Natalie looked at the calendar, September 1st. It had been 6 months. 6 months since her Mom had left her and her Dad. It had been one year since the first day of her sophomore year, and the day she met Henry. Natalie sighed, realizing how quickly time went by, and gathered her books into her backpack to get ready for her first day as a junior. She walked down the stairs, where Dan was straightening his tie in the mirror in the front hallway.

"Morning sweetheart." He said smiling, and coming towards her to hug her. "Are you ready for your first day?" He asked.

"No." Natalie replied, walking into the kitchen and reaching into the fridge, grabbing an energy drink.

"A little early in the morning for that, don't you think?" Dan asked her.

"No." Natalie replied, drinking it. Dan smiled and sighed.

"Good luck sweetheart." He said, kissing her cheek and leaving with his briefcase for work. Natalie drank down the rest of the can and tossed into the garbage, picking up her backpack and walking outside to the bus stop. It was raining, and she pulled her sweatshirt hood over her head, and her freshly straightened hair. The regular kids who had been at her bus stop for years came and joined her, hugging each other and talking about their summers. They had all kindly said hello to Natalie and asked her a few awkward questions about her summer, but then went back to talking amongst themselves. Natalie had always been nice to them, and them to her, they had even invited her to a few parties and crap over the summer, and on bike rides when they were younger but she just didn't feel like she belonged with them. The bus pulled up and they all reluctantly hopped on and took their seats. Natalie stared out the window, at the gloomy weather and put her ipod in. She picked the song that she always picked, despite the 400 other songs on the mp3 player. It was a wordless song, on the piano that Henry had composed for her. She loved it more than anything, and it was better than any of the other crap she had bought pointlessly on itunes. She let the piano notes echoe through her ears until she got to school, where she walked to her locker and started unloading her crap. A few kids said hi to her as they walked by and she smiled and waved back, that's how it had always been.

"Hey." A she heard a familiar voice whisper. Natalie turned, and smiled, practically jumping on Henry to hug him.

"Hey!" she said back. Henry's parents had sent him on a community service trip to Costa Rica for the summer. The whole summer. He needed all of the weeks to meet his graduation requirements for community service hours, which was due the upcoming November. You could call him a procrastinator. Henry's hair was a little lighter, his skin a little darker, his smile just as warm and comforting as it had always been to Natalie. "How was it?" She asked.

"I played soccer with some brats, painted a classroom, and then my counselor Ricardo hooked me up with some Costa Rican pot." Henry replied, smiling. Natalie shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Glad to hear you've improved over the summer." She replied sarcastically.

"You look really pretty Nat." Henry said quietly. "You hair looks good like that." He added.

"Shut up." Natalie replied, never really knowing how to accept compliments. Henry smiled and moved closer to her as she continued to fill up her locker with books. "What?" she asked, giggling when his face got right next to hers.

"You haven't given me a welcome kiss yet." He told her. Natalie sighed, she really wasn't a very touchy person, and Henry knew that. They had only made out a few times, but Natalie really wasn't big on being all kissy and "lovey dovey" as she called it. Natalie turned her head and kissed Henry's lips gently. He smiled, and kissed her harder, putting a hand on her waist.

"No PDA!" A booming voice yelled. They pulled away quickly and one of the vice principals pulled out a small notepad and filled out two pages. "Both of you, detention after school tomorrow. A parent has to sign this." He said shoving the papers at them. They were just stupid forms given out when someone got a detention, it had the teacher, the reason, the date of your detention, and a place for a parent to sign. Both of there's said "Inappropriate displays of affection in the hallway." in the "Why" column.

"Great, my Dad who's still totally in denial about us is going to think we were fucking groping in the middle of the hallway." Natalie mumbled sarcastically.

"Give me it." Henry said, taking the slip out of her hand. He whipped out a pen and made a scribble that slightly resembled a "D. Goodman" on the parent signature line. "There." He said, doing the same to his with his Mom's name. Natalie giggled softly. "Where's your first class?" Henry asked.

"B wing."

