The Life I Wish We'd Lived

6.Promises Promises

"Kat. Hey. Sleepyhead."

      "Mmm go away." I pull the blanket over my face.

      He laughs "I'm trying goofball. It's almost ten I gotta go."

      I pull the blanket back. "Ugh. Okay. Call later. Tell mom thanks."

      "Will do."

    He kisses my cheek and the next thing I hear is the door clicking shut.

    A few hours later I woke up to my phone ringing. Seriously people, leave me alone. I look at the caller ID. When I see his name I flinch. Chris. My phone rings two more times before going silent.

    After a few minutes I send a text to Paisley

       Need you.  Weird night. Come over?

    She replied almost immediately.

      Be there in 5

    Sure enough, five minutes later I heard a car door, then there she was standing at the entrance to the living room.

      "What happened?"

      "Eli came over yesterday."

      "And? Did you guys get in another fight? Wait you said weird night."

      "No. We didn't fight and he stayed the night."

      "Okay but that's not weird for him so what happened?"

      "We were talking about why he got so weird about the whole Chris thing and why it suddenly bothered him. Then he told me it always has. Which should make sense, I mean knew he liked me...loved me? I don't know. I guess I thought he got over it? The last time he had said anything was the summer before grade nine and now he's bringing it up again but that's kinda my fault but how was I supposed to know it's been what seven years? Who would have expected me to remember th—"

      "Wait Kat. Slow down. Yes he loves you. We all knew that. But what's your fault?"

    I took a deep breath and began explaining the promise to her.

       "The summer before our freshman year he came to me and told me that he loved me but if I didn't want to give him this chance then he would stop bugging me about it. He said he just wanted to give me a chance to say yes or no before he gave up or gave me space, whatever. I told him that I wasn't sure I really wanted him to give up but at the time I didn't like him like that. So I told him that if we were still friends after our junior year of college and we were both single and he felt the same then I would reconsider. Well now—"

      "It's after junior year and you are both single." She finishes for me.

      "Exactly. I guess now I know what he meant by it being our summer."

      "Oh girl don't you just have yourself a situation."

      "Yeah. Thanks that's helpful." I fire back.

      "Sorry. So what are you going to do? I mean. What about Chris?"

      "I don't know. What should I do?"

      "Well. First of all you need to at least tell him what's going on. At least let him know about the conversation you and Eli had because it's not fair to him to keep this from him."

      "Yeah. But how do you tell someone that you care about and you know cares about you that you may or may not be in love with his best friend who has been trying to set you up since high school?"