ShortStoryAwaaards Participant

A Forgotten Promise

Mature : lol if anything I feel like it's immature
Genre : romance

We were taking our usual path home, hand in hand, mindlessly humming. Home. I love that I share that with her. And our two beautiful boys, Lucas and Mark. I've been wanting that reality since she made us promise. It was right after her third high school heartbreak, right after Josh ended his eleven month relationship with her. She never dated after him, until university rolled around.

I still remember the cool August air caressing my cheeks as we sat on my roof, a bottle of something alcoholic from her mother's kitchen downstairs. We'd shared half the bottle by the time she took my hand and stared at me with such hormonal teenage intensity. She'd never look at me that passionately before. Eyes shining bright with tears, she sniffles before whispering.

"Landon, you're too good to me. All I do is make messes and-and," she blubbered before her tears spilled out for the second time that night.

"Hey, hey. It's my choice too, you know. If I didnt want to, I don't have to sit through by your side all these years. But I did and that's on me, because, well-" I had hesitated. But the alcohol in me burned, intertwined with all the courage in me, and I blurted my confession out quicker than my hand covered my mouth.

"Because I love you. And always have."

"Really? Wow, none of my other boyfriends have ever said that to me. You'd be good boyfie material, Landon. Too bad I'm too deep covered by my sorrows to actually appreciate you. Maybe later." She muttered indifferently. She was too drunk to process her own words right now. But I wasn't.

I was heartbroken at her words, but her next few were some that I lived for from that moment onwards.

"Let's promise each other something." She shifted to lie on my lap, and my thighs were on fire. It hurt me to not be able to touch her affectionately, because it was one-sided.

"If we don't marry someone by the time we reach 35, we'll marry each other. What do you say?" She giggled. "A platonic marriage that will keep us company." She looked at me through those gorgeous eyes, which held all the unsaid things running through her mind right now. I couldn't hold back any longer.

I leaned downwards to kiss her, and she met me halfway, reaching up to fuse our lips together. It wasn't a happy kiss, it was a kiss that had fire, angry fire and passionate fire. I was angry that she said things like this and angry at how cowardly I was all this while. But we were still kissing, and I got over my anger to smile into the kiss, realising that my fantasy was becoming a reality.

One magical moment later, we broke apart, no awkwardness around us and a hazy warm feeling was sloshing inside me. God, I loved her. But she was tipsy, and I wasn't ruining my only future chance with her.

"Hey, doll? Did you mean what you said about the promise?" Using my favourite endearment of her, I tried to keep her from getting the wrong idea.

A soft nod and a grunt was all I received. It seemed as if I had either drained all her energy or she was just as spellbound as I was over the kiss.

"Should we, record it? I mean, not to sound creepy or anything, but like to remember you know? Like, um, a memory? So we don't forget?" She's going to slap me.

"Sure. But after that we're going to bed." She slurred and I let out a strangled choke. "Not like that stupid, I wanna sleep. I'm sooo tired." She sat up with a heave and took my phone out of her hand.

Even in her drunk stupor, she managed to start recording the two of us on a video.

"So this is a promise to future Landon and I. If you're still fucked up and no one loves you, yall gonna marry each other at..45? No, 35. No joke." She stared so seriously into the camera I thought she had snapped out of her inebriation, but she giggled right after and I knew that if she remembered anything tomorrow, it would be a miracle. Even I didn't remembered anything after we made the video.