Back To Promises

Back to Promises: Prologue

         Promise. It’s a very strong word, stronger than hate, or depressed, or miserable, or maybe even blissful. A promise is something one person guarantees another. It might be something small, for example, one might promise another that they will turn out the lights when they leave the room. However, it can be something big too. Maybe somebody promises to keep somebody else safe. Can you really go through with that? No one knows, because none of us can predict the future. Sorry if you’re reading this and you are actually a future-teller and are good at your job. If that’s the case, then congrats. That’s pretty awesome. Feel free to contact me and tell me what my future is, because I would love to know. Ok so back to promises. They should always be something you actually plan on going through with. I know I wouldn’t want someone to make me a promise and be lying about it. So before you make a promise, think about it and if you will carry it out, or let that person down. I have this thing with keeping promises. It is like an annoying itch, always burning inside of me. I always stay true to them. I guess that’s what made this summer so hard. You see, my four best friends and I made a very big promise to each other. We were all sitting around the campfire in Peyton’s yard, with Harper playing her guitar, and Sadie, Sierra, Peyton and I dancing around, when Sierra stopped, sighed, and said,

“Guys, it’s almost summer.”

         Sierra is like that, always worrying. She’s a ballerina, so I guess she has a lot to worry about. But I applaud her because she keeps us all in check with her constant negative atmosphere. She is the one in the group with the most pressure and stress because of her dancing. She goes to practice every day for hours. It pays off because she is really good at what she does, and even got into a fancy camp or something in Russia this summer. Her redish-brown hair is always either in a ballerina bun, or draped around her shoulders. She has the lightest shade of brown eyes possible, causing you to constantly stare at them to check and see if they are real. She usually covers up her freckles for ballet with make-up, but not for anything else.

“Come on Sie, we still have all night!” Sadie said.

         Sadie is the wild one. She has a lot of money, a lot of beauty and a lot of charm. I swear, she can change your mood in an instant. She can also have you wrapped around her finger pretty quick too. Her parents are millionaires, and she has a twin brother, which means she is daddy’s little girl who gets whatever she wants. She has a new hair color every year, and this year has been elected light brown. It’s the closest to her natural color she has ever gone, but knowing her, she probably doesn’t even remember that. It’s funny, because her bright blue eyes blend in with every hair color she has tried. She looked like a good ol’ southern girl when it was blond, and the black she just had made them really pop.

“I think we should make this summer interesting,” Peyton chimed in.

         Peyton Marie is probably the most noble of us. She is defiantly a born leader. Student Council President, head of the homecoming committee every year, and captain of our high school diving team, and she still has room to volunteer at the local nursing home every Friday after school. Everyone likes her, and she is constantly waving, smiling and saying hi to everyone she passes. Sometimes we call her ray, because one teacher said she was a ray of sunshine. Her dirty blond hair is always curled, and her blue eyes blend in with her aurora, especially when she wears her glasses. Her bold cheek bones shape her otherwise soft face, and she has perfectly white teeth. Her aunt offered for her to spend all summer up in New York City, and of course, she took it.

“I think we should take a nap,” was Harper’s response.

         Harper is the creative one. She considers herself a musician, and she convinced her parents to take her to Nashville this summer to see if she gets discovered. That is surprising because she is extremely lazy. Anyway, she loves to sing, and has played the guitar for as long as I can remember. Like Sierra, she is really good at what she does, and has gotten multiple jobs here in town to sing at weddings, parties and restaurants. She looks like a singer too. She has wavy, beach blond hair, and very fair skin, so of course she does not tan, just gets sunburned. She almost looks like a ghost, it’s quite funny. She has plain brown eyes, and is the tallest of us all.

“Why don’t we go make hot chocolate and talk about what we are going to do this summer?” I suggested.

         So then there is me, Evelyn. I am the quiet, sensitive one, but they all say I tend to talk too much when I get the chance. Being the most independent has its perks, and it’s down sides. For example, I can manage by myself, when most people need to interact with others a lot. But then again, I guess I talk too much when I get the chance because I hold it in so much. Well, I have dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. I guess I get pretty tan in the summer, and I write for the school’s newspaper. Oh, and I hate science. Yes, I guess you could call me the nerd of the group too.

         So that’s what we did. Once the hot water in the teapot screamed, we helped ourselves. You see, hot chocolate is our thing. Every weekend when we are together, which is most of the weekend, we drink hot chocolate. It doesn’t matter if it’s cold and raining, cold and snowing, hot and humid or warm and sunny. We all love it with a burning passion, but we all like it different. Sadie hates marshmallows in it, so she adds Hershey kisses. Harper, on the other hand, loves marshmallows in hers. Peyton always adds two packs of the chocolate mix, to make it rich and thick, and Sierra adds peppermints to hers. I like whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles in mine.

         After we got back outside, under the clear, cool stars, and around the crisp fire, we talked about our summers, sipping our hot chocolates. Like I said, Sierra is going to Russia, Sadie is staying home, Peyton is going to New York, Harper is going to Nashville, and me…I am going on a two month cruise around Central and South America. My parents have been saving for as long as I can remember to go on this trip. It has been something they have wanted to do since before they got married, so were going. I am excited about it, because I have always wanted to travel, and what better way to do it then on a giant boat, equipped with swimming pools, waterslides, restaurants, shops and a movie theatre, but I was scared. Why, you ask, because I wasn’t going to be able to be in contact with my four best friends for two months. That’s because we made a vow to not have contact with each other until we all got back at the end of the summer, when we would gather in the lonley old park on the west side of town and tell each other absolutely everything.