A/N: Aren't you proud of me? I UPDATED!! YAY!! LOL. More updates to come this week! :-)

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If only life could be simple. If only I could shake off this pain. But I can't. Everyone else deals, they cope, they move on and get over it. But not me. The entire concept of "getting over it" was always fairly insane to me. You can't just get over something that hurt you! It takes time. And during that time, the wounds will sting a bit before they can start to heal. If something hurts you enough, the sting never completely goes away, and you just learn to live with it. But then, whenever you least expect it, the pain returns, sharply and without warning. Somehow, this dawned on me at an early age. No one understood, and still no one understands. All I know is, this pain is never going to go away.

I thought it didn't matter. I thought he didn't matter. Then one day, he grabbed me by the shoulders and told me that he needed me. At first, I was scared. We were barely fifteen, and I'd known him for so long that the idea of being with him was... for lack of a better word, weird. I really hadn't a clue what to do, what to say to him. And then I awoke one morning to a sunless sky and loudly chirping birds, to find that everything was different. Maybe it was the world that had changed. Or maybe him. Or me. But I knew for sure that something had changed, and I suddenly felt that I needed him, as well.

After that, there was no getting us off of each other. He became my other half, always joined to me at the hip (or the mouth). He was a never-ending mystery to me. The way his lips felt against mine, and the way his hair felt when I ran my fingers through it, and the way e could be talking about some pointless game and suddenly start quoting poets and talking about life and death and love and lust. He would say the most profound things at the oddest moments, and I fell even harder for him. I knew that as long as I had him, everything would be OK.

Well, everything wasn't OK. Someone had to go and snatch it right from me, take him from me. Without a word, he vanished. Disappeared. Missing child ads went up on every bulletin board and telephone pole. His face was on the news every night. No suspects, no clues, no idea how any of this could have happened. And still I do not know where he is, or if he is OK.

Zack Mooneyham has been gone for six years now, and still I cannot sleep at night for fear of forgetting he is gone, waking up in the morning, and finding out all over again. I just can't go through that. But I always seem to forget. Ever since I fell in love with him, nothing seems to stick in my mind the way it used to. Except for the last time I saw him.

We were at the park. It was a misty morning, and we'd been out there all night. We'd sneaked out. We always used to sneak out and spend the night at the park, making out and staring at the stars. Even Freddy thought us to be mad. "Your parents will catch you." But they never did. We left our houses in the middle of the night and would retreat to our homes when the first birds sang out their morning songs. This particular morning, we had left notes for our parents telling them that we'd gone to an emergency band meeting. All night long we'd been holding each other under an oak tree's lush canopy. Autumn was fast approaching, and soft leaves tickled our faces as we lay there. I don't quite know how, but we never did go too far. Things were just fine the way they were, and neither of us felt the need to mess that up.

I remember his hair, messed up and adorable. His eyes, fiery yet loving. In the hours before, he'd finally told me he loved me, and I finally realized that I could not bare to live another moment without feeling his touch. So that night, we did go that far. Zack made love to me between blankets spread over that grassy ground. Both being far from stupid, we were, indeed, safe. After that long and tiring night, hours with no stopping, we dressed before any light was shed over the city. And now we sat atop the jungle gym, just gazing into each others eyes and holding each other. I hoped it would never end.

Alas, it did. We parted ways after a long, tender kiss, and I watched him walk away. With that, he was gone. He made it home, but I never spoke to him again. His parents did not know if he'd said he was going anywhere. But the next morning I was awakened by my sister shaking me roughly, and when I opened my eyes and blinked against the sunlight, softly she pulled back my hair and whispered, "Summer, he's disappeared. He's disappeared. He's gone and disappeared!"

Great, just great. I never get around to crying. But don't think for a second that that meant it hurt any less. The pain's always been there. It's never gone away.

I wonder what he looks like now. He's not dead. I would have felt something if he had died. And my heart still feels like nothing has really changed. So I know that he is alive.

Six years ago today, he vanished. I am sitting beneath the canopy of an oak tree. And weeping for the first time. And for the last time.

Every time I walk by this park, I think to myself, "We made love right there, right at that very spot."