Snow fell lightly all around her, the cold somehow made Dani feel better, like the bitter air froze up all her emotions preventing her from feeling anything.  No one understood, they all just yelled at her to tell Brian how she felt, but it wasn't that easy.  It had been too long coming and too complicated with everything that had happened in the last couple of months to just say it non-chalantly, like she were wishing him a happy new year, or telling him he played a great game.  This wasn't something she was prepared to tell him, especially not with everything that had gone on, he'd read too much into it.

    Dani looked up at the sky, white drops falling from it's darkness, covering everything around her.  She hadn't bothered to put on the right coat for a Kentucky winter, not wanting to stay in the house long enough for someone to ask her questions about things she didn't have answers for; she'd just wait until her family was asleep and creep back in.  Dani thought about the last time she had been in this park, how upset she was that night over what had happened with Brian and her sister, and how she had vowed then that she didn't need Brian in her life.  If only she'd listened to that feeling, then none of this would have happened, I could have been happy, we both could have been happy, she thought.    Dani took a deep breath as she lifted her feet and began swinging back and forth pumping her cold legs and going higher and higher.  The frozen hinges creaked loudly with each successive motion, her breath coming out of her mouth in large white puffs, like the steam from a train.

She had managed to swing herself as high as it would take her when Brian came towards her on the horizon.  Had she not been swinging she could easily have left before he saw her, but he already had, she saw the way his face was directed right at her, she imagined he was looking her right in the eyes, so she quickly turned her head.  The creaking chains of the swing had led him to where she sat in the darkness.

Why do you keep doing this?  Haven't I made myself clear Brian?  I don't want to see you! Her mind screamed as he came closer.   Dani finally slowed to a stop and got off the swing, walking in the opposite direction as Brian reached the swingset.

    "Joey told me you came to get some of your stuff already." He yelled from behind her.  She could hear his jogging footsteps in he snow as he tried to catch up to her. "I didn't think you were gonna leave so soon."

    "How did you find me?"

    "I just knew you'd be here." He said finally catching up to her, standing in front of her, preventing an escape.  "Okay so I looked all over town, checked every place I could think of, and then I thought of the park.  You came here last time."

    "So why are you here Brian? Why track me down in the middle of the night?"

    "I wanted to talk."

    "Haven't we talked enough for awhile Brian?  I told you we can't go back to the way things we're.  I'm not ready to be your friend yet.  Just go away, it'll be easier on both of us." She exclaimed pushing past him and trying to get away, to no avail.

    "No, it'll be easier for you!" He yelled back, she could see his growing frustration and anger as he grabbed her firmly by the arms preventing any further escape.  "Dani you need to listen to me for once in your life."  She struggled in his grasp, not wanting to give him a chance, despite what Lauren had said.  "Why can't you ever face anything Dani?  You've always been like this, so quick to say what you need to say, but the second someone else wants to get a word in you bolt."  She was silent to his confrontation.

    "Okay Dani answer me this.  How could our not being friends be easier on us?" His eyebrow was cocked upward, a questioning glance thrown her way, a question she had no answer to. "Okay, then why would it be easier on you?"

Because a little part of me will always love you, she thought, but all she did was shrug.  He let go of her arms when she didn't respond.  Dani took the opportunity to take off again,  but as much as she wanted to get away from the confrontation, she still wished he'd follow.  But he didn't.   She turned to see him walking away in the direction he came from, and she breathed a sigh of relief, sticking her hands in her pockets and trudging through the snow back towards her house.
 
 

        Dani fought the tears she needed to cry as she made her way the few blocks back to her house.  Why can't I just talk to him?  she thought.  It's not like he'd say something horrible.  Why do I keep running away from him?   She wondered, as cars splashed past her on the street, slushy snow spraying on her feet, making them even colder than they already were.    She heard the next car coming and stepped over on the sidewalk, but it slowed down as it came up behind her.  The sigh of relief she had let out earlier was quickly drawn back in as her chest tightened again.  She looked over to see Brian, driving slowly beside her, leaning over to roll down the passenger side window.

    "Dani at least let me drive you home, it's cold out there." He pleaded.

    "I'm not cold."

    "You're impossible.  Why do I even bother?" he asked himself.

    "I wondered that too." She said without a glance his way, her arms folded tightly against her chest, her steps quickening.

    "Dani, just stop being petty and let me drive you home."  He yelled from his car window as he followed her down the street, she refused to respond.  "If you can forgive Lauren, why can't you forgive me?"  He sputtered.

    "Forgive you for what?" She said, finally stopping and turning to look at him in the car.

    "I don't know?" Brian said with a shrug, pulling the door handle and pushing the door open.   "For reacting the way I did, for not remembering, for any of it happening in the first place." Dani paused a moment and finally got in, welcoming the warmth.  He turned up the heater and let the warm air blast on her feet as he put the car in drive and made the short trip to her house.  Brian pulled into her driveway and shifted into park, turning his body to face her.  She stared ahead at the white garage attached to her house, the basketball net that hug above the door, and the white christmas lights that lined the roof.  She could feel his eyes on her, and the fact that he hadn't spoken since she got in the car worried her.  He was waiting for her to talk, waiting for her to forgive him for everything that had happened, waiting for the words she didn't know if she could say.

