A Fostered Love

Chapter Four: Layla

I wake up in the same place that I fell asleep. Still leaning against Kyle's shoulder with my arms wrapped around his right arm. I don't know what it is about him, but he just makes me feel safer. Whenever he's near, a sense of calm flows through me.

I don't move for a while, instead I just listen to his steady breathing and watch the clouds move above us. I could stay like this forever.

Unfortunately, forever didn't last that long.

Kyle jerks himself awake beside me, making me sit up and look at him with concern. He turns his head over to me and lets out a sigh of relief as he lightly touches my cheek. "You're still here." He mumbles quietly.

If I didn't know any better I'd say he was dreaming about me. Now if only I could find out what it was he was dreaming about. "Of course I am. Are you okay?" I ask softly, grabbing his hand to get him to focus on me.

"Yeah I'm fine. Just had a bad dream."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really, it will only embarrass me more." I smile as he continues, "I don't think I got you anything for your birthday."

"Well, in all technicality, a runaway is a pretty cool gift."

"No, I mean like a gift gift. You know, something you can hold on to. What do you want?"

A kiss.

"Nothing." I shrug my shoulders, not daring to say what I was thinking.

"Oh, come on. There has to be something that you want."

I would settle for a hug too.

"Nope, nothing that I can think of."

"Then I will just have to come up with something." He says mischievously.

"Kyle, don't waste your money on me. It's just a present, I don't need it."

"I have two hundred bucks in here. I think I can dip into that a little bit to buy something other than food, especially for someone as great as you."

I have to look away to make sure he doesn't see my blush. He confuses me all the time when he says things like that. It makes me think he likes me, but I know that for a fact we're just friends. I just want that to change, eventually.

"I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?"

"Nope." He says popping the p.

"Fine." I grumble to make it seem like I didn't want him to.

Around mid afternoon when decided to make our way into the city. The streets were slowly beginning to fill with more and more cars as they made their commute to the city. When we finally make it to the river, I realize what we we're doing wrong.

"Kyle. We can't just walk to the city."

"Why not?"

"Because it's way over there," I say pointing off to the left, "and we're way over here. It would take us days to get there."

"Then why don't we take the subway?"

"Seeing that that's one of our only options, yeah. Let's take the subway."

"Um, do you know anything about the subway? I don't even remember the last time I rode in one of these."

"I don't think it's that difficult to understand." I say with a false sense of hope.

Twenty minutes later....

"Kyle?"

"Yeah Layla?"