Page 46 of The Promise

“Watch it Davis, one more person comments on my mood swings and I may swing a very heavy wooden bat towards their face.”

I chuckle quietly, before taking a deep breath and getting to the point of why I called Callie in the first place. “So…I was wondering if you could help me with something Cal.”

Silence.

“Ok, well, are you going to Molly’s regional qualifier race next weekend?” I continue, feeling the familiar nerves I get when Callie’s protective best friend claws spring up to scratch my eyeballs out. But I know right now she’s wanting exactly what I am, for Molly to give me a chance, she knows I'm good for her and that’s why I’ve come to her for help.

After an eerily silent beat, she sighs. “I don’t know yet, I guess I should go, you know, best friend duties and all?” She heaves a breath again and I hear her fall down onto the couch. “This pregnancy is draining the life out of me though and another week from now, I may be the equivalent of a human sized beach ball with too much air in it.”

I titter and check over my shoulder before continuing. “Well, if you decide not to go then can I have your ticket please? I want to go and watch Molly race, so she knows I'm not giving up on her, no matter how much she pushes me away.”

“Oh Ky, that’s so sweet,” She coos and I fight the prideful grin that wants to light up my face. “Yeah, of course you can have it. I’m assuming you don’t want Molly to know you’re coming to watch her, right?” I nod, even though she can’t see me. “Yeah, don’t tell her. I want her to see me in the crowd and know I was watching her, even when she continues trying to convince herself that we’re not right for each other, I'm not just giving up”

“Ok, I’ll keep my lips firmly sealed and I’ll send the ticket over now.” “Thanks Cal,” I whisper as the stomping of ice skates floods my ears. “Gotta go.”

Chapter 33

Molly

My nail is almost bitten completely down to the flesh by Friday evening, and my neck starts to sweat every time I think about the race tomorrow. It’s the regional qualifiers and the shaky leg syndrome I’ve developed over the past few weeks, isn’t helping to boost my confidence tonight, as I sit on the edge of my mattress with my nail between my teeth, as usual. Every time I’ve tried to beat my target during training lately, I’ve fallen short. My legs start to tense, shake and cramp up when I push my speed and try to reach the finish line. My team mates have been consistently smashing me on the track and I know Mike’s nerves are skyrocketing along with mine, at the thought of me not qualifying tomorrow. It’s always been a given that I’d compete for Redwood at the regional competitions and maybe I was naive to think nothing could shake my world like Kyle has. He’s made my focus totally shift and cause the usually natural ability to run like a cheetah, disappear into thin air when I need it the most. I haven’t spoken to him since the phone call, when I smashed his heart a little more than I already had, when I left him in his bedroom three weeks ago. You know, where he confessed his love for me and pretty much span my head in every direction?

Tomorrow’s competition is what I should be thinking about right now, the most important race of my running career. But instead, I'm sat here, chewing on my finger and pining so damn hard after the only man I’ve ever loved. The man who loves me back so much, it makes me melt into a fucking puddle when I think about it. He’s all that’s spinning around in my mind all the fucking time and I have no idea how I'm supposed to focus tomorrow without spilling my feelings for him first. The constant spinning that’s turned my brain into an out of control merry go round, has just about driven me to distraction and frankly I think I'm done, done with all of this denial that I’ve been drowning in the past three weeks. I’m tired of pretending I don’t love Kyle, that I don’t want every single part of what he’s offering me. I just need to tell someone, even if it’s not him just yet. Luckily for me, I can hear my best friend scolding Sean in our dorm room kitchen, telling him not to eat her stash of popcorn for the tenth time this week. Sean is such a softie with her, but he’s even softer with any type of salty snack. If it’s in his line of vision, then consider it gone before you even get chance to smell it. I get up and pad down the hallway towards the kitchen before I can change my mind, letting the word vomit do it’s thing. “I think I want it.” I blurt, as Callie and Sean’s head's both swivel towards me, their eyebrows mirroring each other when they rise into their hairline. Callie shakes her curls, emerald eyes scrunched shut. “I’m sorry…what?” “I don’t want to want it, but I think I want it.” I sigh, landing my ass on the barstool opposite the two of them, watching their expressions twist deeper into confusion. I have no idea how to say what I'm trying to get across to them, I’ve never been good at turning my feelings into words and sharing them with others. Especially feelings like love, which I'm totally unfamiliar with, this feels alien to me.

“Mol,” Sean says carefully, turning to Callie for backup. “I think I can speak for both of us when I say, we have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uhhh,” I groan, getting to my feet and letting them pace my body back and forth. My fingers dig deep into the roots of the blonde waves that hang loose for a change. “What you two have I mean…” I glance up at them both, a wave of understanding crashing over them at the same time. “I want it.” My voice has turned to a squeak now, finally letting the words so effortlessly fall from my tongue, when I thought for the past three weeks that they were stuck there forever. I know it needs to be Kyle that I tell all of this to, but for now it’s one step at a time. I'm telling my best friend first, before I dive in head first and tell the man who’s driving me insane with need.

“Oh, that,” Callie says, realisation coating her expression, as she fists a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

Sean scoffs and Callie flickers a fleeting, uninterested gaze towards him. “That?” He widens his bright eyes towards his pregnant girlfriend, who barely even acknowledges his question. “Wow, you really do love me don’t you?”

