The Promise

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“So… we both have jobs now.”

Sarah’s voice is hesitant. Awkward. I know why.

“Yeah. I remember too.”

“Oh.” Sarah winces.

“Yeeeeah.” I manage a forced laugh. “How old were we?”

“God, I don’t know. Six? Eight? Young enough that it seemed like a good idea.”

“I mean… it was a good idea at the time. We just… didn’t realise it wouldn’t always be a good idea.”

“Mm.” The corner of her mouth curls in a wry, fond smile. “I’m… not sure it was a good idea at the time. Honestly. It was an idea we loved, but…”

“Same thing!” I throw my arms up dismissively and we both laugh in earnest. Tension and uncertainty and guilt blowing away in the gust, leaving the years of warmth and care and friendship they had been covering. Like dead leaves over a beautiful carpet.

“Ok. Look.” I rub my hands together. “The idea is… bad. But the sentiment was good. Is good. So how do we honour that promise we made?”

“Ooh.” Sarah purses her lips, her eyes lighting up. That’s her Planning Face. It was the start of most of our best adventures. “You’re right. The point was… us being us, still being best friends, and… not losing sight of joy and wonder and all that good stuff. That’s what we swore, really. So what does all that mean to us now we’re adults?”

“Hmmm…”

It needed to be big. Wild. Renting a movie wasn’t going to cut it. We needed to dream as big as we had at that moment on the swings. Just with an understanding of risk and budgeting and all that boring necessary adult crap.

I count off months in my mind and say “What about an adventure holiday of some kind? Next summer. That gives us seven months to save up and plan. And summer holiday was always the home of adventures.”

“Yes!” Sarah claps her hands and bounces with excitement. “We could do a road trip, or rent a canal boat, or stay in an old school hotel… maybe even all three if we play our cards right!”

We whoop and embrace, and I can feel that moment of heady optimistic joy we shared all those years ago. Still here. Those two scrappy crazy kids are still here, and still friends, and still determined that the world won’t know what hit it.

“I’ll look into affordable day adventures.”

“Share locations with me and I’ll check out the travel options.”

“And once we know what part of summer will be best we’ll both book time off.”

“Yeah, tell our bosses that this is a trip two decades in the making.”

“Hell yeah!”

Prompt was “Write a story about two childhood friends who made a promise, but as young adults, they struggle with whether to keep it.”