Don't Give Up On Us.

The rain fell hard against the pane of Kennedy's bedroom window. I was staring out at the small droplets for a while, with a red fleece blanket around me and Kennedy sound asleep on my left. When my thoughts ever got fumbled in my head, I'd pray that it'd rain every time. It's something about the liquid which falls from the sky that helps me get all my thoughts, well, together. John kept texting me every five minutes questioning about how I didn't call him yesterday, and why I wouldn't reply to his messages. Every time his name popped up on my phone, I simply locked my screen; avoiding any type of communication with him. I don't know why he had been so clingy lately, though. I mean, the boy only spent the night once yet he expects me to call him every second of the day. But then again, I also felt guilty, because, he probably just wants to hang out.
"Maybe I should talk to John..." I thought to myself.
I was just about to go to the bathroom to call him, until Kennedy suddenly figited which caused me to jump.
"Oh, I'm sorry I scared you," Kennedy laughed. "Good morning, beautiful."
He rubbed his eyes, then gave me a light kiss on my forehead.
"Good morning, Kennedy. How'd you sleep?" I patted the top of his head.
"I slept well. With you by my side, at least." He smiled at me with tired eyes. Kennedy and I went silent for a moment, until he grabbed my waist and pulled me to his side.
"Kennedy, let me go!" I kicked and squealed in his arms, but the more I complained, the tighter he held on.
"Never!" He cooed in my ear. He rolled me over and hovered above me.
"Please!" I tried to say as he continuously kissed my neck and tickled my thighs.
"Kiss me first," Kennedy puckered his lips and held his eyes shut. I gave him a small kiss on the cheek, then finally broke free from his arms. I ran into the bathroom, locking the door shut, then dialed John's number.

"Hello.." I heard that familiar hoarse voice say on the other line.
"John?" I furrowed my eyebrows at the different tone in his voice. He sounded kind of, upset.
"What is it?" He spit at me.
"Wait wait, are you okay?"
"Uh not really, why?"
"Well, what's wrong?" I paced back and forth in front of Kennedy's bathroom sink, desperately waiting for John to say something.
"Why have you been ignoring me?" He finally said.
"What're you-"
"You haven't been responded to any of my messages or my calls. Did I do something wrong?" He interrupted me.
"What? Not at all, it's just... I can't... I can't like you, John." I briefly said.
"...Who said I liked you?"
I went silent for a moment. I felt so stupid, and I wanted to take back that last sentence I said to him.
"Kaitlyn, I never said I didn't, don't take it the wrong way. But... Who told you? Even if I did, why are you holding me back?"
"There's just... There's actually quite a few reasons why, John... Look, can you come over later? Maybe, 7:30? We should talk, uh, face to face." I bit my lip, waiting for an answer.
"Yeah. See you later,"
The line then went dead, and I leaned back against the sink.
You can't tell John about you and Kennedy, Kaitlyn. I told myself. It'd either: A) Hurt him or B) Make him feel awkward. Either way, it won't be any easier to expose myself with Kennedy.
My train of thoughts got disrupted when I heard a knock on the bathroom door.
"Yes?" My head quickly turned towards the door.
"It's Kennedy. Wanna get breakfast?" He yelled through the door.
I opened up the door with my hand on the knob and my eyes locked on his. His beautiful hazel eyes made me just want to kiss him, right then and there.
"I uh, I think I'm gonna go home now. Julia wants me to spend some time with her," I lied. I really just wanted to lay in my bed for hours and hours to just think until it was time for John to come over.
"Oh, well alright then. That's fine. Want me to walk you back to your house then?" He leaned against the door frame.
"Only if you wanna!" I kissed his cheek and started for his laundry room to change back to my clothes, and he followed.
I was about to put my tank top back on, until I noticed Kennedy eye-ing me.
"Excuse me!" I playfully said.
Kennedy blinked a few times to snap out of whatever he was thinking of.
"Turn around, mister." I grabbed both his shoulders and faced him toward the opposite wall.

