Mackin' On Mack' Where do we go from here...

•••My Druthers Pt.3•••

3rd Person POV

"Hey, Kie, can you look up the "island room," the "Royal Merchant," and "Denmark Tanny," please?" Pope asked Kiara.

"Have you thought about it?" Kiara asked, totally ignoring his request and changing the subject to the topic of their more intimate time together.

"Uh, thought about what?" Pope asked innocently.

Kiara just gave him a look and it seemed to make the puzzle pieces fit together in his brain, "Oh! I mean... I mean, yeah, of course." Pope chuckled.

"I've thought about you like every day for a year, so yeah, I've definitely thought about it." Pope nodded as he went back to whatever he was messing with in the first place.

"I mean, it was perfect, right? Like, the moonlight and the beach and the bonfire..." Kiara trailed off.

"Yeah, it was a great night." Pope smiled at her in agreement.

"Like, there's nothing that could've made that more perfect." Kiara continued.

"Right? And the whole night leading up to that was just so much fun, you know? The beach, the stars..." Pope started to marvel at the memory as well.

"Yeah. The setting was—" Kiara started to say.

"It was nice." Pope cut in.

"Yeah. Mm-hmm." Kiara nodded.

They both kinda sat there for a few seconds in silence and for Pope it was a peaceful silence but for Kie... she knew what she was about to say was going to turn things in a different direction...

"So it should've been like... wow. But instead, it was, like, kind of... kind of weird, right?" Kiara asked Pope as his whole face just dropped.

"What do you mean by weird? Like weird how?" The Heyward boy asked.

"Umm, after, you know, we did it, I didn't really know what to say." Kiara elaborated.

"Okay." Pope mumbled not really getting where Kie was taking the conversation.

"You know, we've been best friends for so long, and so much has happened. I mean, like, John B, Mackenzie, and Sarah "died." And my mom's threatening me with boarding school. And I really can't stand the idea of not being able to talk to you." Kiara tried to express what had been currently eating her up inside.

"No, right, I understand. You know, like, we gotta keep the friendship." Pope answered, basically just telling her what to hear.

"Yeah. Absolutely. Like, the last few days, I just, like, wanted things to go back to the way that they were. I mean, didn't you? Things used to be so good." Kiara let out a sigh of relief at Pope's response.

To this Pope cursed under his breath at the fact that what he thought he had... just slipped between his finger tips.

"Yeah." Pope faintly responded trying to hide the emotions he was truly feeling inside.

"And I... I really don't want to say it, but, you know, maybe we should just... Maybe we should, you know, be—" Kiara started to awkwardly stutter out the next few words like she was speaking a foreign language.

"Friends?" Pope finished for her.

"Yes, friends. I was— That's what I was gonna say. Yeah." Kiara smiled at what she thought was a mutual agreement that they both had come to.

"Yeah. Yeah, we can be friends." Pope nodded as he tried to distract himself with things around the shed.

"Yeah, Um... So we're good. Yeah." Kiara nodded as she made her way closer to him.