught a figure...

Could it be?

It was.

He darted through the horde of people getting on the Orange train and grabbed her shoulder to spin her around. Her face, initially filled with anger at being harassed, soon softened when the distant memories of her past came flooding back. She stuttered.

"You..."

He didn't know how to feel. Her face, although beautiful, wasn't what brought back the youthful joys of his past. Seeing her face brought back a familiarity that reminded him of the memories of her. Her laughter of jokes long forgotten echoed in his mind. But, as had always happened in his mind, her laughter were quickly silenced with the guillotine of pain. The question that had haunted the past fifteen years bubbled furiously from his lips.

"How could you leave me? After everything we had gone through - just to leave me at the altar like that? And after everything we shared about our future? You know that everyone was worried sick about you? You just disappeared. No contact with anybody. You don't think your father and mother were dying to know what had happened to you? We issued a missing persons report."

He stared at her eyes for some recognition and acknowledgement. She glanced away, ashamed. He would get no answers.

"You know, and to not even call me up to talk to me in person? How dare you get your sister to tell me you had left town? You know, if that's what you really wanted to do, I would have supported you!"

He realized his voice had slowly been in a crescendo. What had started off as questions of despair quickly turned into those of anger. He had made a scene, and curious passerbys, sensing drama, had started listening in. His voice softened.

He darted a look towards her. She obliged, and they walked down the platform, away from the busy crowd.

"I'm sorry." The words, although not enough to take away the pain of the past for him, were enough to placate his raging soul.

"What are you doing here?" Although trying to stay firm, her voice wavered from the shock of the moment.

He was never one to answer questions directly, but not for her, especially. He owed her nothing. The burden of pain was overwhelming.

"You know, after you left, I wasn't too good. My dad helped me by getting a job in his shop scraping the paint off of hardwood floors. He said it was to get my mind off of you. It I was hoping you would come back. I've always still loved you. I never got that fresh start that my dad wanted me to get for years, until him and mom passed away in the tragic accident..."

His voice trailed off. What could she say? She tried to stare down at the gravel by the train tracks, hoping to find the strength to say something meaningful. All her years of training, and she couldn't deliver a line at the most important time in her life. He continued, trying to be more light-hearted.

"You know, I saw you late night on Conan O'Brien's show. And you looked so goddamn happy. I always loved the way you laugh, and to hear it again..."

His voice broke off. He didn't want to break down in front of her, and he sensed his voice wavering. She remained silent as well, and although to the passerby, it would seem like they were in a void of silence, there was much running through both of their minds.

"But you know," he continued, "I think that's when I started to get better. I saw you really happy, and you know all I ever wanted for you was for you to be happy. Your happiness was my happiness. And that's when I decided I had to quit moping around and start living my life again. But I couldn't love anybody else... you were just too goddamn beautiful to me. How can I ever settle for less?"

In her eyes, he saw a flicker of regret.

"I followed your career, you know. I'm sure you know. Why wouldn't you know? You're famous. Everybody knows what you're doing. You remember what you said about Polaris the night before we were supposed to get married?"

For a moment, her mind was racing back to the past she had tried to forget.

"We said that if we were ever to be separated, we would both look up to Polaris and know that it was shining on both of us for all eternity. That we should follow the path towards Polaris... that way we'd both always be going in the same direction in our lives."

Her eyes started welling up. He stopped. He didn't want to cause her more pain. He swallowed his pride and his inquisitive demeanor softened... he hated making her feel this way.

"Yeah, so anyways, I traveled around the world as a photographer. My dad saw some of my pictures after you left in the darkroom and was impressed with them. In his will, he left me some money he had saved up, telling me I should try my hand at photography as a profession instead of being stuck in his world. I only found out years later that when my dad was young, he had wanted to pursue photography, but then mom got pregnant with me..." His voice trailed off once again. Realizing he was rambling, he quickly got back on topic. "I've been freelancing ever since, trying to capture the beauty and pain of human nature around the world. I won an award, you know. I don't know if you've seen my piece about ..."

For the first time, she spoke.

"I saw those. They were beautiful. The pain of the situation ..."

"... don't think for a moment that those pictures would have come out the same if I hadn't felt the pain of being abandoned, too."

His response had been inadvertently harsh. The passerbys glanced at them once again. His harshness stung her pride. He kicked himself for it. He couldn't help but to strike out in anger. He looked away for a moment, and once again they were silent.

"What I meant to say is ... I spent the world trying to find something that would bring me the joy you did. Something as fucking beautiful. I wanted to take one picture that I could look back when I was old ... and know the world was beautiful. Because you fucking left me, and you weren't that for me anymore. So I tried to escape to the world of capturing human emotions permanently. Just one fucking picture. But I never got that. I've been searching the whole world. All I got was pictures of the pain and the suffering..."

