See You Again

"All I'm saying is that in a few hours the year is ending and maybe you would like to kiss someone at midnight," I commented. "I would."

Vanessa sipped on her green detox shake, leaning against the kitchen counter and looking me in the eye.

"Why don't you kiss Mackie?" Leah said from beside me. "Maybe it'll brighten up her day. She surely needs it."

"Why would I want to kiss a guy thinking about some other girl?" she complained. "I have standards, you know?"

I turned around in my seat, looking at Kenzie, who was sprawled on the kitchen's floor, starfish pose, having a stare-off with the ceiling. I mean, not just staring, actually glaring at it as if challenging it to come to crash her.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked, but it was Vanessa who answered.

"She's having an existential crisis."

McKenzie huffed, "Life sucks. I should just play a Ximenes and threw myself off the Farol, straight to the rocks."

I frowned. "Why does your life suck? You looked happy yesterday."

"The year is ending! And I did nothing! I went to school almost every day of the freaking year. Did I do something fun? Barely." She clenched and unclenched her fists as she spoke. "I never did bungee jumping!"

"That's your ideal?" I asked, "You would do bungee jumping on your ideal day?"

She nodded. "I want to travel and do some crazy stuff."

"That's ridiculous," Leah said. "The perfect day would be spent shopping without maxing your credit card."

Vanessa added, "The perfect day would be... laying on the beach drinking coconut milk."

"I don't say no to that," Kenzie looked at her before turning to me. "What about you, Willy? What's your perfect day?"

I thought about it. I didn't actually know. Swimming maybe. My ideal day would be in the water, all day swimming, but not as a competition, just for fun. Even better if I was with Vanessa.

"I would join Vanessa on the beach, but I would swim."

I heard Kenzie snort. "Well, when Nessy tires of you, you can come to me for some water sports. I'll send a letter to your parents when you drown."

I rolled my eyes and laid back in the chair, looking at Vanessa again. Leah knelt next to Kenzie to force her to get up, but she remained glued to the floor, her crisis far from over.

"You didn't answer me," I noted.

"Why the rush, Will?" she asked in her silky tone. "We have all the time in the world."

I didn't need to turn to know it was Kenzie who was mocking me for being turned down so quickly.

"Now, now, Mackie, you know it's not like that," Vanessa said. "At least Will and I have a reason to keep living."

My lips parted in bewilderment. A reason to keep living. Each other... we were each other's reason... I wanted to throw that at Kenzie's face. I dare her to say Vanessa doesn't love me one more time!

"Mmm, I see," she mused and crossed her hands behind her head, signalling she was done with the conversation.

"I'm going to see what is Ezra doing," Leah said and stalked out of the room.

Vanessa stretched her hand out to me with a beautiful smile on her face. "Why don't we go for a walk, just the two of us?"

I smiled back and grabbed her hand, so we went outside.