I Will Wait

Two Years Earlier

"Would you wait for me?"

"I'm sorry. What?"

There was a laugh that filled the air. It could have been no one else's but my own.

A smile slid across his face, imprinting dimples into his cheeks. "In two years we will both be mature adults, out of highschool and doing our own things. So I am asking will you wait for me?"

I wanted to laugh again, it was a hilarious idea. He had to have been joking. I had known this hilarious, prankster, immature guy for ten years and neither of us had ever felt for each other that way. Or to my knowledge. Had he liked me for a like time? What if he had? So, why was he asking now? Why not three years ago? Or anytime before I was about to drive away to move into college.

"What do you want me to wait for you for?" It would be a lie to say I did not want to hear him say the words himself, rolling off of his own lips, as if to prove what I already knew was true.

He laughed lightly and bent down into the passenger window, looking at me from across the seat. He leaned his elbows on the rim of where the glass would slide up to close me away from his voice and all the sounds of my hometown. The engine was running, a small humm vibrating through my limbs leaving me unsure if it was butterflies hovering in the depth of my gut or only the car. The anticipation was killing me. The kid needed to speak up. Between when he first asked me and whenever he planned to speak again I could ask myself hundreds of millions of questions and run with as many scenarios before I found out from him the truth.

"Two years from now, when you come home in the summer, would you go on a date with me?"

Butterflies. They were guilty.

"Go on a date with you?" Even though I knew he was asking me to wait, a date I did not think would be in question. It was such a final thing. Setting a date for a date instead of just admitting feelings and creating an empty promise of yes, 'I will wait for you' or 'we'll see what happens when I come home'.

"Geez, Selah. Do I have to repeat everything for you?" He asked me teasingly. There was no worry in his expression, no fear that I would reject him. Confident.

"No. No. Caleb. You don't need to repeat everything. Yes. I'll wait for you." It was either my eagerness to leave or my rashness or who knows what, but I said yes. I said I would wait two years to go on a date with Caleb Rueban. It could have been the worst idea of my life. Was it?

"All right!" He slapped his hands against the open window and backed away. "See you in two years then."

"I'll be back next summer." I reminded him with a slight grin poking at one corner of my lips.
"But not a mature adult. Only seventeen." He placed a hand to his chest in a dramatic gesture, emphasizing how important it would be for us to both be mature adults. As if little Caleb could mature at all. The thought almost made me laugh.

I rolled my eyes at his goofy grinning face. "Ok Caleb. I'll see you in two years."

I never thought he would actually wait for me.

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Thank you so much for reading! like, comment, and share with all your friends! Did he actually wait? Stay tuned to find out! 

-AVA