A PROMISE KEPT: Book 1 in the 'Promises' Series

by Cece Peters

  After college, I had managed to avoid Molly on social media by blocking her on every single site I was on. And since I had not been to the previous reunion, I had almost forgotten about her. But now she had spotted Krista and me and was making her way over with her oh-so-bright fake toothy grin. I put a strained closed-mouth smile on my face and braced for her crushing hug.

  “Leah! Krista! Oh my God, it is so good to see you two! It’s been ages!” While Krista had made the five-year reunion and was connected with Molly on social media (“I’m just friends with her online so I can see what messes she’s getting into,” Krista insisted), this was my first time coming face-to-face with my nemesis in ten years.

  “Oh, Molly; how are you? I didn’t think you were going to make it,” Krista said as she was embraced by Molly, looking at me over Molly’s shoulder and giving me a roll of her eyes. “You look amazing, as always!” Krista made a gagging gesture and crossed her eyes.

  “I’m good, so good! So glad I was able to rework my schedule to make it!” exclaimed Molly, her fake eyelashes blinking a mile a minute as she tried to readjust them with her too-long manicured nails. “I’m so happy to run into you two; it’s been so long! Remember how we used to fight all the time, Leah?” she asked as she reached over and enveloped me in a crushing hug, her perfume overwhelming my senses. “Gosh, we were just awful when we were younger, weren’t we?”

  “Um, well,” I managed to mutter before being rendered speechless. Was she really saying we were in cohorts as far as the bullying went? As I racked my brain to come up with a response, Molly pulled back from hugging me, turned around, and said, “Matt, babe; come here, I have some friends I want you to meet!”

  Time suddenly seemed to stand still as a handsome man edged his way through the crowd and towards Molly. She reached out to grab his hand, and then turned to Krista and me to make the introductions.

  “Guys, this is…”

  “Matty?!” I interrupted her, in shock.

  “Matthew Boyd?” Krista said a split second behind me.

  “Leah? Is that really you?” Matthew stood stunned for a second before coming forward and pulling me to him and hugging me tightly, the same hug I had been on the receiving end of so often growing up. His adult body was different than from when we were teenagers, thicker and more solid; but his scent was the same.

  Matthew pulled back and held me at arm’s length. “Leah…. I can’t believe it’s you. It’s been so long. I had…no idea you went to school…here…or with…Molly,” Matthew stuttered, glancing back at Molly before gently letting go of me and stepping back. “And Krista? You, too? I just can’t believe it!” He leaned over to give Krista a side hug but did so without taking his eyes off me.

  As Matthew and I stared at each other, my mind reeled as memories from years ago rushed forward. This boy – now a man – who I had once loved so much but never thought I would see again – was now standing before me. It was what I had always secretly dreamed of happening one day, except in my fantasy he wasn’t dating the one person I hated most in this world.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I, um, am just…wow…Matty, how are you? I can’t believe you are here. And with…. Molly. I didn’t know that you two knew each other.” And how would I know, considering I had done everything to keep Molly blocked from my life. Plus, Molly must not have posted about Matthew on her social media or else Krista would have seen it.

  “Matty? I’ve never heard anyone call you that. How do you all know each other?” Molly demanded with a fake smile plastered across her face.

  “Leah and I were best friends growing up, from sixth grade into high school,” Matthew replied, still staring at me. “And Krista was a friend, too,” he added, turning his head a moment to nod in Krista’s direction before looking back at me. “We all hung out with the same group of friends. I moved away before our junior year of high school….and we lost touch.”

  “Wow, a boy and a girl being best friends? That is so odd! But I guess it would work with a goody two shoes like Leah, ha-ha! Right, Leah? You were always such a mousy little mouse!” Molly said, with a boisterous laugh. “Well, I wish I’d had known earlier; I could have put you two in touch!” Molly then looked me up and down before locking an arm possessively through Matthew’s. The four of us stood awkwardly for a few moments before Krista thankfully broke the tension.

