You Promised Me the World

“This is a really bad idea,” Kennedy mumbled as he slid into the passenger seat of Garrett’s car.

“No it’s not,” he sighed as he put the keys in the ignition and sped off.

“What if she’s there?”

Garrett rolled his eyes. “She’s not going to be there.”

Kennedy had been acting like this the moment he had gotten out of the shower. It started with the fuss of what he was going to wear; most of his clothes were dirty, he hadn’t gotten around to doing laundry yet. Next came the fuss over his keys and phone, it seemed that he had misplaced both between the time he had come home from band practice the week before and the time he had begun living in his bed.

He had taken it all as a sign, that this idea was an awful one. He wanted to just crawl back inside of his bed and sleep away another day, maybe try and do this another time. Instead, with Garrett’s push, Kennedy was sitting shot gun in his yellow mess of a car and watching the familiar streets roll by.

The walk up Max’s drive way was probably the longest walk of Kennedy’s life. Garrett had raced ahead of him, stopped and turned to look at his friend who was lagging significantly behind

“A ninety year old walks faster then that Kennedy, come on,” he said dramatically.

Rolling his eyes, Kennedy nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

Garrett burst through the front door with his arms held above his head; Kennedy could hear the loud welcoming shouting of his friends from outside on the front steps. He could only imagine what they would say once they saw him, how fast he would have a drink in hand.

“Look at who I found,” Garrett said smugly as both boys walked further into the house.

“Is that Kennedy?”

“No, it can’t be.” He heard from the small kitchen before another welcoming round of shouts ushered him in.

He had missed this.

The night wore on, Kennedy had been caught up on everything he had missed and he was now six drinks deep. That buzz was just starting to creep up on him, the buzz he had always loved to live in for a while. He couldn’t deny that he was having a good time, finding it great to laugh and to even smile again. He hadn’t thought of Emma for hours, his mind completely off of the situation. He reminded himself to thank Garrett for dragging him out later.

While everyone had wandered outside or to other corners of the house, Kennedy found himself staring at the pictures that had been neatly tapped up against one wall. It was a visual documentation of almost every event, from birthdays to New Years, theme parties and just regular get-togethers. He couldn’t help but smile at all of the great memories they had managed to get on film.

He noticed that the wall of pictures had seemed a little thinned out since the last time he had seen it. At first he chalked it up to being a bit drunk, his eyes just playing tricks on him. But as he looked further, some space could be seen very obviously in certain spots. Looking a little bit closer Kennedy realized why, she was missing. Max had taken down all of the photographs with Emma in them, most likely on Kennedy’s behalf and out of respect.

Then he came across it, Max had missed it. It was the first night she had been to a party thrown by Max without another friend, or another girl who was dating somebody. It was a candid, she wasn’t posing, and she didn’t even know the picture was being taken. She was standing with a girl who Kennedy couldn’t remember the name of, both wearing white dresses which felt a little ironic. Emma’s auburn hair was piled up in a messy ponytail; hand brought up to instinctively brush the bangs from her eyes.
This was how Kennedy liked her, candid, herself, natural. It was when she looked the most beautiful; those were the moments that would always tug on Kennedy’s heart.

_______________________________________________________________________

It had been a long day for Emma; she had pulled a double shift at the small diner she worked at because one of the other girls had gotten sick.

She had never been fond of waking up at six am, especially to drag herself into a diner and serve breakfast to the same old people who would come in. She had thought about quitting twenty times that day alone, a thought that often plagued her when she had to pull doubles. If she didn’t need the money so badly, she wouldn’t think twice of putting in her two weeks.

As she tugged the black vans away from her sore feet, she placed her purse on the ratty old kitchen table. A shower was the only thing on her mind at the moment; she smelt of grease and stale coffee and needed to take care of it quickly.

A few of her friends had wanted to meet up for dinner, and Emma had promised she would try and make it if it wasn’t too late. She glanced at the time and nodded, she had enough of it to get herself ready and make it to dinner.

Trudging down the narrow hallway, she flicked on the bathroom light before turning to step inside of her bedroom. She looked at the bed, dying to fall inside of the fluffy white comforter and sleep. The stench of her diner covered body then wafted up to her nose, reminding her of the task at hand.

