A Promise Is A Promise

[12] Claire

One afternoon at the beginning of April, Kayla was up in my room after she got done with her softball practice. We were laying next to each other as we talked—and sometimes on top of each other as we didn't. In one of the moments we were, she said, "The other day, I had a conversation with Frankie and Haylie."

"A conversation? Why'd you say it like that? It makes it sound serious." My head tipped to the side to see her face, but her eyes refused to move away from the ceiling.

"It was serious. It was about important things, like... things I haven't really ever been able to get off my chest. They, uh, they really helped with all of this, you know?"

"Yeah, I do. What exactly did you need to share?"

"Oh, it was a lot of personal stuff."

"Personal? How much more personal can we get, K? I'm the first and only girl you ever kissed and the first one you admitted your feelings to. Unless I'm not." I pushed myself up so I was sitting and squinted at her, suddenly wildly unsure of everything she'd told me in my car a week ago. "I am the first one, aren't I?"

"What? Yeah, of course you're the first one."

"Then why don't you want to tell me anything you told them? The last I knew, you'd never even said ten words to Haylie, but now you're suddenly telling her things you won't even tell me. What am I supposed to think?"

She sat up, too, blinking like she couldn't believe we were actually discussing this. "Why are you so jealous? You're the one who told me to go talk to them. You're the one who said it would help, and it did. Isn't that what you wanted? Didn't you want me to feel more comfortable with all of this?"

"Because I—" I shut my mouth, refraining from telling her exactly why it bothered me that she wasn't sharing those kinds of things with me. I didn't tell her it was because I wanted to be that person for her. I didn't say that I wanted to be the one she turned to the most. "Yes, I absolutely do," I sighed. "And I know we agreed that we don't have to tell each other everything, but I just felt like you would trust me more."

K shifted closer to me and took my hands. "I do trust you. I trust you so much, that's why you even know about how I feel in the first place. But it just helped to have someone who really understood what I was feeling and how to make it seem less overwhelming. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Frankie's known how to deal with her emotions for a lot longer than you have. Plus she knows what it's like to not be in the closet. I'm not saying you're buried as deep inside as I am, but you're not kicking down the door, either. So I trust you, Claire, I do. I just needed to talk to someone who knows what to say."

With that, all of my irritation was gone. How could I be mad at her when she was just trying to find someone who could actually mean it when they told her that everything would be okay? How could I be mad when she was just making an attempt to navigate her feelings, instead of pushing them down even further? Being angry at her would only separate us further and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

"Do you forgive me?" Worry filled her brown eyes while her thumbs slid over my skin.

"There's nothing to forgive," I reassured her. "You were right. It was my idea in the first place, so I had no reason to be upset. I'm not upset because I completely get why you needed to talk to them. Frankie helped me make sense of all of it, so if she's willing to help you, too, then that's great."

"You really mean that?"

"Yeah." I nodded and we laid back down, her arms circling me to hold me close to her body. She kissed the top of my head like Frankie had the other day, which made me more content than it seemed like it would have. Every moment with her did that. It was all a state of bliss.