The Story of Us

It was freezing out. Pulling the blanket tighter around her, Kelley looked at Michelle and raised her eyebrows.
"Do you think I should try him again?" she asked, anxiously. Michelle shrugged, snuggling deeper into her parka and shivering against the brisk night air. Kelley rose from her delapitated lawn chair and quickly made her way to the pay phone secured to the side of the tall stone building. She tentatively lifted the receiver to her ear and dropped in her change, then dialed the familiar number and waited. No answer came, and after 7 rings, she sighed and replaced the receiver defeated. Plopping back down in her lawnchair beside Michelle, she glanced at her watch. Almost one am.
"You wanna go get some food? We can go up to Denny's" Kelley suggested. Anyplace indoors away from this cold would be better. Standing up, she folded her lawnchair neatly together and started back towards her tent with Michelle in tow. Throwing their lawnchairs to the side of the tent, her and Michelle climbed into her beat up old car and smiled at each other. It had been an interesting night so far.

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The dark night air surrounded him as he ran, ducking in and out of the bushes along side of the road. His lungs burned and his muscles cried out for a rest, but he pressed on. He was almost to the track. He could see the sign for the Relay and the hundreds of tiny candles surrounding the track flickering in the darkness. Several tents swayed slightly in the brisk breeze, and people wrapped in blankets and layered in jackets walked the track, chatting softly. His feet hit the soft dirt of the track and he circled it, looking for her beautifully familiar face. His third time around the track a small flutter of panic began inside his chest. What if she had left to look for him because he was so late. Or even worse, what if she had gone home? A hand grabbed his arm and he looked up to see Amanda, a friend from school grinning back at him from beneath a large, warm-looking hood.
"Ryan?? What are you doing here? I never expected you to come to something like this!" she exclaimed, laughing.
He grinned back, looking around quickly at the people passing by them.
"Do you know Kelley?" He asked.
She tucked in the corner of her mouth, thinking.
"Then one you're always going on and on about from your computer class?" she asked. He nodded. "Yeah, she was here earlier, but I think I heard someone mention that she was going up to Denny's with a small group of people....."
He took off before she finished and she called after him, but all he could hear was the sound of his feet hitting the pavement as he ran towards the restaurant, and, hopefully, Kelley.

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Kelley sighed and looked out the window next to the booth. Michelle and Amy were laughing hysterically and some story from earlier that day. Amy looked over at Kelley, raising her eyebrows.
"Who are you looking for?" she asked curiously.
Kelley smiled, thinking of the nights events and took a deep breath.
"Well, you know that guy I told you about from my computer class?" she asked.
"Yeah, Ryan right?" Kelley nodded.
"Well, he told me he would be working tonight, at the McDonalds just down the road. The way he said it, I thought he wanted me to stop by or something, so Michelle and I stopped in before we came to the Relay. We walked and I saw his head peek around the corner and he grinned at me like crazy. I ordered and we sat down and all of a sudden, he came bolting out of the kitchen saying he was on his break now and he sat down next to me. We talked the whole time and I told him about the Relay and how I would be there all night and just before we left, he grabbed my hand and pulled me back and told me he would stop by to see me at midnight. We waited and he didnt show. Michelle and I went to McDonalds to see if he got held up and I even tried calling him a bunch of times but there was no answer, so we came back to the Relay to wait I don't know, I guess I just figured he really would show up. I'm kind of bummed." Amy nodded sympathetically.
"Well, I'm sure there's a good reason he didn't show up. Maybe he couldn't get out of his house where it was so late or something." Amy said. Kelley nodded, smiling, then looked up to see their waitress stopping at their table with a tray loaded with steaming hot food.
The food was handed out promptly and Kelley grabbed the syrup container, drowning her pile of pancakes and grinning at Michelle who proclaimed, "You are lucky you haven't died of a heart attack eating like that!" and laughed. Picking up her fork, Kelley cut into the soggy pankcakes and stabbed through a pile, looking up to see Michelle and Amy's jaws drop.
"What?!" she asked, and gasped as Ryan plopped down into the booth next to her.

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He pushed the glass doors open and walked through them, welcoming the blast of heat and scanning the booths and tables for her. He spotted Michelle in a booth on the left near the window and recognized the back of Kelley's slightly blonde head. Taking a deep breath, he made his way to the booth, grinning as Michelle's jaw dropped, plopped down next to her. Her mouth hung open and she gasped, dropping her dripping forkful of pancakes. Her eyes momentarily seemed to swim in a thin layer of tears and it looked as though a wave of relief washed over her. She smiled, turning towards him more.
"What are you doing here?!?!?" she asked breathlessly.
"I pinky swore I would be here. I would never break a pinky swear to you. Theyre sacred. Now eat your pancakes." He said, smiling slightly and replacing the fork in her hand gently. She smiled, took the fork, and his head swam with how she made him feel. Tonight was different. Tonight was the beginning of something he had waited a lifetime for.



