Present

"I love you." He whispered as he dropped a white rose on top of her casket that would soon be covered with dirt and resting in the ground. It was still heart wrenching for him to think that in a matter of minutes, his one true love would be enclosed in the ground forever.

The one who loved to smile and laugh would no longer be able to light up a dark room with her happy attitude.

The one who had loved people and caring for animals would never again be able to help that in need.

The one who knew so much would never be able to pass down her wisdom.

The one who he had a life-time of shared memories with would never be able to create any more memories with him again. It was a good thing that they had already created some of the greatest memories that anyone could hope for...

Three Years Old

Two smiling mothers that had met at a book club both placed their two beautiful children down in the play pen. One of the mothers who smelled of a flower-garden had curly, golden-blonde hair and deep blue eyes that could pull anyone into a love-trance. She was named Daniela and she carefully placed a toddler, a little over the age of three, in the pen. The child was a little girl named Annalisa who, at a young age, was already showing signs that she was to be a smart, cheery girl. She had rosy-red cheeks, pink lips, the same golden-blonde hair as her mother and the stunning hazel eyes of her father - she was also quite the chatter box.

The second mother, named Jamie, who had straight, chestnut colored hair and the moss green eyes also placed a toddler who was a bit older then Annalisa in the pen. The child was named Nathan had a little temper and he was a very take-charge little boy who only showed constant signs of compassion for a few selective people; he had his fathers pitch-black hair and his great-grandmothers green eyes.

The first moment that their mothers left them alone in the pen was a silent one until Annalisa could no longer take the silence.

"Hi, I'm Annalisa." She said shyly. "Do you wanna play?" Nathan looked at her for a moment before saying:

"No." Annalisa went silent and walked to the other side of the play-pen to sit quietly until her mother decided that they would leave. For some reason seeing Annalisa like that made a feeling build up in Nathan's stomach...he felt pretty bad and maybe a little guilty.

He sighed and walked over to a different corner of the playpen where he picked up a box of crayons and a two coloring books. He walked over to the girl who was silently picking at different parts of the white rug; he sat down in front of her Indian-style and offered her a coloring book before placing the crayons in-between them and saying:

"Let's color." She smiled up at him, her big, hazel eyes dancing with pleasure.

"Okay!" And with that, the two were off in their own little-kid world; giggling and marking each others papers playfully. This was the start of a beautiful friendship.

That was only the beginning of their memories.

Eight Years Old

"Uh-oh." An eight-year old Annalisa muttered as she looked over the instructions on the back of the cake box. Nathan and her had decided to attempt to cook a chocolate cake and both were currently covered from head to toe in chocolate dust and bits of egg and actual chocolate batter here and there.

Annalisa's shoulder-length golden-blonde hair now had brown streaks in it due to the batter and her hazel eyes were surrounded by specks of flour, Nathan, whose black hair had clots of white from the flour in it and had chocolate dabbing at his cheeks, looked up from the bowl he was mixing.

"What?"

"We forgot something..." She muttered and he groaned as he stopped mixing the cake batter together.

"Are you kidding me? What did we forget?"

"We forgot to add the milk and it says that the cake will be too hard and gross if we don't add in the milk." She complained and Nathans frustration quickly turned into anger.

"Can't you do anything right?! You had the easiest job ever! All you had to do was read the stinking directions!" He seethed making his best friend who happened to be a girl avert her eyes in to avoid the frustration in his.

"I'm sorry. Maybe we shouldn't have tried this without our moms..." She mumbled as she headed for the kitchen door. Nathan quickly grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving and looked around.

"Hey, don't leave. The cake may come out gross but the batters still good and I don't wanna have to eat it...all...by...my...self." He said with slowly forming smile as his anger disappeared, Annalisa smiled back and they both sat right in front of the oven doors as they started to eat the chocolate batter.

"This is really good, Nate!" Annalisa gushed as she put a whole finger full of batter in her mouth.

They must have gotten halfway through the batter when their mothers walked in - they froze at the sight of the messy kitchen.

"Annalisa! Nathan! What on Earth..." Nathan's mother started the lecture as she obviously didn't like the idea that we got my mothers kitchen dirty.

"Oh hush, Jamie. Look, they were trying to make a cake - I'll have one of the maids clean it up later. For now lets just let the kids be kids." Daniela smiled as she came over and wiped a bit of batter of her daughters cheek and tasted it. She laughed lightly as she said:

"Hun, I think you forgot the milk." With that Jamie laughed and Annalisa's mother stood up and the pair left looking for their husbands to play a bit of tennis. Nathan and Annalisa looked at each other before they both fell into a fit of giggles, spilling the chocolate mix everywhere.

