text: I stand in a sea of congratulations, against the current of beaming parents and my friends--the two crash against each other like waves, greeting and mixing and loving like water on its way to the shore. Except there is no shore. There is only the sea, and me, the lone lighthouse standing amongst the water, scanning its longing light towards the horizon. Craning my neck, I stand on my tiptoes to see above all the commotion. My ears are already ringing, and that isn’t good. What if I don’t hear the-- “Jan?” I turn sharply, excitement nudging its way through my gut. But it is only Reid, his makeup already halfway gone. He cradles not one but two bouquets of flowers in his arms. He’s always had a loving family. “Good job,. You did wonderful,” he smiles, flashing his metallic teeth. I smile back, and he rushes off, probably to help strike the set. It would make sense; he dreams of becoming a professional performer one day, and to do that, he must earn himself a rightful place in our director’s Book of Favorite Actors--which, isn’t a real thing, but it might as well be. I sure as hell wouldn’t be in it. But I turn back to my lighthouse duties, and I can’t help but notice that the crowd around me has thinned quite a bit. I bite my lip, a little put off by that; everyone who came to see the show is out of the theater by now, and yet-- “Are you going to iHOP after this, Jan?” Lori stops and taps me on the shoulder--she will always rap you on the shoulder when she wants your attention. “Maybe,” I reply, and it’s true. I’ll probably end up going whether I like it or not. Lori trots off in the same direction as Reid, and still I stand. I can practically feel my feet becoming rooted to the floor as I wait. I realize that I am a rather empty lighthouse, perhaps abandoned; no family of mine has shown up tonight. But there is still hope. Yes, but that hope seems to be slowly pulling itself from my grasp. The crowd has become one singular person now, dwindled down to nearly nothingness. And this person is simply another girl who was in the production with me. We lock eyes, exchanging a silent understanding. I’ve never spoken to this girl, but in that moment, I feel as though we are sisters of some kind, united by loneliness. But then she turns away, and slowly walks back into the theater, where the rest of the cast will surely be celebrating. And now there is nothing but the lighthouse. My lip quivers as an overwhelming stab of despair punctures me through, and I look at my hands. My cheeks flush with some kind of embarrassment; of course he didn’t show up. After a moment of consideration, I turn on my heel and march, away from the theater and away from the deserted ocean. My feet take me farther into the school, through hallways and past classrooms that stand as abandoned as I, until my character shoes come to a halt in front of the gymnasium. I enter, letting the familiar smell of sports and rubber hit me. I breathe it in solemnly. After all, it was in gym class where we’d first met. Miserably I make my way over to the bleachers and begin to climb, up and up until I am all the way at the top. The plastic resonates with my every footstep, the vibrations seeming to scream *you idiot, you loser, you pitiful thing*. I drop onto a bench and stare down, across the empty expanse of the basketball court. Half of the lights above me have been turned off for the night, and a chill runs across my arms, but I don’t mind. The air seems to shimmer with the memory of his smile, and it is almost as if I see an apparition, a glimpse of that first day with him. The way those bright, ugly lights had captured his eyes, swimming in their blue fishbowls like gems dropped to the bottom of the sea. His hair, coarse and blond, and how he’d let me run my fingers through it nearly every day. He was an angel on earth. And I’d never fallen in love before. I refused to. But it seemed that he’d captured me. And there was a part of me, a little sliver of my heart that led my skeptic of a brain to believe that there could be something there, something beautifully sweet, something just as gushy and gooey as they made these things seem in the movies. But my lighthouse beam had not shone on his smile tonight, and despite my hopeful wishes that he would heed my encouragement and appear in an audience seat, the sea was empty. The sea was empty, and I was a fool.