A Promise Is A Promise

[1] Kayla

I watched the bus pull up to the front of the school and slowly inched forward in the small crowd of girls on the basketball team. It always seemed to take forever for everyone to get on because they were so concerned with where they were sitting and who they were sitting with. I just wanted to tell them to hurry up and sit somewhere because it didn't even matter who you were near. Coach told us we weren't supposed to talk on the way to the game and I tried my best to do that, but sometimes my best friend made it hard. Claire always sat next to me and she was always whispering something as quietly as she could.

As soon as I got up the steps, I trained my eyes on a seat and pushed my way to it. It was closer to the middle than the back, but I didn't mind because some of the other seniors were close enough. I watched a couple of them go past me and nodded to Frankie, who already had her headphones on, blasting music. She always wanted to be left alone to get herself prepared for a game, so she picked a bench that was a bit farther back. Claire's blonde head finally popped up at the front of the bus and I couldn't help the smile that took over my face when our eyes connected.

She gave me a quick one back and leaned down to tell me something, her breath tickling my ear and sending goosebumps all over my skin. "Hey, I know I normally sit with you, but I'm going to go with Frankie today."

"Frankie? Why?" I pulled my head away enough to glance over my shoulder at our teammate. Her face was blank, her eyes emptily gazing out the window. I would've bet anything that she wasn't actually seeing a single thing she was looking at.

"Don't you remember what Jackson said about her the other day?"

"Um..." I never really paid much attention to what Jackson Durham said. He was kind of a dick and most of it was a bunch of bullshit anyway.

She rolled her eyes, but moved even closer to tell me. "He said she wants to fuck me, so I'm going to go ask her about it."

"Why? That sounds like a terrible idea. What if she didn't say that? Or what if she did, but she didn't mean to? Or what if that's not what she meant? People are always making things up about her, please don't make her worry about this, too."

"What? Come on, K, don't be ridiculous. I'm not asking her to be a bitch and make fun of her. I'm asking because—you know what? Nevermind."

"Because why? What other reason could you have? All anyone does is give her shit for literally just existing, so just tell me why you want to ask her about it, or I'm going to think it's because you're just like everyone else and you want to—"

"No, Kayla, I'm not like that."

"Then what is it? What's the reason? Why are you—"

"Because maybe I'm not exactly opposed to the idea," she snapped and continued back to Frankie's seat. I watched her drop into it and blinked several times, then felt the bus jerk under me. The movement was enough to get me to turn around and face the front of the bus.

Not exactly opposed to the idea? What the hell does that mean? I thought. Does that mean she might want to have sex with Frankie? Does she want to kiss her? Was that her way of telling me that they had a lot more in common than just playing basketball?

I couldn't focus on the game at all. My mind was whirring, shooting out a hundred different possibilities about what the hell was going on. I felt like I was sleepwalking as we went into the locker room of the other school and got ready. Claire hadn't come up to me since she'd walked away, but I needed answers if I was even going to be able to do something as simple as dribbling the ball.

As soon as I was finished getting ready, I zipped up my bag and went over to her. She was in the middle of putting her clothes in her own bag, but I could tell she saw me coming by the way she tensed up. I hated that I was the one who made her that nervous.