"Thanks for walking me home, babe. You're the best." I stood on my tip-toes and planted a kiss on Kennedy's soft lips.
"It's really not a problem at all. You only live like, 10 feet away," He laughed.
"Well call me later on, tonight, okay?" My hands were on his chest as he leaned his forehead against mine.
"Done deal. Text me when you can, please." He leaned down and kissed me one more time before walking back to his house.

I entered my house to the sight of scattered boxes full of picture frames and what looked like, very valuable antique jewelry. I followed the trail of cardboard boxes which led to my sister's room.
"What is all this?" I motioned my hands to the cluttered boxes that spread around the room.
"These are all from Mom and Dad's house. Someone's finally willing to buy their place." Julia was folding Dad's old button-up's and placing them in the boxes.
"Well what are you gonna do with this stuff?" I looked inside a box and saw old family pictures of me, Julia, Mom, and Dad.
"I think I'm gonna store them in the attic. Wanna help?" She picked up the items and started for the attic across the hall.
Before taking a shower, I brought two boxes into the attic.

After finishing a nice, hot shower, the bathroom was foggy and very humid. I wrapped my towel around my small frame and looked at the mirror. I was about to examine myself, to see if I had finally gained a little weight, but, instead I saw very faint words drawn onto the mirror with, I'm guessing, a finger. I squinted my eyes and finally made out the words that had been printed on the mirror: John had written "Hey, I love you! <3 :) -John" on the mirror a year and a half ago, when we were dating and actually in love.

"John! I'm showering, get out!" I laughed and squeeled as John tried pulling the shower curtains.
"Let me in, babe! I'm in my swim trunks!" John stood on the ledge of the bath shower, attempting to peek over at my bare body inside.
"Yeah, well I'm not, I'll be out soon. Chill your titties, John!" I popped my soapy head out of the shower as he stole a kiss from my lips.
"Wait here, then! I'm gonna go get something from your room. You better not fucking move!" John sprinted to my room and came back with something in his hands.
"What do you have there, mister?" I cooed when I heard his return.
John threw one of my bikin's into my shower.
"Why'd you give me my swimsuit?" I rinsed the sudsy substance out of my hair with the warm running water.
"You have two minutes to change into it. After time's done, I'm coming in whether you're ready or not." John shouted from the other side of the shower.
I scoffed at him before throwing on the fitted bikini.

"Well since you've gotten my bathroom SOAKING WET," I scrunched my wet hair with a towel as I spoke to John. "How about you help me clean up?"
"How about something better?" He fiddled with the ties of the bottoms of my swimsuit.
"Oh yeah? What's that?" I looked up at him with my hand on his chest.
"Com'ere." John grabbed me by my waist and kissed me roughly on the lips. It was quite enjoyable; his tongue twirled with mine as I smiled in between the kiss. John then tried to seductively tug on my lip, but I started to pull away, which made my lip bleed.
"Ow! Fuck John! You suck at that!" I furrowed my eyebrows at him while my mouth hung open and I examined my lip to see if it was bleeding.
"I'm sorry baby, I didn't mean to do that!" John smiled at me and tried to pull me into a hug. I playfully pushed him away, simply playing along that I was "mad at him".
"I hate you, you little bastard." I stuck my tongue out at him and sat on top of my toilet.
"Don't say that, sweetie. You know you love me, because I love you a lot," He pushed out his bottom lip and gave me the puppy dog eyes.
"You're false." I turned away from his vulnerable look and dabbed my bottom lip with a paper towel.
John walked over to my bathroom mirror that had been foggy, and decided to write letters I couldn't quite read.
"What're you doing?" I got up from the bathroom toilet and stood behind him.
"It says, Hey I love you <3 :)" John signed his name at the bottom and turned around facing me.
"Oh really?" I crossed my arms and looked up at him.
"Yes, really. Kaitlyn, I love you so very much. Forever and, pretty much, fucking always. There's nothing in this world that can possibly separate me from you."