"I'm in C, but we have bio together third period so I'll see you then." He replied. Natalie nodded and he kissed her cheek before he walked away.

Natalie got home from school to find her father cooking dinner and humming cheerfully.

"Hey dar-layng how was school?" He asked, tossing a piece of a carrot in the air and catching it in his mouth.

"Are you drunk?" Was Natalie's immediate response to her Dad's unusual, compared to the usual, weirdness. Dan rolled his eyes and got back to cooking.

"I'm just happy, what's wrong with that?" He asked, humming again.

"Everything." Natalie replied, heading upstairs.

"Dinner should be ready in 20 minutes!" He called after her.

"Okay!" She yelled back. Natalie emptied out her backpack and pulled out her laptop, which refused to turn on. "Fuck." She muttered, gathering her bag and walking into her Dad's office to use his computer. She pulled up the internet and typed in her email host site. Her dad was logged in and an envelope was blinking on the screen and the computer beeped, and the screen read

"New Message From: Lisa Mauro Subject: Saturday Night". "Lisa Mauro?" Natalie thought, she had never heard the name before. She quickly turned around to make sure her dad wasn't there, and quickly opened the email.

Dan -

I think I found the place for dinner Saturday night, it's called D'amora's, it's at the corner of Franklin Street and Mine Road. My sister loves it, says it's great Italian food, and very small and intimate. Perfect :)

Let me know what time we should meet.

- Lisa

Natalie re-read the email a few times, coming to the conclusion that her father was going on A DATE. Natalie felt her heart pound and her blood rush with anger. Her father and her mom were still married! Legally married! Whether they lived together or talked wasn't the point - they weren't legally divorced or seperated! Why the hell would her father be going on a date!?

"Nat!" Dan called. Natalie exited out of the message, took her stuff back to her room and headed downstairs. "Was my email beeping with a new message? I thought I heard it..." he said, draining some pasta in the drainer in the sink.

"Yeah I heard it too." Natalie replied.

"I'm expecting a message, so I'm just going to go check it, can you get the forks out?" He asked ,walking upstairs.

"Yeah." She muttered, grabbing silverware and putting it at each place setting. And then getting them both water. Dan walked downstairs, grinning ear to ear. He put the food on the table and they sat down and started eating.

"So, first weekend of the school year coming up. I hope there aren't any more parties on the agenda..." Dan mused.

"There's not. But Saturday night Henry and I are going out to dinner. This place called D'amora's - at the corner of Franklin and Mine. His sister loves it, says it's great Italian good, and it's small and intimate. Perfect." Natalie mocked, while Dan took a few seconds to recognize where he had heard this before.

"You do know that it's illegal to read someone else's email, right?" He scolded.

"And you do know that when you're married going on a date with someone else is considered cheating, right?" Natalie fired back. Dan took a deep breath and spoke slowly.

"Natalie, you're mother and I…"

"Are still married. If you're going to get legally divorced or separated then just do it! Why are you still married if you want to date someone else?" Natalie cried.

"Sweetheart, it's complicated."

"It's really not Dad. What do you want to do?" She asked, to no reply. "Stay with Mom and work things out or…"

"Things haven't been working out." Dan told her.

"Yeah I noticed!" Natalie yelled. "I'm not hungry anymore." She said, putting down her fork and going back up to her room. She threw herself on her bed, and tried not to cry. But just like trying to be perfect - it's not going well.

First Chapter…thoughts? Please review and let me know what you think because unlike my last N2N story I don't have a set plotline or any idea where I'm going with this. The idea of Dan dating again just sort of popped into my head. I'm thinking about it just being a post N2N story about how Natalie and Dan both move on from the past in their own ways. Do you guys want Diana in this story? Please tell me what you think of the story, my idea, and what your thoughts for the next chapters are! I hope you liked it!

PS – I came up with the title because finding happiness and normality (possibly through a new woman in his life) would be Dan's dream ("I'm your wish your dream come true…..") but the way he goes about it is Natalie's worst nightmare. ("And I am your darkest nightmare too…")

So..yeah…let me know if you have any better title ideas….

YourEyes1012