    "Don't you realize how much that hurt?" She finally said when she thought his eyes would burn a hole right through her head, her voice barely over a whisper.   She turned towards him and looked right into the faded blue of his eyes.   "For you to have forgotten and then turn it on me like that when you finally found out.  Brian...it killed me."

    "I said I was sorry Dani, I was just confused, I didn't know how to take it.  I know I reacted badly." He defended.

    "Confused? You were confused.  How the hell do you think I felt Brian? You might be used to the whole wham bam thank you ma'am, but I'm not, okay.  I don't care how drunk you were, I don't care how drunk either of us were." She yelled, her anger building, a culmination of months and months of bitterness.

    "You weren't a one night stand." He responded flatly.  Compassionately.

    "No I was less than that."

    "You're just determined to play the victim aren't you Dani?  You just can't admit that we did something we both were willing participants in.  I don't think you're mad I forgot, I think you're mad you let yourself do something you knew you'd regret.  My not remembering just gave you an excuse to be mad at someone besides yourself."

    "What do you know Brian?" She said with seething rage, she wasn't going to run this time.  If he wanted a confrontation, he'd get it.  "You don't know how I was feeling then, or how I'm feeling now."

    "Well I know there's more to this than you're telling me."

    "No, there isn't Brian.  I told you what happened."

    "But you never told me why you did it." He said with such calmness in his voice.  "If all of this pisses you off so much why did you let it happen?"

Dani's voice was caught in her throat. "I didn't let it happen.  It just happened."

    "Gravity just happens Dani.  Sex doesn't."

    "Don't start acting like my father Brian." She yelled from within the confines of the car.  "I don't know why I let it happen, maybe it was what you said that night."

    "Don't put this all on me anymore  Dani!" He yelled back.

    "I can put this on you if I want." Dani screamed as he still spoke, their words fighting to be the ones heard.  "You forgot it happened and I had to live with it........I have to live with it too Dani, don't you know how hard this has been on me.......Oh yeah I'm sure Brian, real hard.  That whole not remembering it even happened thing must be tortue......Screw you Dani.......You already did...........Look I came here to say something.........I don't want to hear it........I don't care if you want to hear it or not because I'm gonna say it..........what I want never seems to matter does it...........I love you Dani.........Brian I don't want to talk anymore, I'm going inside......" They both finally stopped yelling, and Dani shut the door she had begun to open.

    "What did you say?

    "I said I love you Dani."  He looked at her with an intensity he had never done before, his eyes locking on hers refusing to allow her to look away.

    "Why? Why are you saying that."

    "Because I mean it."

    "No you don't." She said shaking her head.   "You're just trying to.....I don't know what you're trying to do."

    "I'm not trying to do anything Dani.  I'm just telling you how I feel."

    "I don't believe you."

    "Dani why the hell do you think everything that happened in Atlanta bothered me so much? Why do you think I got so angry? Do you think I wanted things to be like this with you?  You are the last person in the world I'd ever dream of hurting."

    "Why now?  Why tonight?" She asked skeptically.

    "Because I finally got scared."

    "Scared of what?"

    "Scared that I'd lose you, scared that we'd go another five years without talking." She saw his jaw clench tight and her mind spun with confusion.   "Dani, we both know that what happened in Atlanta shouldn't have happened.  But can you tell me there isn't a reason it did?  That there isn't a reason we both made that choice?"

Dani turned back towards the front of the car.

    "Dani I said that night that I didn't want us to just be friends anymore, tell me you haven't thought the same thing."  Brian said softly, as he place his touch on her shoulder, letting it trail down and rest on her hand.   Finally she turned back towards him, the same rim of tears that lined the bottom of her eyes lined his, and his forehead was furrowed deeply trying to hold back his emotion.

    "You remember what you said to me?" She asked.  Her heart was pounding out of her chest.

    "Some of it."

    "Just look at where we are Brian." Dani said as her tears spilled over and down her cheeks.  "We've gone from playmates, to best friends, to being mad at each other and not talking for five years, to friends again and now to this, I don't even know what this is.  All I know is that I hate it. I hate it so much."  She cried.   " I can never get back my best friend, you can't erase the past.  You can't only remember the history you want to remember."

    "Yeah but we can have a future."

    "But what if the future leaves us with nothing."

    "Then we'll always have the past."

    "Our past isn't so good Brian, who wants to remember any of this?"

    "I do." He said sincerely.

    "I don't.  Everything that's happened in these past months has eaten me away Brian, I don't even know who I am anymore.  I don't know if I ever did." She cried staring out the car window.

    "Dani, I know who you are.  You are my best friend, you are the only girl who has ever beaten me at basketball in my entire life, you are the biggest bitch I know, and the only person who can punch me and get away without being punched back."  He laughed, pointing to the small scar near his lip.  "You are who I worry about and who I dream about and who no matter how bad things got I knew would always be there if I needed her.  You are who I love, and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to admit that to myself and to you.  If you don't like the past we've had together, the years of friendship, of laughs, of fights, and of everything else, then we'll make a better past to remember from today on.  Because I don't want you to go anywhere, I don't want to think of a day where I can't have you in my world."

Dani swallowed the ball that was lodged in her throat and pushed open the door to get out of his car.   She didn't look at Brian or even try to hide the tears that fell from her eyes as she shut the door behind her, walking with her arms folded across her chest towards the house, sniffing back her tears.

Lyrics Taken From:
"Against All Odds" Phil Collins
Written by: Collins
© 1984 WEA/Atlantic