  “Molly!” Krista said dramatically, “You’ll never guess who is here! Brooke Evans, remember her?”

  “Brooky is here? Oh my God, where,” Molly unhooked herself from Matthew and started frantically looking around.

  “Come, I’ll take you to her,” Krista said as she grabbed Molly’s arm and steered her away. “Leah, Matthew, you guys catch up, and I’ll circle back around in a bit,” Krista gave me a “we’ll talk later” look before disappearing with Molly into the crowd.

  “Wow, Leah,” Matthew said, stepping forward and taking my hands. “I can’t believe it’s you!” We backed out of the crowd of people towards a corner of the room, just holding each other’s hands and staring at one another.

  I was even more thankful I had taken those Xanax as I could feel the emotions rushing up inside of me, threatening to boil over. But that would be ridiculous, I told myself. You have just run into an old childhood friend. There is nothing to get emotional about. But that was a lie. This was Matty Boyd. Yes, he was my childhood best friend…. but he was also so much more. My mind was racing and I struggled to gain my composure.

  “I can’t believe it’s you, either! I never expected to see you here, obviously,” I finally managed to get out, giggling like a little girl and feeling my face turn red. “I mean, I guess I never expected to see you anywhere, ha-ha! It has been so long. I had no idea where you were.”

  And that was not for lack of trying on my part, at least a little bit, as I had started and stopped over the years to search online for my old friend. He never came up in any of the social media searches I did; although, truth be told, I was sure I could have tracked him down if I had started by looking at his father’s company. I was positive his dad was still with the same firm that he’d been working for when their family moved to California before our junior year of high school as he’d spent his entire career climbing the ladder there with ambitions to make it to the very top. However, I always got scared, feeling it was maybe best to leave the past in the past. Afterall, Matty and had only known each other as kids. And people change. Maybe Matty didn’t want to be found; maybe he didn’t want to hear from me, specifically. I was honestly a bit scared to find out what he might be like as an adult. Turns out I was right to be afraid; he had clearly changed if he was with Molly Timmerman.

  “Hey, let’s go sit outside. We need to catch up, in private” Matthew said while still holding on to my left hand to gently turn me around and lead me out onto the deck overlooking the golf course where there were lots of tables and chairs set up with reunion decorations on them. Only a few seats were taken, and it looked like by former classmates who also wanted to escape the noise from inside. I caught the eye of a few of them, giving them a smile and a nod, hoping to convey that I would talk to them later. Right now, I only had one focus, and that was talking to Matthew.

  “Wow. I cannot stop saying ‘Wow’! I’m just in shock that it’s really you,” Matthew said as we sat down at a table along the edge of the deck overlooking a lake, finally letting go of each other’s hands. I was struck that his hands were larger and stronger than I remembered, as of course they would be. He even had some hair on the back of them, I realized with a shock. He was, I quickly reminded myself, a man now.

  A waiter dressed in all black quickly approached our small table and asked if we wanted anything to drink. “Um…. how about two…. peach schnapps! Remember those, Leah?” Matthew started laughing at the memory, and I immediately joined in.

  “Oh my God, Sally McGregor sitting in homeroom making a list of alcohol for her sister to buy us! And at the top of the list was always peach schnapps. I th
ink they are to blame for why I rarely drink; just the smell of those things…” I broke off as we both began laughing again.

  “Well, we have to at least have a sip, for old time’s sake,” Matthew said as we both grinned at each other. The waiter retreated to get our drinks, leaving us alone again.

  “Yeah, old time’s sake,” I replied, embarrassed that I could feel tears threatening to well up. “So,” I said with false cheeriness to hopefully stop myself from crying, “what have you been up to all of these years? None of us ever heard from you after you moved out to California,” I said, trying hard not to let the hurt I felt come through in my voice. None of us meaning me, specifically, I thought, despite promises to call and write.