Pressing the power button on her stereo, she heard the grinding of the gears as it loaded the first CD. When the soft sounds of Jack’s Mannequin filled her ears she smiled, turning up the volume she sifted through her drawers and grabbed a few items of clothing. Tossing them on her bed she noticed something sitting on her bedside table, it was a blank CD that she had borrowed from Justin when she had gone to Max’s the other night. She had grabbed two just in case, but really had only needed the one. She had been meaning to return it, but with the way her work schedule had been she just didn’t have the time.

Shrugging it off for the moment she walked back towards her bathroom, turning on the hot water and sighing. As she climbed in and let the perfect temperature of the water wash every speck of grease and food from her skin, and ease her aching muscles, she smiled. This was no relaxing bath, but it would do.

Drying off and quickly getting ready, Emma was set to go. As she glanced around her room to make sure she had everything she needed, she spotted the CD once more. Grabbing it, she assumed it wouldn’t hurt to stop by before going to dinner. It was on the way anyway, which made perfect sense.

Stepping back out of her apartment Emma walked towards her car, dialing her friend Jane’s number.

“Janie,” Emma said quickly into the phone, hearing the loud laughter of the other girls. Unlocking her car door, she slid into the driver’s seat. “Listen I have to make a quick stop to drop something off, so I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Placing her phone down once she was done with her call, Emma threw her car into drive and was on her way through the familiar streets. It didn’t take her long to pull up to Max’s house, she could tell he had people over with the line of cars out front. She didn’t bother to check and make sure she recognized any of them; she would only be a minute.

Letting herself in, she heard noise coming from the bedroom closest to her. It was the faint sound of a guitar, soft and quiet unlike the rest of the house. Knocking gently she cracked open the door and smiled at the boy who sat on the mattress.

“Justin Richards,” she announced, seeing him look towards the door, but never stop strumming the guitar.

Emma and Justin had known each other for just about as long as the guys knew him. She had become great friends with him, finding out after her break up with Kennedy that he was good at making people laugh.

“Hey Em, what are you doing here?”

“I came to give you back your blank CD actually,” she laughed, pulling the case from her purse.

He had now stopped strumming the guitar and stood, taking the CD from her hand with a short laugh.

“You didn’t need to give it back,” he shrugged, tossing it down on the bed.

Shrugging her own shoulders, Emma pulled the strap of her purse up. “Well I thought I should, since I didn’t really need it after all. I have to go though,” she added in a hurried tone.

“You can’t stay for a drink or something?” Justin asked, pulling the bedroom door open for her as he followed her out into the hall.

“No, I’m meeting the girls for dinner. Maybe next time though,” she gave him a small smile.

Opening his arms, Justin pulled Emma into a hug. The pair exchanges little pecks on the cheek, before breaking apart.

“Alright, I’ll call you. You’re sure that you don’t need that CD?”

“No don’t worry about it, I just needed the one. Thanks though Justin,” she grinned, turning her body to head out the front door. She could hear the faint sound of voices coming closer, being able to just barely make out the conversation.

“Max, friend wall looks a little thin,” Kennedy commented.

“Yeah uh, it got a little crowded,” he coughed.

“You missed one man,” Kennedy said, the sound of a thud and footsteps could be heard.

It was as if Emma’s legs had frozen into place with the sound of his voice. Her feet had stopped just short of the large wooden door, feeling that if she moved she would be caught.

“Kenny I wouldn’t…”

She turned at Max’s warning, every feature on her face dropped.

His face twitched, but instead of his features dropping to match hers his eyebrow rose. She could see the faint hint of a smirk forming. “Didn’t know you were still welcome,” he said casually.

Her jaw clenched at the ice in his voice. She narrowed her eyes at him before she spoke. “What gave you that idea?”

“I was just letting Max know, ironically, he missed one of your pictures on the wall.”

She looked beyond Kennedy, seeing a sympathetic Max holding up the photograph.

“Max didn’t take them down Kennedy,” she said softly, bringing her eyes back towards her ex-boyfriend.

Now his features shifted, dropped into confusion. “Huh?”

“Max didn’t take them down,” she repeated. “I did.”