Chapters: Stories on Sean & Kaycee

Let Go Part 3

3 months, 3 weeks, and 5 days.

"Little while" was 3 months, 3 weeks, 5 days, and counting. And Kaycee sure as hell was counting.

When he left that night, a part of her hoped he would still message that he got home. It was something they did to reassure the other that they made it back safely; a lot can happen in the two hours it took to get from her house to his. But he didn't.

In the span of minutes, they went from seeing each other everyday to complete radio silence.

She's not sure how, but they've managed to steer completely clear of each other, even in classes. There was an unwritten line for certain mentors – Kaycee stopped going to Jake's classes, and Sean stopped going to Zoi's classes. But for the others – like Nat, Erica, and Jojo – Kaycee suspects that Sean might still be talking to her mom.

Laura came clean about the talk with Sean immediately after he left, once Kaycee settled down. Needless to say, she was infuriated. There was some yelling, and words were said. Words that cut deep, but rang true nonetheless. They didn't talk for a few days. Those were the most painful of all, the raw loss of her best friend and the betrayal of her mother.

But after the hurt subsided, Kaycee knew it wasn't Laura's fault. Whether she intervened or not, they were a ticking time bomb. Their dynamic of Sean always giving and Kaycee always taking had long been unhealthy. And as hard as it was for her to admit, Kaycee knew she was most to blame.

The first time she realized that Sean might be in love with her, she was 14 and it scared her out of her teenage mind. She didn't talk to him for a week.

But then she missed him. So she chalked up the hole in her chest to simply missing her best friend, and invited him over to hang out like nothing happened.

She pretended not to know, and he pretended it didn't hurt. They got quite good at it.

So over the years, they danced around their feelings better than any piece either of them could ever have choreographed. Their love for one another was the third wheel of their dynamic, a thread woven into their everyday life. It added color to every gaze, depth to every word, and underlined every action. Yet, they still didn't talk about it. It was simply there.

But Kaycee had pretended for too long, and fought against it too hard. Now, she didn't know how to stop.

"Mom, I'm sticking my class schedule on the fridge." She called out, knowing her mother was somewhere in the house.

As she was grabbing a water bottle, Laura entered the kitchen and looked over the sheet of paper.

"Oh, you're going to Nika's class?" Her mom asked, pursing her lips.

She knew what that meant: Sean was attending that class. 

Kaycee figured out their system months back. About a week after their falling out, Laura started asking about her schedule, which rarely happened. Sometimes, she tried to dissuade Kaycee from attending this class or that, and that never happened before. And true enough, when the video for that class would come out, Sean was there.

It should have made her angry that her mom was still mixed up in all of this. But she figured that if Sean was going through all this trouble to stay away, he must really need to heal. The least she could do was make his life a little easier. Lord knows she hasn't the last few years.

"I wanted to," Kaycee said, instantly opening her Instagram app to review TMilly Studio's classes for the week. "But I guess I can go to Erica's instead."

"Great!" Laura exclaimed, visibly relieved. "I was going to ask you to take Kino to the vet that day."

That was another new thing - Kaycee being more involved in errands and mother-daughter bonding time. Laura exerted a lot of effort into making excuses for why Kaycee should change certain classes, and both women knew that they knew the real reason why.