Things we're very good between the pair back then but we all know the saying 'good things never last'...

Eleven Years Old

Finally the day had come, the day where you left kiddy land and had your first taste of the real world. Where you finally really had the chance to establish yourself and who you'd be for the next seven years.

It was the first day of Junior High School.

Nathan and Annalisa walked in the big, white building only to greet busy, bustling halls full of kids running to their friends who they had missed dearly over the summer and rushing to find their new homeroom.

All of them were two busy to notice the pretty girl with blonde hair and big hazel eyes standing next to the cute boy with the to-die-for black hair and green eyes.

Annalisa and Nathan glanced at each other before linking hands as a reassurance method and stepping into the busy halls. They made it to their homeroom only to discover that their teacher was out helping kids find there way.

Instead, they were greeted with a typical middle school scene: a huge group of boys in the left corner of the room were laughing and talking about random stuff while they tossed around a football and on the opposite side of the room, smaller groups of girls were scattered about.

A few seconds after Annalisa and Nathan stepped in the room, the group of boys that had been on the left side of the room stopped talking to glance up at Nathan and Annalisa. The first thing they saw was the hand that Nathan was holding and they all started to laugh like the immature 6th graders they all were.

"She your girlfriend?" One of the boys snickered; he was obviously the leader of their 'group'.

Nathan quickly let go of Annalisa's limp hand and turned a bright shade of red.

"No way!" He finally responded, not noticing the frown that suddenly formed on Annalisa's face as her heart heaved.

"Well then..." The same boy smirked - they would both eventually find out that his name was Dylan. "You can come hang with us..." He volunteered after a moment of thinking.

Nathan didn't move, instead he looked up at Annalisa with his deep green eyes as if trying to make a decision.

"Unless of course, you'd rather hand out with your girlfriend." Another boy threw in making all the other boys laugh once again.

With that comment Nathan's mind was made up.

Without even a second glance at Annalisa he left her for the guys. She stood there awkwardly until one of the smaller groups of girls came up to her. They greeted her with a smile.

"Hi..." Annalisa greeted uncomfortably.

"Hey. I'm Kelly and this is Ashley." The boldest and prettiest one greeted...

Who'd have thought that one act of an immature boy would cost the boy years of friendship with a very special girl...

Sixteen Years Old

"You're face must really hurt, because its killing me!" A 16-year-old Nathan yelled at the 16-year-old Annalisa outside during lunch.

She looked down; she usually had a comeback for his insults but not for ones about her looks.

They didn't know how much those comments hurt. After that fateful day five years ago when Nathan and Annalisa split up into different friend groups they had both changed drastically.

Nathan spent just about 24/7 with Dylan and they basically became the coolest guys in middle school and, when the time came, high school. They eventually became the school players once they entered high school - even seniors looked up to them.

Annalisa had a lot of different friends but all her friends were so different from each other that she just couldn't let them all hang out at once without one yelling planning a death of another so she mainly hung out with Kelly and Ashley. Kelly and Ashley were extremely pretty and pretty popular, as was Annalisa, but they knew how to keep things low-key and that's what Annalisa liked about them.

Now, Nathan and Dylan both knew about Annalisa's unjustified insecurities and that’s what made her such an easy target. Her perfectly wavy blonde hair would make any girl go green with envy - hell, it even made a few guys envious. Her hazel eyes were always changing – it's a shame that she had to get glasses this year. That's one of the main reasons that Nathan and Dylan made fun of her - her glasses. She didn't look bad in glasses it's just that she didn't look great either - and she knew it.

"Will you arrogant assholes just leaver her the hell alone?!" Kelly fumed as she and Ashley appeared by Annalisa's side. With that they took her by the arm and led her away as she stared at the ground thanking God that she had friends like them. Back at the lunch tables outside Dylan was pulling on Nathan's arm.

"C'mon Nate! Let's play some football!" He told his best friend, not even noticing the regretful look on Nathan's face as his gaze followed Annalisa and her blonde hair bouncing in her step.

Then came that one, sad, fateful day...

Eighteen Years Old

It was nearing the end of summer. Soon Nathan, Annalisa and just about every other person in the town who was recently out of high school would be headed off to college with nothing but memories to remind them of the past.

