❝ elizabeth kennedy·.
Everywhere around her, things were coming to a close, but strangely enough, Lizzie felt whole. Despite her rocky beginnings at the camp and the deteriorating state of her relationship back home, her summers were a blissful release from all of her stressors. There was certainly something to be said about her camp friends — even if it was more just a camp friend, singular. Her and Adam, for two and a half months out of the year, were attached at the hip, and it’d been that way for the past couple of years.
But that was it — he was a friend, no pretty little prefix or suffix to make it something more than it was, though it didn’t mean that Lizzie didn’t think about it. A tantalizing treat she never dared to taste, considering she had a boyfriend. It would’ve been wrong.
So why couldn’t she stop thinking about him?
A vodka soda in her hand, she took a spot by the edge of the festivities, giving in to her tendency to watch over participate, despite the warm, woozy daze in her head from the liquor. It was no surprise that Adam followed soon after, the simple nudge of his shoulder sending electricity down her spine and the tops of her cheeks prickled with heat, getting his eyes with a hesitance only found in a woman scared of her bubbling crush.
“Hey,” she repeated, giving him a soft smile as she pulled her legs into her chest. In her head, she sighed, wistful for a touch that she couldn’t have, half-dreaming over what could have been, if she hadn’t been dating someone when —
“Oh,” she breathed. Had he really asked her that? Lukewarm soda cast aside, she bit her lip, baby blues focused on an imaginary spot two feet in front of her. “You’re…” One of my most trusted confidantes? Someone I think about all the time? A person I’m possibly in love with? “… my friend. One of my best friends,” she decided, swallowing. The conviction in her tone was suspiciously missing, and she looked away.
While Adam certainly wasn’t someone who enjoyed watching people squirm at his words, he found it quite interesting to see how Lizzie reacted to his question.. and then what her answer turned out to be. Honestly, he’d been getting to her pretty well over the past few summers and was pretty certain that she was lying to him. Actually.. he knew she was lying. He couldn’t blame her for choosing to go down the safe path, however, figuring that he would have taken it too. But now, with the amount of alcohol he’d consumed over the course of the night, he was too curious to let it go.
“You wound me, Kennedy.” Adam expressed with a playfully pained expression on his face and a hand placed dramatically over his heart, “Just one of your best friends?” If there’d been one ounce of sincerity in her voice, he would have been hurt for sure. But her voice had given the lie away. Her innocence was only making her more attractive to him, which would have been a huge issue had he been sober, but it was only egging him on now.
“And here I thought we would take this as an opportunity to reveal our deep dark secrets, Lizzie.” He breathed out, taking a sip of his drink before leaning closer over to her, “I think you’re the most beautiful girl in this camp. Easily. And not only on the outside. You have the whole package. Which makes it really fucking hard to respect that you have a boyfriend.” Adam was rambling now, but he had to get it off his chest right? It was their last year here after all. “But I respect you too much to make your life difficult, so I’m content being one of your best friends.”