****************************More to Come In Chapter 2*************************************

Climbing out of the small, white Nissan, Ryan closed his eyes and breathed in the crisp night air deeply. He opened his eyes and stared across at Kelley’s slender frame emerging from the drivers side of the car all wrapped in her fluffy quilt. Chuckling under his breath, he shut held the door open for Michelle to climb out of the backseat and closed the door firmly behind her. Quickening his pace, he caught up with Kelley as she approached a short green tent and tugged on a corner of the quilt that enveloped her. She turned, a small smile playing on her lips and looked up at him inquisitively. He smiled at her, watched Michelle climb into the tent and watched as Kelley turned to follow her. He bent, parting the zippered screen doorway to the flimsy tent and knelt to enter it, zipping it securely behind him and sitting beside Kelley. A shiver went through his body and he realized quickly how nervous he was. Gulping in a deep breath of air to try and calm his nerves, he smiled down at Kelley as she arranged her quilt under her and offered him a corner, her smile nervous but her eyes trying valiantly to portray complete calm. He took the corner and lay down on his side next to her, sticking his left arm out so her head rested in the nook where his shoulder met his arm. She lay there, snuggling down into the quilt a little more with her arms nervously clamped at her sides. He pulled the quilt up and settled it just under her chin and watched as fought away sleep. Her eyelids fluttered and her breathing deepened, and as she slipped into slumber, her face relaxed and he watched as a small smile settled on her lips. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her, and, not wanting to disturb her, he lay just that way the remainder of the night, fending off to sleep to absorb every last amazing minute of her being in his arms. She had rested her hand lightly against his chest and her head was cuddled up to his shoulder. His arm had fallen asleep and he shivered against the cold that had permeated every inch of his body long ago, but he smiled, unmoving, unsleeping and knew that this was it. She was it. His angel.

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Silvery rays of early morning light teased at Kelley’s eyelids, and she groaned, sliding her right eye open enough to take in the brightly lit tent. Closing her eye again, she suddenly became acutely aware of a warm, hard surface that her hand was resting on and her breath caught in her throat as her eyes flew open and met with a pair of bright green ones merely inches from her own. Strangling a gasp somewhere deep in her chest, she realized it was Ryan, and, pushing herself up on her elbow, she noticed his arm still poised under where she had been laying, a soft smile on his lips as he watched everything start to make sense in her head. He had stayed the whole night. He had slept there with her. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, she just didn’t want him to go home. She had meant to sit up talking to him into the wee hours of the morning. When had she fallen asleep?? Oh god, she thought suddenly. Did she snore? Did she……..he must have noticed the thoughts and questions whizzing through her brain because he sat up and gently lifted her chin to look at him, smiling, he asked, “Did you sleep well?”

She relaxed a little, her cares melting away in the glow of his affection for her, his green eyes sparkling and probing her to the soul. She shivered, a nervous chill skittering up her spine. Looking over his shoulder, Kelley noticed that Michelle still lay burrowed in her sleeping bag breathing evenly in her deep slumber, a tuft of her hair sticking out the top. Ryan followed her eyes and they chuckled together and fell back down onto the pillow, yanking the quilt up over them. His eyes glinting mischievously, Ryan grabbed the edge of the quilt and pulled it up over their heads, snuggling closer to her. His face was inches from hers, his eyes glowing. His breath was hot on her face and her nerves racked the inside of her. She became extremely aware of his hand on her arm, the other on the small of her back, hers on his muscular chest. She could feel the faint flutter of his beating rapidly beneath the soft thing material of his shirt. It tapped insistently against her fingertips and suddenly a feeling of being exactly where she belonged washed over her. She looked at him again, his lips so close she could imagine how they tasted, and it was if her head moved of its own accord and suddenly his lips were on hers, smooth and gentle and shivers overtook her body, chills pulsing through every inch of her. Her eyes slid closed as his tongue outlined her lips and tentatively sought hers out and she couldn’t remember a time when she had felt more alive. She was home, in this boy who had been her best friend for so long. She was finally home. The kiss slowed then ended and he pulled away a few inches, brushing a stray piece of hair from across her forehead and replacing it with a light kiss. He looked her in the eye and a small grin lit up his face even more.

“I knew it.” He said quietly.
“Knew what?” she asked, still basking in the glow of their first kiss.
“I love you.”
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