His voice trailed off as he was reminded that the world was a broken place, and that he wasn't the only one who had felt the betrayal.

She spoke.

"I know I've made mistakes. I wish I could make the wrongs right. I just ... at the time... felt like being with you would never be that great. It's like I just couldn't settle on being partially happy. You know the hardest thing I had to do was risk something that was making me ninety percent happy ... for something that would make me a hundred percent happy."

"So are you completely happy?"

The question was rhetorical, and she knew it. She ignored his question and continued.

"You were always talking about working for your dad and taking over his business. And what was I supposed to be? The happy wife? I wanted more from life. You knew this. And honestly, although you said you would have supported me, I don't think you would have understood. How could you live with me cavorting with the hottest men in the world while you fixed up houses? But..."

Her voice trailed off for a moment while she grasped to find the words.

"But, I was young. And stupid. And I realized this years later. I wanted to call you up so many times. I almost did. I wanted to tell you everything that had happened in my life and ... I wanted to share the joys of my life with you. Just like old times, when you helped me become student president...but... I just ... couldn't. My pride... and whenI finally got the courage to call you, nobody knew where you had gone after your parents had died."

His eyes strayed to the diamond ring on her finger. She quickly covered the ring with her hand.

"That... I just ... it's been so long... and I found someone. In the business. After I tried to find you...Our wedding is next June. I found someone who understand what it's like to live this life. It's a hard life... Look, I'm not ashamed of you, if I hadn't found him and you had found me earlier..."

He was speechless. She was stabbing his soul with a million swords all over again. A train rumbled into the station.

"Look, I got to go... this is my train. I just wish... can you call me sometime, please? Jimmy..."

"I go by James now."

"James... please call me. Look, here's my number." She quickly jotted down her number and handed it to him. Still feeling frozen, he simply accepted the number without question.

She got on the train. His eyes were still staring straight ahead where her ring had been. She knocked on the window to get his attention. Broken from his daze, he glanced up at her and offered a smile. A smile broke out on her face and she waved back at him.

As the train rumbled off, his smile vanished from his face. He crumpled up the phone number and hurled it with all his anger across the train platform. With the throw, all his pain, all the memories of her, all his hope blazed across the station and landed on the gravel of the train tracks. Satisfied, he walked away from the platform and decided to continue his search for beauty. He would get his one shot.

The streetlight flickered. The sudden change of intensity caught his attention. Normally bathed in the orange hue that would accompany them back from the dining hall, they were temporarily encompassed by darkness. Perhaps it was time to call the maintenance man to get this fixed – this was the second day this had happened. As they continued their post-dinner walk, the artificial glow of fluorescent lights from the high-rise dormitory up ahead provided enough lighting, and for the moment, the boy was content with the faint lighting.

He drew in a sharp breath and then blew out. December was a good month to pretend to be a smoker, the boy thought. Although he never had smoked cigarettes, he often fantasized about lighting up one of the cancer sticks – could a single one really be that addictive? The girl, lost in her own thoughts, heard the deep breaths of the boy.

“Anything wrong?” The girl was dressed warmly – perhaps a bit too warmly, the boy thought – for a December night. After all, the nights in the South weren’t horribly frigid – perhaps she was just looking nice for him. As much as she cared for him, would she understand what he was going through?

The boy mumbled back an unintelligible answer.

The girl wasn’t satisfied.

“What’s on your mind?”

How could he explain the burden of responsibilities that weighed on his soul when all she understood were exams and classes? The world was once his oyster – he attended the best prep schools and attended a respectable four year college. Surrounded by idealism, his fervor for improving the lives of the people in his community drove him to the humanities. However, the mirage of idealism dried up before his eyes after he left college. It had been nearly eight months since he had gotten a job – it wasn’t a great job, but it was something that could occupy his days.

His grand visions were diluted down to piddling worries – when could he afford a new car? When could he start paying off a house? His feelings of adequacy had always been tied to his potential, but what was he to do now that the potential was gone? The people around him needed his paychecks, and he would continue to oblige them. There was nothing he could do; he would simply have to wait this situation out. No need to burden the girl with such trifling concerns.

He smiled at the girl. “Nothing, really.”

The girl knew better, but she accepted his return to reality and snuggled up next to him. Together they walked up the hill, towards the faint lights of the high rise dormitory up ahead. Behind them, the light flickered back on, and the uneven brick path was once again showered with the orange aura of the streetlight for the next couple.