  Matthew was quiet for a moment, looking down at his hands, which were resting on the table, before he began speaking, “The move was rough, Leah. We got to our new house only a few days before the school year started, so I had missed orientation and the fall sports tryouts. So, no football, which was a first for me. I was terrified the first day of school as I didn’t know a soul. The school there was huge; and the kids of course had already formed their cliques from being together since ninth grade. It was days before anyone even spoke to me,” he paused to clear his throat before continuing.

  “Our new house was ridiculously huge; the area wasn’t at all like our old neighborhood. The lawns were so big and the homes so far apart that I rarely saw anyone even just walking outside. Even if other kids had lived nearby, I likely never would have run into them. For the entire first semester, I drove to school in the morning and drove straight home afterwards as I didn’t have anyone to hang out with or anything to do. Everything – and everyone, really - was just so different out there. I was quite lost for some time.”

  “Oh, Matty…I’m so sorry,” I said, utterly ashamed that I had so selfishly thought he had blown me off after he moved. I could see the hurt in his eyes as he remembered trying to adjust to his new school. We had just been kids; and he had been thrust into a whole new world. Of course, he hadn’t been thinking about his friends, or even me, back home; he was trying to adjust to his new home. I had spent years being mad at him for leaving me; I was too selfish and naive to ever think he himself had been hurting.

  “It took a few months, actually, for me to find a handful of friends. I tried going out for basketball and swimming in the winter, but I didn’t make either team. The talent out there was insane; I was great at our school, but I wasn’t even average in California. I ended up really buckling down in my classes, though. I did make the tennis team in the summer between junior and senior year, but sports wise, that’s all I did in high school until I got to college. I ended up at my dad’s alma mater, of course; and I made the football team there, although not on scholarship. Not sure if they chose me based on talent or pedigree, but I did play football during all four years of college.”

  “That’s great,” I said, genuinely happy to hear that he had eventually found athletic success. “I know how important sports were to you.”

  “Yeah, they were; but after not making most of the teams at my new high school, sports no longer meant as much. My college was a small, private school with a heavy focus on business and building future contacts for the corporate world. It was the first time my dad was more interested in my academic and social life than my sports achievements. Being on the football team there was about establishing name recognition and status, not winning championships,” he said, before adding, “and not being tied down to practices and game days in high school ended up giving me the chance to excel academically. I graduated tenth in my class, if you can believe it!” he said with a sheepish grin.

  “Of course, I can believe it,” I replied. “I always knew you were so smart, even though you pretended to be a dumb jock!” We both laughed again, just as our drinks arrived.

  “Ugh, the smell! I don’t know if I can do this,” I said, pretending to gag at the thought of drinking the peachy beverage.

  “One sip, just one sip! You have to! I’ll go first. To Sally Schnapps,” said Matthew as he tentatively brought his glass up to his mouth and sucked in just a bit of liquid. “Oh God, you were right! Awful! I feel like I’m back throwing up behind the bushes outside the football stadium!”

  “Yes! Right after freshman year homecoming!” I exclaimed, the memory of that night flooding back. “I’d forgotten all about us bailing on the dance and heading back to the stadium to hang out under the bleachers. And after we had spent weeks planning the entire night, from our outfits and where we would go to dinner to what songs we hoped they would play. I think we only ended up staying for thirty minutes before leaving!”

  “Because we thought we were too cool to be at a cheesy dance,” Matthew remembered. “Especially when the chaperones were trying to get us to line dance. Line dances were for junior high; no way were we gonna participate. We were so cool, in fact, that we had a friend’s sister buy us crappy alcohol to drink while we huddled outside in the cold under the bleacher of the football stadium and prayed no one would find us. And none of us were driving yet, so we all had to stumble home on foot as there was no way we could call our parents to pick us up.”

  “I’m pretty sure I was the only one who didn’t throw up that night,” I said, laughing and remembering the sight of seeing most of my friends rolling around on the grass with stomach aches or, as Matty had reminded me, throwing up in the bushes that lined the entrance to the stadium. It was the first time most of our friends had drank much alcohol, and they all went down fast. “And I’m also pretty sure I’m the only one who didn’t end up grounded seeing that I only took a sip of schnapps before spitting it out. My being a goody two shoes came in handy in those days,” I said smugly, remembering Molly’s jab from earlier. “I had to lead all of you fools home on foot and direct you towards your own houses; I then ran to mine and hid in my room!”

