Leave it in the Past

Patrick pulled into a Taco Bell parking lot and parked the car. Then he turned to me.

“Did you really mean that? He asked, looking me straight in the eye. My eyes locked with his baby blue eyes. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking and I really didn’t want to screw up by answering wrong.

“Mean what?” I asked, trying to break our eye contact. I could feel his eyes still focused so intensely on me; it felt like he was burning a hole through my head.

“You know what I’m talking about.” He said firmly. I sighed; I knew exactly what he meant. I had dropped the “wedding” bomb and it was about to blow up in my face.

“Sure I meant it,” I admitted honestly, “if we keep going like this, isn’t that how we’ll probably end up?”

“I hope. I just didn’t think that you had thought about it at all yet.” He said with a sigh. He drummed his fingers on his thigh and stared at the floor of the car.

“Well… I have. Have you?” I asked nervously. I could feel myself biting my lip.

“For longer than I care to admit. Peyt, I already told you, you’ve been the one since high school.” Patrick confessed. I sat there stunned for a second. I was speechless and I didn’t know how to respond to that. He looked at me, waiting for an answer, but nothing came out.

“Be honest, could you see it? You and I getting married? Having a little house in the suburbs with our kids running around?” He asked earnestly.

“Yeah, I could.”

“Do you want that to happen?” I stared out the windshield. I really hadn’t thought too much about marrying him. It had crossed my mind, but I usually waved it away. Would I like to marry him? Spend the rest of my life with my best friend? We would have a family, we would take care of each other. The funny thing is, we kind of already did that. We had been taking care of each other since even before high school. I was part of his family, and he was part of mine. He was my best friend, and there isn’t anything better than spending pretty much every day with him.

“I think I might.” I said carefully, with a reassuring smile. I did maybe want to, but I also didn’t want to jump into this too soon. The thing with Patrick is, he is a very sensitive person, which is a quirk I love about him. But I also have to be careful what I say to him.

“Well I want to marry you so badly. I love you, but you already knew that.” He said with a shrug. I froze yet again. The car was awkwardly quiet again. I sighed and prepared myself to say what I had never expected to actually say to him.

“Patrick, I love you too. But you already knew that.” He turned and looked at me, his mouth hanging wide open.
“Really? I swear to God Peyt if you don’t mean that-” I mentally rolled my eyes. That was just like him to doubt me.

“Patrick, are you serious right now? Of course I do. You’re, well, you.” I admitted. I looked up at him, and he was smiling shyly. Then he leaned in and kissed me, but this time he kissed me with a little extra something. I could feel the passion radiating off of his lips. I melted into him, and then quickly broke away.

“Uhhh, we should probably get going, we’ll get a lot of shit from Erica if we’re late.” I pointed out, thinking about how Erica chirped as hard as any hockey player that I knew. He chuckled and started the car.

Notes

So it didn't seem like there was a whole lot of interest for me to put up the bonus chapter, but here it is if anyone wants to read it! Just remember this is the same conversation as the chapter before, just in Peyton's POV.