Soul Realm

The beginning..

"I hate this placeee!!" Claire whines, signing dramatically afterwards.

"This is where you wanted, and your girlfriend wanted to go though so stop complaining Claire."

"No this is where SHE wanted to go, I wanted sushi not burgers. "Claire complains, she looks at her girlfriend, her eyes light up slightly. "Actually, it's okay as long as my girl is happy. " She smiles while hugging her girlfriend. Claire has always been a very uptight and blunt person, with a no fucks attitude since I met her. Her only soft spot is me and her girlfriend Emily. Me and Claire had been friends since first
grade, we met Emily our

first year of middle school. That was the first time I'd ever seen her fall for someone. Or she even speaks nicely to someone else besides me. For me I stay single and to myself and my best friend, no one ever sparked my interest besides one boy. But I haven't seen him since middle school.

"I'll get our orders; you guys go find a place to sit. " Emily places a quick kiss on Claires lips before she goes to place our orders. I love these two, they've always been there for me and being the third wheel has never upset me or made me uncomfortable.

"Hey Kay, "Claire says, looking at me and pointing at another table, " Isn't that your middle school crush?" I follow her finger to a table on the other side of the restaurant from a girl and a boy. No, a mother and her son. The mother with long black curly hair and deep dark brown eyes, sits across from someone I thought I'd never see again. Ke Keen. My middle crush, it feels weird and real, seeing as I was just thinking of him then he's randomly in the same place as me. I take in how he looks. His dark brown hair is now long and curly just like his mothers. In middle school it was short, seeing it long was a huge change, but it fit him so well. He begins putting his hair up in a man bun. His deep brown mysterious eyes are as perfect as

I remember, he looks even more handsome than he did in middle school. Bring the little middle schooler in me out. I blush feeling my crush coming back. But I shake my head, I shouldn't still like him after all these years. He was my friend in middle school, but he never saw me the way I saw him.

He probably has a girl now; I feel my heart drop at the thought of it.

" Yeah, that's him, and don't say I had a crush on him. " I say slapping her on the arm then looking away.

"Oh, shut up you had a huge crush on him. Anytime you guys talked you'd blush and have the stupidest smile on your face, you can't even lie to me, I've known you for long and I've never seen you smile or look at another person the way you did to him. Also, your reaction right now says it all that you just got a new crush on him. " She smiles an evil teasing smile at me.

" I hate you sometimes you know that- "

"Katie isn't that your old crush. " Emily walks up to us and sits next to Claire.

" Let me reword that. I hate both of you sometimes. " I say shooting them both with a playful glare.

" What did I miss out on? " Emily asks, Claire begins to fill her in on our short conversation and I sit back in my chair embarrassed.

I go get our food and bring it to them, we

eat and chat, talking about our plans for the week. I take glances at the table so often looking at him, he really has gotten so much more attractive and good looking. A lot taller now as well. I watch as him and his mom get up and start walking to the door. He glances at me and pauses for a second seeming to remember me, and I feel my face heating up and flush. He smiles a handsome and perfect. The exact smile he had in middle school. Holy shit it was him, it's Ke Keen. He leaves with his mom, and I watch them drive off and feel my hear drop again.

The rest of the time I think about him and how crazy it was to see him again. We eat and head home. I go to my room, searching through reels, still thinking about him. I decide to look him up, hoping I find his account and a part of me hoping I don't see he has a girlfriend. After a min I find him, instantly I breath out a sigh of relief, there's no girlfriend that's posted in his bio or posts. Just himself and his friends. I look through his posts, I pause for a few moments, thinking if I should follow him or not. I close my eyes and follow him. Even if he doesn't follow me back that's okay, but hey better to try than not to try. That was just the kid in me wanting to get close to him again even though I knew it wouldn't happen.

I turn my phone off and lay down, curling up holding my stuffed animal shark. A present he got me in middle school after a dance. I kept all the gifts, or anything anyone got me. I close my eyes then hear my phone go off. I open it to see a follow request. He followed me back; my stomach does a back flip as a smile forms on my face. I accept it before turning my phone off and falling asleep.

Weeks went by since I followed him, a part of me hoped he'd send me a text. Maybe I shouldn't have done it. Maybe I shouldn't have followed him, but too late now. Maybe I should send him a text but I'm too nervous to do it. I scroll through reels like I normally do on my off days from work. I stop on a reel for suicide prevention month. I glance down at my wrist to see the white faint lines of my past. When I did it, I was young, barely 10 when I started, but now almost a year clean I'm proud of myself for fighting and making it this far. I look back at the reel and post it on my story. Typing out, " I miss you to this day still, I hope you doing good up in Heaven " No one would ever know who I was talking about and probably laugh at me for posting it, but I honestly didn't care.

I turn my phone off and go down to the kitchen to get a snack, grabbing a bag of chips and ranch dip. I head back to my room and lay down turning the tv onto my favorite channel, the cooking channel. I love watching cooking, seems to be the only thing to keep my interest and the only thing I really watch.

Bing.

I hear my phone go off and check it. I see a message of someone responding to my post. I expect it to be someone making fun of me or something stupid. I open it and my eyes widen.

" Hey how have you been doing? " Ke Keen typed out. He texted me; I stare at my phone shocked that he even saw my story. Let alone text me, wait this means he remembers me from middle school. I roll over onto my stomach and stare at the keyboard knowing it was an easy question to answer but I didn't know how too.

"Hey! I'm doing pretty good; how have you been doing?" I type out and send it quickly than instantly regret it, feeling stupid for my answer.

" I'm good. I saw your story, I'm sorry to whoever you lost that way. I'm here if you need to talk. We went to middle school together, I remember we used to hangout
together, I remember we used to hangout all the time, we should hangout again soon. Would you be down? " My face heats up with excitement. He was always straight forward, if he wanted to make plans he'd tell you straight up, I loved that about him but now it makes me anxious.

" Yeah, I'd love to catch up soon, we could go to a cafe or something, I'll let you pick. "

" How about we go to the park we used to go to as kids this weekend? " I tilt my head slightly surprised. He even remembered about us going there and smiled. He did remember me. Maybe I could get my childhood friend back. I missed him honestly, our friendship was torn apart when he had to change schools, we were too young to have phones or a way to communicate and my parents were too strict to even care if I wanted to stay in contact with him.

" Meet me at the park in the evening, we can talk and watch the sun go down together and i'll bring snacks, you bring drinks? "

" That sounds like a plan, I can't wait. "

We text through the day and the days leading up to our meet up. Each day I grow more excited and more anxious. My childhood best friend might be my best friend.