12 Months (Tom Holland)

May

By the time auditions came around and I was ahead of all my school work, I wanted to be done with the independent study classes. As much as I loved the freedom it gave me, I also hated the discipline I had to have in order to complete my work. In the month that I was placed in the classes, I had to read four short stories and one novel, write a persuasive essay on the novel and complete two Calculus tests plus my AP Exam.

The day that we had to leave, we didn't have to go to school. The plane left around 10:30, so we needed to be at the airport a few hours earlier. Since we all lived in a ten minute radius of one another, it was the smart idea to just carpool.

After many heated disputes about who was going to drive, I caved in and took the keys from Tom's hand. He gave me a cheeky smile that I wanted to disappear from his face right away. As we got into the car, I plugged my phone in, starting up my playlist. "Woah woah woah," Tom exclaimed, "Passenger picks the music." "I don't know what they do in England, but the driver picks the music 'round here," I argued, turning my volume up. Tom opened his mouth, as if to comment one more time, but he closed it and handed the victory to me. "You better choose some good tunes, Kenny. I'm not going to put up with an hour and a half of throwback music," he said and I shot him a dirty look before completely changing the playlist to something that wasn't throwback music.

We picked Yasmine up about ten minutes later. By then, Tom was already asleep against the window. As Yasmine climbed into the backseat, she beamed and asked, "Are you excited? This is gonna be so fucking awesome, Kennedy!" The two of us started giggling and squealing in excitement, fantasizing about all the things that could (will never ever) happen. About a half hour into the drive, and Tom was still heavily asleep, things turned a bit more serious.

"You guys are friends again, right?" Yasmine whispered to me, careful not to wake Tom (the boy's a heavy sleeper though. The world can end and he'd still be dreaming). I shrugged, "I believe so. That day in the office, he tracked me down and we had like a sobbing session in the bathroom. We told each other everything." "Oh shit, even about the promise ring thing?" Yasmine asked and I raised an eyebrow. "What promise ring thing?"

Her eyes widened, "Shit, Ken. He didn't tell you?" "Tell me what, Yaz?" I urged her on. I literally had no idea what she was talking about, and I was anxious. What was the promise ring thing? Was it good? Was it absolutely terrible? Oh shit, he wasn't going to propose, was he? Don't be stupid Kennedy, you don't propose with a promise ring. But still...

"Whatever you do, do not take my word for this," Yasmine said, way quieter than before, "Tom bought a promise ring. I remember it was like after school when you had track or your signing, I can't remember. Anyway, he took me with him because he needed a girl's opinion. He ended up getting this super fucking adorable one with the diamond cut into a heart and two bands overlapping. It was purple, your favorite color, which was what got me thinking-" She couldn't get to the actual point of the story because by then, Tom woke up.

He stretched and yawned, "Talking shit?" "As always," Yasmine deadpanned and Tom smiled lazily. "How close to the airport are we?" he asked. "We're almost there," I answered, my mind not really in reality at the moment, "About a few more minutes, maybe." "Good, more time to sleep," and with that, he closed his eyes once again and leant his head against the window.

I had never flown first class before and I'm pretty sure after this, I never will; however, it did not humble me at all. I enjoyed the lavishness of not flying economy and so did Yasmine. We probably made complete buffoons of ourselves, but we didn't give two shits. We were rich bitches now.

I sat in between Yasmine and Tom. It was more or less so she and I could have our own private conversations and not have him hear, but also because I wanted to be close to him. Everyday since we made up, I had fallen harder for him than ever before. Maybe it was because I missed him like crazy for those few months we weren't on good terms. I missed his cologne, the intimacy between us, our jokes. Now that they were back, I didn't take them for granted and Tom became a diamond in my eyes, timeless. I wanted the promise ring thing to be true. I wanted him to slide it onto my finger and kiss me passionately, declaring his love for me. But I also to soak in our beautiful friendship once again. We needed to relight our candle and we were so close to striking the match.