A Promise Is A Promise

[17] Kayla

I woke up to the feeling of someone's arm around my waist and I nearly shoved it off of me until long, blonde hair caught my eyes and I realized it was Claire. My heart was pounding from my initial shock, but it only beat harder when I remembered what she'd told Walker and Maggie last night. Not only had she come out to them, but she'd told them about me. She'd told them we were together. A few hours ago, they hadn't seemed to care, but things could change. I felt sick thinking about facing them this morning.

My girlfriend stirred beside me and squinted over at me. Sunlight streamed down onto her face, making her seem like she was almost glowing. "Good morning, Kayla," she softly said, tilting her head to kiss my shoulder. I couldn't help thinking that she clearly wasn't as worried about the effects of her confession as I was.

"Morning," I tightly returned, which turned her content little smile into more of a confused frown. I wasn't going to spell it out for her, though. She was going to have to figure it out for herself.

"What? Did something happen while I was asleep? Kayla, what—" Her words stopped dead in their tracks, and I knew she knew what the problem was. "My God, that wasn't a dream," she mumbled to herself and sighed as she sat up. "I can't believe I told them about us. I'm so sorry, I don't know what I was thinking."

"Yeah, I don't really know what you were thinking, either. I mean, I only told you a thousand times that people can't find out about us, and we're barely here for two hours before you're spilling every single secret to them. And it's not like you had to tell them, either, it was completely your decision. They weren't questioning us to our faces, they weren't telling us what they were assuming, and they certainly weren't demanding that we share something so fucking personal with them. You didn't even know what they would think and you just put everything out there for them. What would've happened if they thought the same thing that my parents do? What would've happened if they called your parents because they were so disgusted with us, and we had to go home and come out to them and to mine, too? What would've happened then?"

Now she looked completely miserable about her mistake, but I didn't feel bad for her at all. It was her own fault that she'd done something to make me this pissed at her, especially when she knew better. "I don't know, I—"

"Yeah, you don't know because you weren't thinking about that possibility. You weren't thinking at all. At least, you weren't thinking about anything but yourself. God, I can't believe you." I threw the covers off of me and slipped out of our room. She didn't follow me, but that was perfectly fine with me. I needed a little bit of time away from her to get over what she'd done, so I headed downstairs to the kitchen to get breakfast. I wasn't expecting anyone else to be down there, but Maggie was standing next to the toaster, staring vacantly at the calendar on the fridge.

She uncrossed her arms and cleared her throat, then looked over at me when my movement caught her attention. "Good morning, Kayla. Claire's not up yet?"

"Oh, she is," I bitterly responded and dropped into a seat at the small, round table before realizing I should watch the way I was speaking to her. She wasn't the one I was pissed at.

She instantly noticed my terrible mood, anyway, and came over to sit by me. "Is everything all right?"

I nearly lied and told her that everything was, but I stopped myself at the last second. Why should I hide what I was feeling if Claire didn't think she had to hide anything? "Um, no, it's not."

"Well, do you want to talk about it?"

I bit my lip, my eyes welling with my lingering fear about all the bad things that could've happened last night. "You weren't supposed to know," I admitted. "About us, I mean. She wasn't supposed to tell you because I wasn't ready for people to know, and she knew that, but she just, I don't know, ignored it, I guess. I don't know why she didn't listen to me. She says she loves me, but if she can't even keep her mouth shut to prevent something that scares the shit out of me, then how am I supposed to believe her when she says that? How am I supposed to tell her things if she can't keep the biggest thing of all to herself?" I sniffed and shook my head, a couple of my tears falling to the table.