A tear had fallen from my eye as I replayed the bittersweet memory of John and I's past relationship. I quickly sniffled my nose and checked my phone for any new notifications. It was already 4:30, and I had one text message from Pat.
4:22 Pattycakes!:
HAY GURL HAY. IM LYK TOTES AT UR HOUSE RYT NAO WATCHING FULL HOUSE WIT YO SEESTER, SO WHENS YA GET OUDDA DA SHOWR, CUM DOWNSTURZ 'ND HANG OUT WIF ME. ok love you bye

I laughed at his complete nonsense of grammar, but then headed to my closet to change.

I ran down the steps to see Pat sitting on my couch conversing with my older sister.
"Having fun?" I took a seat next to Pat.
"We were talking about your gay boyfriends you dated in 9th grade." Julia laughed.
"Major faggots. Anyways, wanna go get some dinner or something?" Pat rested his arm on the top of the couch behind my back.
"Julia, can I get something with him?" I leaned over Pat asking Julia.
"I guess. I think I'm gonna go over Jacob's house. His family wants me over. Ugh, they're so annoying." She got up and turned the TV off.
"Then why are you dating him?" I asked.
"Because I love HIM. That's all that matters. K y'all can go. Take my car, I have $40 in there if that's enough for you guys, and because I know Pat can't drive well... At all." She sipped her beer and walked up to her room.
"Alright so what do you wanna eat?" I asked Pat.
"Let's go to Olive Garden, I want some pasta!" Pat raced me to the car, and, of course, I had beat him.

"So how are you and Johno?" Pat twisted strings of pasta onto his fork and injected it into his mouth, leaving pasta sauce on his lips.
"Umm... We're, good? I don't know why you randomly brought him up." I held my hair back as I took a entered a fork full of salad into my mouth.
"Dude, he likes you and I told you this already. But what I mean is, has he showed you signs of it yet?" Pat asked me.
"Umm... Well, uh..." I started.
"What! What is it!? Spill the damn beans!" Pat shouted.
"Shh, shh! Okay!" I wiped my mouth with my napkin. "Well, the other night, me and him were kind of, uh, like... cuddling and I fell asleep in his arms. But the things is, he knows I like Kennedy. So, I invited him over later tonight, to, y'know, just talk, I guess."
"Woah, man. Now everything makes sense...." Pat didn't look me in the eye as he took a sip of his water.
"What do you mean?" I leaned in to hear him closer.
"Well, John's been writing a song the past few days. It's called like, I can't exactly remember the name... Like, Something You're my Anything, or Give me Something... I don't know. You'll have to ask him. But he showed me the lyrics and it pretty much explains everything..." Pat grabbed a french bread and stuffed his face.
"Do you think I should ask him about it tonight?" I looked at Pat devouring the Italian food.
"Don't do it like, straightforward-ly, but like yeah, make him fess up about it."
"Okay," I looked down at my plate while Pat nodded his head. "And one more thing," I added.
"Yeah,"
"Should I tell him I'm dating Kennedy?"
Pat's mouth hung open as his french bread fell out of his hands.
"You're, what?" Pat reassured.
"I'm dati-"
"No, no I heard you.... I'm REALLY happy for you two, but, how long has this been going on for?" Pat picked up his breadstick and continued chomping.
"Kinda like, yest...erday..." I scratched the back of my head.
Pat's mouth made an 'O' shape as I gave him a small grin.
"Well, no, you shouldn't tell him. At least not yet. The poor guy thinks he has a chance with you again, ever since you've forgiven him. Just try to drop hints that you wanna be just friends, and keep cool. Let Kennedy tell him, or help you tell him."
"Alright then. Thanks, Patty." I forced a smile on my face.
"Don't ever call me that again, Pham-tastic." Pat pursed his lips together and crossed his arms.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You ready to go?" I took a sip of my water before standing up to stretch my legs.
"Yup, let's head out." Pat took two more breadsticks before leaving Olive Garden with me.