A Promise Is A Promise

[6] Claire

A week or two after my argument with Kayla, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Frankie's car, watching the world go by. We were just driving around, talking about a million pointless things. It was so nice being able to hold a conversation without basically getting accused of being a bitch. God, that had made me so mad. How could she think I was just using Frankie? She'd known me since we were in kindergarten, and we'd been best friends for the past three years. Shouldn't she know me better than to think I would do something like that? And why the hell did she care so much?

For the life of me, I couldn't figure that out. She'd never expressed anything close to what she was showing me now. It wasn't like I expected her to hate what was going on, but I also didn't think she'd go out of her way to make sure I didn't screw it up. Whatever, though. I wasn't going to ask her about it. She'd just have to figure out how to trust that I could handle my own feelings and situation. I didn't need her telling me what to do, but I definitely wasn't going to admit that part of me would rather have her do that than stop talking to me entirely.

"Hey, look at that," Frankie said, lifting a finger from her steering wheel to point at the way the sun was setting over the mountains. We hadn't been able to see it because there had been a few houses and trees in the way, but now the yellows, blues, and oranges were on full display.

"Seeing things like that never gets old." The snow covered everything, glistening in the last beams of light and leaving the world in a perfect state of peace. If only every other area of my life could match, I thought.

"Yeah, it really doesn't," she agreed, her voice hardly louder than a whisper. "You know it's not as beautiful as you, though."

I laughed and shook my head. "You're ridiculous, seriously. No wonder none of the girls here would date you."

The good-natured smile on her face told me she knew what she'd said was cheesy, but she'd also meant it. "You're here with me now and we've definitely crossed the line of just-friendship. What would you call that?"

I pulled my gaze away from the sky and threw it towards her. The way she was sitting with only one of her hands on the top of the wheel and the other resting on the gear stick reminded me of the way my ex-boyfriends had driven. For some reason, it was a lot more attractive watching her do it than it ever was to see them. A few seconds passed and her brown eyes slid over to look at me, too. I wasn't sure how they managed to hold all of her flirtatious energy, but they did it so well that no one could deny it was there. "I would call it an attempt to understand why the hell I want to kiss you so bad."

Her eyebrows inched up at the brazen way I chose to flirt back. It took her a minute or two to come up with a way to respond to that. "Well, I would say you're on the right track, then."

"And here I was worried that I was wasting my time."

"With me? Never."

We fell quiet for a while. The sound of the radio layered with the hum of the road was the only thing keeping us from complete silence. My thoughts went back to Kayla without any effort, but I let them stay there. Maybe the reason she was so concerned about Frankie and I was that she was confused about how serious things were with us. It was honestly a valid concern because I wasn't exactly sure myself. The more I thought about that possibility, the more I thought it was probably necessary to have that conversation. I didn't even know how to start talking about that, though. I was worried that I was going to hurt her somehow. I really didn't want to do that.

"Is something bothering you?" she asked, keeping those beautiful eyes forward. "You're acting different than you were a few minutes ago."

I opened my mouth, shocked that she'd been able to tell when I hadn't said anything at all. She was much more perceptive than I ever thought she was. "It's, um, just something I've been thinking about, I guess. I don't really know how to tell you, except by just saying it, so..." A heavy sigh fell past my lips before I could stop it. "I think we need to talk."