The Bad Boy Goes to College

Don't leave

*Kayla's POV*

The next couple of days passed like a blissful dream. Too fast and I was dreading the end. Like one that I didn't want to wake up from, but just knew that my alarm was going to go off any second.

The summer we had spent together was amazing, but coming back to the real world had sobered me up. It was time to accept that Hayden was leaving and that I was going in to my senior year.

Trust me, I hadn't wanted to.

We had two hours before we had to be at the airport, and Hayden and I were still in bed. A tangle of limbs and emotion.

He knew that I was dreading leaving for the airport, so he had promised we'd spent the last hours just the two of us.

Under different circumstances, those hours might have been enjoyable, but the thought of him leaving was dangling over my head like a dagger hanging from a single thread.

"Kayla," Hayden began. I shifted so that I could look up at him and hummed a response.

"Promise me that you'll still have a fun senior year, and that you won't mope around missing me all the time?" He mumbled into my hair.

"Promise," I replied. I knew I was lying, but I was hoping that he wouldn't catch on.

"You could have at least tried to make it sound like you meant it." He replied with a small chuckle.

"You know I suck at lying." I replied. He simply sighed and let us drift back into silence.

It didn't take long until there were footsteps on the stairs. Cole's if my judgement was correct.

"Hey guys," Cole's voice came from behind the closed door.

"Come in," I called to him from my spot on Hayden's chest.

He opened the door slowly, as if he was scared that even though I had invited him in, he was going to see something that he wasn't supposed to and definitely didn't want to.

"It's time." He said quietly.

I sighed and nodded before getting out of bed and slipping on my shoes. Hayden followed suit, and before long I was slipping into the back seat of his mom's Acura.

Katie turned around to face me from where she was in the drivers seat. "You okay?" She asked me quickly.

I nodded as Hayden slid into the seat beside her. She gave me a small smile before turning back around to pull out of their drive way.

The ride to the airport was silent. The boys were following behind us in their cars to wish Hayden and Dawson farewell. Sometime during the ride, Hayden had slipped his hand around the seat and intertwined our fingers. It was a comforting gesture, but I still wasn't feeling any better.

As we pulled into the airport, Hayden retracted his hand as his mom searched for a parking spot.

We rushed to get into the airport, so that we would have time for proper goodbyes, and as we reached the bag check lines, we stopped.

"I guess this is it," Katie said quietly. She wasn't crying, and I wish I had her self control because I knew the second that Hayden embraced me, I was going to be sobbing.

Hayden hugged her tightly, "I love you, mom." He said and kissed the top of her head. She maintained perfect composure the entire time, I marveled at her strength.

As Hayden walked towards me, I tried to match Katie's masked emotions. Tucking mine away deep in my heart, so that I could make it through this goodbye without losing my composure.