A Promise Is A Promise

[14] Claire

As the days passed since Kayla and I first kissed, more and more of our time was spent together. We were with each other more than we'd ever been before, but neither of us minded even slightly. We were desperate to get that time, and were waiting impatiently for the last two weeks that endlessly stretched in front of spring break's arrival.

I was honestly feeling kind of trapped in our town. There was nowhere for us to be together in public in a way that didn't let people see we were more than best friends. K was already so anxious about everyone finding out that going out to dinner together, or seeing a movie, or anything like that was completely off the table. We just hid away in her room or mine any chance that we got. It was kind of frustrating sometimes, but I cared about her too much to try to push her to do anything more daring.

The fact that we spent almost every free moment with each other didn't go unnoticed by our families. Our parents were always saying something about us wasting our last days of high school in our rooms when we should've been spending time with our classmates. I didn't really get the point because they were the same people we'd spent almost thirteen years with. Still, we were smart enough to know that they couldn't think we were just choosing to hang out with only each other, so we told them we were working on homework because we'd gotten swamped with tests, projects, and papers.

One night when we were cuddled up in my bed, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and risked asking a question I was pretty sure I knew the answer to. "Kayla, can we please get out of here and do something? I don't even care if we just go get milkshakes and drive somewhere to talk, but I'm going to lose my mind if I have to look at these walls for another second."

"I was kind of hoping you'd ask me something like that because I'm about to go just as crazy. I love you, but tonight, this is killing me, too."

"Thank God." I detached myself from her and slipped my feet into a pair of tennis shoes. K put hers on, too, and we went downstairs to leave.

"Where are you girls going?" my mom called from the living room, twisting to peek over the couch at us. "I thought you were so busy studying that you couldn't do anything else."

"We're taking a break," I easily lied. Lately, I didn't even think twice when I said something that wasn't true. "We're going to go get some ice cream and drive around. Our brains are too full to fit anything else into them."

"All right, then. Why don't you grab a ten out of my purse? Both of you have been working so hard lately that you deserve a little treat."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, why not? Just bring the change back with you, okay?"

"Okay, thanks, Mom."

"Yeah, thanks, Mrs. Fulton."

"It's nothing, girls, really. Go on and have fun."

We said goodbye to her and I got the money, then we escaped to my car. I didn't hesitate to take her hand once we were on our way to the ice cream place. No one could see it and I knew she loved getting the chance to have that physical connection with me. Maybe we could pass off getting milkshakes as something that just friends could do, but holding hands didn't quite make the cut. There were countless times I'd wished it did because I felt like it would make things so much easier, but then I remembered that the blurred lines between a simple friendship and a flat-out relationship would only get more confusing. I was already kind of confused about exactly what we were without all of that complicated stuff.