Love that lets go

Chapter 22 - The SOS

When best friends call despite of your own shit, you drop everything to be by their side. Megan had excused herself after her amazing date with Ryan to be by Kaylas side after receiving an SOS message from her. That simply meant pajamas and cuddles in their friendship, even if no one was up for talking whenever they needed this a simple SOS message had them dropping everything to be by each others side.

Needy and attention seeking was never something that mingled in the same sentence with Kayla, but things changed since the fight with Greg. Truth be told she has always exuded main character energy among their little trio of friendship. Megan was certainly not used to this but she wanted to match her switch in energy, whatever she wanted, Megan was down for. On the other hand there was Jeremy, despite having two of them for best best friends, he absolutely found it difficult to understand them and most girls half the time.

Kaylas boy crisis was as foreign as his whole situation at camp that had him chasing something that was so far from his grasp too. A summer romance that he had never expected nor planned. That didn't mean he couldn't cater to his friends anymore, but he just sincerely prayed and hoped they could figure shit out without needing him as much, he was hell bent on spending all his time with his summer bombshell. Call it selfish as you may, his horny teenage brain malfunctioned with blood rushing to all the sacred places every time he saw Heather.

Getting back to the issue at hand, it was quite odd considering Kayla frequently eluded her feelings towards Greg. Throughout high school Greg was the person that always pursued her, she easily brushed it off and kept him at arms length in that space everyone fought tooth and nail against: the friend zone. Despite his many attempts met with equal turn downs, Greg was a stubborn fuck like the Brit he was. He managed to convince everyone that could lend him an ear that one day, he would convince Kayla to be his girlfriend even if it took a month or two. What he didn't realize was that it could take years. Kayla was a tough cookie who had never in her life had someone fighting in her corner.

Most times she racked her brain trying to figure out where her commitment issues stemmed from. If she was quote on quote 'normal' like other person, her and Greg would have been pursuing their whirlwind romance by now with nothing coming in between them. But that wasn't going to happen, and for the first time she wished she was somewhere else other than camp, she felt homesick.

Shared spaces with a dozen other people that she called family spread across her childhood home. Not remembering whose blanket was whose because everything was passed down in an unceremonious way. It felt like the survival of the fittest in that crowded house and clinging on to childhood trinkets that were just going to be passed down to the next sibling felt trivial. Perks of being a big dysfunctional family.

It wasn't always like that though, Kayla and her older brother Jason were two years apart and they shared everything growing up including a father. Then the twins came along after their father went away for some unknown reason. Miracle babies was what they were called, and they swooned everyone's heart , Kayla's mom, her boyfriend at that time and older siblings involved. Things were good for a while until the twins dad fell off the face of the earth too.

It didn't take long for her mom to fill in the void and that's how the last two siblings came about. Guess you can't call it a void anymore since it had been eight years and 2 children together. His 3 other children that came by to visit every now and then made it feel like it was a sequel of cheaper by the dozen but that was ok. This new guy Jerry stuck around longer than any of them ever did. Eight years and counting , she even went so far as considering him as a father figure, yet somehow there was a doubt dancing eerily in the back of her mind waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When Jason went off to college and she was left alone again, feeling like an outcast in her own family. She missed him terribly and thought back to the last time she saw him, that was 6 months ago on his last visit. He's always made her feel loved and cherished and that's what she needed in that moment. So she decided to call him. The phone call was short because he was rushing to class but it made her feel less weary. He had promised to call her again later in the evening sensing there was something wrong with his baby sister, he could always tell.