Nathan was kicking at the gravel on the road as he walked to the park. He had spent the night at Dylan's house and went home to find his mother crying hysterically.; he figured she was crying over the fact that he would be leaving for college in a couple of weeks and really didn't want to have to deal with the cries of 'My little baby boy is all grown up!' and all that nonsense, so he left the house quietly and had been walking to the park ever since.

He made it to the park and looked over at everything remembering all the events that had taken place here. He had his first kiss here when he was about 8...with Annalisa. They both wanted to see what it was like...but then they ended up spitting and giving themselves cootie-shots afterwards.

Annalisa. The name brought a smile to his lips. He hadn't spoken to her at all very much unless it was to make fun of her. Why he was always making fun of her was beyond him but he believed that it was to impress Dylan who never really liked her.

You see, Dylan had lusted after Annalisa for a little while but she turned him down countless times and when the school player is turned down by a gorgeous girl well...the school player needs to cover up his embarrassment & save his reputation somehow, right?

Nathan walked over to the middle of the park and that's when he heard it. He heard cries and sniffles and more cries. He quickly stood up and looked around for a shadow of some sort - what he saw was the dark outline of a body crying on one of the swings.

He curiously made his way over to the swing and ducked down in front of the person, giving them plenty of warning that he was there. The person didn't seem to care. He touched their arm.

"Are you okay?" He asked the outline, the person looked up and at that exact moment the parks dim lights came on casting a light on both of their faces. Nathan froze as he recognized the person. "Annalisa?" Annalisa had developed into a gorgeous young woman - although he always saw her as gorgeous in his own eyes.

Her hazel eyes looked into his green ones before she stood up and rushed out of the park. Nathan stood and hurried after her, he caught up to her when she was about a block away from her house. He grabbed her arm turning her around and she yanked her arm away but didn't move.

"What do you want?" She sniffed as she wiped some tears away from her eyes. Nathan looked down on her for he was a good 2 or 3 inches taller then her.

"I just want to know why you were crying."

"Well that's none of your business." It stopped being his business that day he ditched me... she thought.

"I think that it is my business to know why my best friend is crying."

"Best friend? I didn't know that any of your lackeys were crying...you should probably go take care of them or something, just please leave me alone! Go hang out with Dylan...or better yet Christina." She sneered.

Christina was Nathan's ex-girlfriend. She hated Annalisa with a passion since the first grade when Annalisa ran out of cupcakes with pink icing – she offered Christina one with white or green icing but those were boy colors and there was no way Christina would eat one of those cupcakes.

Nate went out with her in high school and she made Annalisa's life worse then Dave and Nate did. He eventually broke up with her and she somehow managed to blame it all on Annalisa and has been trying to get back with him since...well since they broke up.

Nathan sighed.

"You know I meant you, Annalisa."

"Well that comes as a shock." She said in a fake surprised voice as she rolled her puffy eyes and started to walk away. Once again he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Listen, Annalisa! I'm trying to be nice to you and your being all bratty in return and I don't really appreciate it!" He stormed, green eyes flashing with anger.

"You? YOU?! Are you kidding me, Nathan?! I've been being nice to you all these years and all the while you've treated me like dirt, so don't even feed my bull like how you're trying to be nice to me when I'm acting like a jerk! Not in the hour of my parent's death!" She yelled all at once before stopping and breathing heavily, leaving Nathan to stare at her with big, shocked eyes.

Her parents were...dead. That must have been why his mother was crying earlier, not because of him leaving but because of her best friends death.

Nathan looked at Annalisa as she stood there shaking her head with tears dripping down her face.

"Not in the hour of my parent's death..." She muttered again. And that's when he did it. He forgot all about Dylan and all those years of hatred and instead he pulled her into a hug.

Not just a normal hug but a loving, deathly tight, comforting hug. She must have forgotten all those years of hatred too because after a second of two, she hugged him back. However, a few seconds later she pulled away and he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Annalisa...so sorry." He said sincerely and she nodded in understanding as they both just stood there. She knew that he wasn't only apologizing for her parent's death...

"Where am I gonna live...food, bills, I'm supposed to go to college..." Nathan heard her mutter - she hadn't meant to say it aloud, her problems were her problems and no one else's.

She quickly smiled goodbye to Nathan before she turned to leave to go home to try and solve her problems, problems that no 18 year old should have to figure out. Nathan watched her go before he finally got up the courage to yell:

"Hey! You can stay with me..."

Tragedies aren't always a horrid thing...they open up hearts and minds for other things...well, at least that tragedy did.

Since I'm still in the process of transferring all of my stories over, I decided it was time to post this one for you guys to read. So, I'll post the second and final part tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed it. :)