Callie throws him a lazy shrug. “Of course I do…most of the time.” “See! That,” I wag a finger between the two of them. “That’s what I want, like a best friend and a boyfriend rolled into one.” I land back on the barstool and run a relieved hand down my face. Having finally said what I want out loud feels nice, like a weight has lifted that I didn’t know I was carrying until now. “I want the banter, the cuddles and the late night phone calls and missing each other and—”

“Let me stop you right there.” Callie snaps a finger up to silence me, her green eyes fierce with frustration. “You know you have someone offering you all of that on a silver platter right? Blonde hair, about six-foot-two, muscles like a Greek God?”

“Hey,” Sean nudges her with his shoulder and throws me a wink that Callie can’t see. “Watch it.”

Callie’s lips pull into a smirk. “Ring any bells Mol? He’s pining after you and here you are saying you want everything that man is offering you. Yet you’re still being a stubborn bitch about talking this all through with him.” She huffs a sigh and lays a soft hand on her round belly. “It’s great that you’re getting your feelings off your chest, but it’s really not us you should be telling, it’s Kyle and he’s desperate to hear it Mol. He thinks you don’t want to be with him, that he loves you and for what? Because it’s only sex that you think he’s good for.”

“That’s not true!” A tear escapes, a frustrated one, an angry one, I don’t know. All I know is that, I don’t like the truth that’s falling from my best friend’s lips right now.

Callie sighs again, much heavier this time and the ferocity that was behind her bright eyes has melted into empathy. “I know it’s not true, but he doesn’t, that’s the whole point.”

Oh my god, she’s right, she’s so fucking right.

How could I have been so dense? Of course Kyle doesn’t know any of this, every sign I’ve given him since he confessed his feelings for me has been cold and uncaring. How the hell would he know that he’s all I think about? How I'm battling with myself every single day, to give up this fight and just be with him, like I so desperately want to be? How could he possibly know any of that, when my actions have told him I feel the exact opposite? He’s not mind reader and I’ve definitely been blind to that fact for the last three weeks. All I've done is torture him and I can’t believe I’ve been so fucking stupid as to miss that. Whilst I’ve lay in my bed, pining over him, rather than just telling him that I love him too, so much sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe without him.

The weekend is tomorrow and after my qualifier race — that I know, almost certainly, I'm going to fuck up — I’ll go to Kyle’s house and tell him everything. The sloshing in my stomach at the though of actually telling him how I feel, is something I’ll just have to learn to ignore. Because I can’t carry on killing us both slowly like this, purely because I'm scared of something I have no right being scared of.

Love isn’t the problem in my life. It wasn’t love’s fault that my parents abandoned me, it wasn’t love’s fault that they chose drugs over their child. It was them, they’re not good people and they have major problems in their life. This is nothing to do with Kyle, his love for me is so fucking pure, so uncompromising and he doesn’t need anything from me in return. He’s willing to give his love to me and let me do whatever I want with it, even if that means hurting him, he’ll take it all in the process.

But I don’t want to carry on hurting him. I love that man, more than I thought it was possible to love anyone, and I intend to force the words out of my mouth to ensure he knows just how deep my feelings for him run. My phone starts to ring around 8pm, just as my eye lids are starting to droop. I try desperately to continue scrolling on TikTok, even though my brain is fighting me, wanting to drag me into sleep. The truth is, I'm terrified to fall asleep because the next time I open my eyes it will be Saturday, the day I'm dreading for more than one reason now. Not only do I have to go and publicly humiliate myself in front of my teammates and every other fucker from Redwood who comes to watch me fail to qualify for regionals. But I also have to face my biggest fear, of seeing Kyle in person for the first time in three weeks and telling him how I truly feel about him. I’m not sure which one I'm more nervous for, but for now, I’ll let my mum distract me through the phone.

“Hey Mum, everything ok?” I say, trying to muffle my voice with my pillow to not wake Callie. The walls in this dorm are so damn thin, sometimes my breathing alone is enough to wake her.

“Yeah, all good here honey, just calling to wish you luck for tomorrow. I’m so sorry we can’t be there, but with Ellie being so unwell it wouldn’t fair to force her into a car for two hours, to then sit outside in the heat.” “No, it's ok Mum, I understand. How is she?” I whisper, as the squeaking of Callie’s mattress next door lets me know she’s stirring, even as I attempt to keep my voice as quiet as humanly possible.

My little sister Ellie has come down with an awful virus over the past week. She’s been throwing up any tiny morsel of food that my mum and dad try to feed her, and it got so bad two days ago that she had to stay overnight in hospital on a drip to keep her fluid levels up. I considered driving home and staying with her, but Dad insisted I stay at Redwood to focus on my training. Little do either of my parents know, that I'm failing in every aspect of my life right now, especially with sprinting. I would never tell my parents this, but I'm secretly glad they’re not coming to watch me crash and burn tomorrow. Maybe their support would spur me on and give me the boost I need to qualify. But I'm not convinced anything other than Kyle could do that for me now and it’s unlikely he’ll be there, after I pretty much told him to go and fuck someone else because I don’t want him. The worst part is, I didn’t mean one god damn word of it. The thought of him even looking at another woman, sends my possessive adrenaline into overdrive, making my palms sweaty and mind drown in way too violent thoughts.

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