  “Man, I was grounded for a month! I didn’t even try to hide what I’d done from my parents; I was so miserable and just wanted my mommy!” Matthew and I continued laughing at the memory, periodically blurting out “Remember that one time?” and “Whatever happened to?” memories from our junior high and high school years.

  After a bit, and after I’d taken my own sip of schnapps (still as gross as I remembered; thanks a lot, Sally), our laughter subsided and we became quiet, gazing sheepishly across the table at one another and playing absentmindedly with our glasses, which were sweating in the heat. The napkins underneath each glass were soaked through; but the condensation on my hands helped keep me cool in the summer night air. And they disguised the fact that my hands were sweating from nerves.

  “So…Molly Timmerman, huh? How’d you meet her?” I asked, while also making a half-hearted attempt to hide my distain by plastering a fake, bright smile on my face.

  “Ohhhh, tell me how you really feel!” Matthew said, with a mischievous look in his eye. I had missed that look; he had given it to me often as kids when we were about to do something our parent’s might not have approved of. “You never could hide your true feelings; you always wore your heart on your sleeve. I could read you like a book,” he said as smiled and gave me a wink.

  Ha, I thought to myself. He has no idea the feelings I kept inside. “I wasn’t able to keep much from you, was I?” I agreed, going along with his assessment while looking back down at my glass.

  Seeing that I wasn’t going to answer in regards to Molly, Matthew explained, “Molly works at my firm, in the marketing department; we met at a company picnic, actually. I run the youth outreach program for our foundation and was there to coordinate the kid’s baseball game. We’ve only been dating a couple of months; but when she found out I had meetings this week over in Lincoln, she asked me to fly here with her. She hadn’t originally been going to come to the reunion, but at the last minute she rearranged her schedule in order to make it. She’s actually flying back tomorrow, but I’m staying the week.”

  In my mind, I quickly processed the informatio
n Matty had just provided me: Only dating for a bit, only with her here because he was coming anyway, and she was leaving tomorrow without him. There might be hope after all. Maybe the Matty I remembered hadn’t become a shallow man who only dated girls based on their looks. It certainly didn’t sound as though they were serious.

  “It’s not serious,” Matthew said with a shrug of his shoulders, seemingly reading my mind. “She’s fun and we know a lot of the same people at work, and my parents both like her.” He inadvertently took another sip of schnapps, before wrinkling his nose and pushing the glass away. “But enough about Molly; what have you been up to all these years?”

  “Oh, nothing too exciting,” I said. I hated talking about myself; and I really hated having to tell Matthew about my boring life. I tried to sum it up quickly: I left home to attend Lakeview College and ended up staying. My parents retired and moved down to Florida; and both of my younger sisters had followed them. I left out the series of loser boyfriends that I had had over the years; no need to bore him with those details. And I didn’t mention the broken heart he had left me with that took me years to heal. No sense in going there, either.

  “Why did you end up leaving home? There was a great university in the next city over,” Matthew asked as he propped his elbows on the table and set his chin in his hands. I was immediately brought back to my parent’s kitchen table, where we would both sit while working on homework or eating snacks. He always sat the same way when he was done with whatever he was doing and wanted to talk. His hair, which had always alternated between dark blonde and light brown depending on the season, was a couple of shades darker and in a much closer cut than it had been when we were kids; but his light blue eyes still shone the same. His skin was still tan, which was not surprising as we had spent so much time outdoors as kids, and of course he now lived in sunny California. He was bulker than I remembered, too, taller, more muscular; but boys grow the most after sixteen years of age, so that was also to be expected. Except for a few faint smile lines on his face and an overall look of greater maturity, he appeared very similar as he had the last time I saw him, sixteen years ago.