Remember

[11] Before

Amazing.

Her date with Luke went amazing. Far better then she had ever expected.

He took her to the park near their neighborhood, and when they were there, he led her through a forest.

She admitted to herself, she was a bit nervous about where he was taking her, but she wanted to trust him. To believe that he wouldn't hurt her.

And when they emerged into a small clearing, that was set up as a picnic, small Christmas lights hanging from the trees surrounding them, and a small lake a couple meters away from where the picnic blanket was set up, she was beyond impressed that he had put so much thought into this.

She marveled at the lights, and the scattered rose petals surrounding the area they were in. She was shocked, to say the least. She hadn't expected him to put this much thought into their date, and she was happy that she had misjudged him and his capabilities. Brooklyn adored every single little detail that he had introduced.

He took her by the hand, intertwining their fingers together, which surprised her at first, but then she just relaxed, and held his hand back. Luke sent her an adorable crooked smile, and led her to the center of the rose petals, and they sat down together on the picnic blanket.

The conversation started out just as compliments being exchanged back and forth between the two of them, Brooklyn complimenting Luke on how amazing everything looked, and Luke complimenting Brooklyn on how amazing and beautiful she looked.

And then after awhile, it started to flow a little more, and a little more easily. They talked and talked for the hours that they were together, and they ate the food that Luke had provided. Brooklyn joked over the fact that their meal consisted of burgers, fries, onion rings and drinks from McDonalds, but she wasn't complaining. She liked that stuff.

They both talked and talked and talked, and Brooklyn could feel her shy shell just slipping away, her returning back to the person she used to be before she met....

She didn't want to go into that memory again. To many times she had cried herself to sleep, living in a world of personal fear and paranoia.

But she knew that she could trust Luke.

And Luke seemed to become different around her too. He talked a whole lot more than when he did at their first encounter, and that made him happy. Nothing traumatic had happened to him before he moved, although the fact that he had left behind his three best friends behind.

He missed them. Sure, he skyped them and texted and face-timed them a lot, but it still wasn't the same thing. He was happy, though, to leave behind part of the life that he had in Australia. He didn't do a lot of great things their, and he was happy to get away from it, even for a little while.

So their date went on. They talked and talked and talked and talked..... and talked and talked and talked. They were just talking away to each other, about anything and everything that they wanted each other to know about one another.

The shared their favorite things to do, and to eat. Their favorite animals, and colors. They went a little bit into the topic of each others pasts, though not completely telling each other everything.

And by the time their date had come to an end, it was like they were best friends since grade school. They knew the key information about each other, and some personal things too. It was much more than when they connected on that Saturday afternoon that they were supposed to work on their History project together.

Brooklyn had helped Luke pack up all the trash and the blanket, and the lights. And they walked out of the clearing, hand in hand with each other.