The Definition of Insanity - Dani Ayala (Alexander W Dreyfoos, Eleventh Grade)
Kyrie was sixteen when he fell in love with his best friend. He never realized it was possible to
have this much love for a person, ready to give and give and give.
He and Estrella were in the same grade and had met their freshman year, they had all 6 classes
together by pure chance with the exception of math and that was only because Estrella was at a more
advanced level than Kyrie. Estrella was only an inch shorter than Kyrie, who was 5’9, and the two of
them still had time to grow in ways more than one. She was previously a brunette, but that hadn’t been a
fact ever since she started experimenting with colors to dye her hair, with wavy hair that reached down to
the small of her back. She had two piercings, one a septum piercing and the other was on her ear that had
been done on Kyrie’s bathroom floor with nothing but a hot needle and her own grit.
Not much changed since he and Estrella had gotten together, much to Kyrie’s relief. There were a
few things that were different, a few necessary changes, but those things came with the territory of being
partners now. Some things though, exactly the same. Like the amount of time Estrella spent at Kyrie’s
house, rather than being caged up in her own. If you could even call it that.
Kyrie thought of it more like the place Estrella was forced to go to every few days to check in
with her mother. Estrella needed the reassurance that her mother wasn’t dead at the hands of too much
alcohol, or something she wasn’t supposed to snort. And by law her mother needed to do the same, make
sure Estrella was at least alive and kicking.
There was a reason that their hangouts and sleepovers had always been at Kyrie’s house and
never hers, dating or not. Estrella had confessed to Kyrie herself that his room just felt more like home
than her own house ever had. And since that confession, it was effortless to point out little clues scattered
throughout his room that showed truly how often Estrella stayed at Kyrie’s house.
If you opened his closet, her shirts would be hung lopsided on a hanger right next to his own
shirts. The drawers that sat in his closet were a similar case. If opened, a few of her tank tops would be
seen right next to worn shirts he wore to go to sleep.
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Her bag she always brought her stuff in, a faded purple from its many years of service, was
commonly found slouched against Kyrie’s brown bag tossed carelessly against a wall in his room. When
Kyrie decided he wanted to start collecting CD’s and records, Estrella’s favorite albums were at the top of
his list of what to buy. And now that he actually had them, along with a few other records that were his
own favorite, they sat at the top of the pile ready to be grabbed if she wanted to listen to a song.
The only place that had been untouched for the most part was Kyrie’s bathroom and that was
excluding the extra toothbrush she had there and the brush she occasionally left behind.
At least the bathroom used to be untouched. Now the true essence of Estrella was there just as
much as the rest of his room. And by true essence, Kyrie meant that her hairdye was everywhere.
Kyrie was on his knees with a wet towel in his hands, scrubbing at tile frantically to try and get
the dye out that had dripped from Estrella’s hair to the floor.
“My parents are going to kill us.” He stressed, continuing the almost mindless action of back and
forth, back and forth, back and forth with the towel. The mess wasn’t that bad, Kyrie thought to himself in
an attempt to self soothe. At least on the floor it wasn’t, just a few splotches of taffy pink hair dye here
and there that had gone unnoticed by the both of them.
That wasn’t the only thing that was pink now. Him and Estrella liked to match in a lot of things.
Now they matched pink stained hands, reeking of disgustingly sweet bubblegum. Kyrie thought the smell
was nice until it was the only thing that filled the bathroom, Estrella had asked him halfway through her
DIY hair appointment to crack open a window in his room and he wasn’t one to object.
Now Kyrie was paranoid to see if his windowsill had pink stains on it. Maybe gloves would’ve
been a good idea to buy at the store, along with Estrella’s hair dye. She had insisted they wouldn’t need
them, after all she never used them when dying her hair at her house.
“Your parents already hate me, your sink and floor turned pink won’t make a difference.” Estrella
looked down at Kyrie, getting fed up with the situation herself. She had been working away at the white
porcelain sink’s basin, which looked way worse than the state the floor was in.
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Kyrie wasn’t even quite sure how this mess even came to be. He realized how much dye had
gotten everywhere around the same time he realized he really should’ve worn gloves, pushing his hand
soap to its limits only for that to get stained too along with his hands.
“They don’t.. hate you. They’re just weird. You know that.” Kyrie sighed, about to push some of
his curls out of his face. As if a better view of the mess in front of him would make it any better. He
should’ve worn a bandana, or at least tied them back with a hair tie.
“Don’t!” Estrella said, nearly slipping as she jerked forward to grab Kyrie’s wrist. “Unless you
want to match hair with me, which I’m not against.” She watched the realization set in on Kyrie’s face
and laughed, breathless and somewhat relieved. “But, I don’t think you’d be able to pull off this pink like
I do.”
Kyrie blamed it on the chemical enhanced bubblegum scent killing off his brain cells by the
second.
“I’m better staying a brunette.” He agreed, smiling up at Estrella. Even with sopping wet hair,
Kyrie thought she was so pretty. She would look pretty when the dye dried too.
“Not a bad pick this time. If the color looks how it does on the box, I might keep this one.”
Estrella mused. She let go of Kyrie’s wrist and straightened herself up, staring at herself in the mirror.
“My roots keep growing out though, then I have to redye it and..” She continued, still staring at herself in
the mirror and giving the dye job that Kyrie had assisted her with a full on inspection.
“I think it looks nice either way.” Kyrie said, going back to his attack on the tile stains. He looked
up for a brief moment, squinting at the color that was supposed to be the end result. “The box color is
never right. And I always have good picks.”
“Whatever you say, either way this one’s a winner. I can feel it in my hair, trust me.” She sunk
down to the floor and sat next to stain Kyrie was scrubbing at tirelessly. Her legs were stretched out,
taking up most of the floor space in the bathroom. “Or maybe that’s just the tingling of my scalp.”
Kyrie’s head craned up, his attention instantly grabbed. He looked at Estrella with a crease of
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worry between his brows, abandoning the pink stain he had been working away on. “Doesn’t that mean
we should wash the dye out?!”
Estrella laughed, pressing her finger against the space between Kyrie’s brows to rub out the worry
lines. “I’m just joking, Ky. My scalp feels fine.”
Kyrie pulled his face back and stared at Estrella with an unimpressed, almost chastising
expression. “Now I wish it burned off.” His hands were pink, his bathroom was pink, the shirt that she
was wearing that belonged to him was pink, and now he probably had a pink splotch between his
eyebrows where her finger was pressed.
Kyrie huffed and tried to go back to the task at hand, staying strong through his strike of silence.
It didn’t last long though. Estrella’s laughter was contagious and it only got more giggly, coming out in
quicker bursts as if she were being tickled. All the dye chemicals she had inhaled over time were probably
getting to her all at once, but Kyrie had no room to judge because he was right there laughing with her
within seconds.
How could he not spur her on? Her laughter was Kyrie’s favorite thing to hear, especially when it
was becoming more and more scarce these days. With all the good things in her life starting to be
outweighed by the bad, Kyrie let her have little moments like these.
He let her have anything really, but that was besides the point.
Kyrie was seventeen when he discovered love meant accepting everything about the
person you love. Everything.
And he had no issue with that fact. At least he tried not to, despite the pungent smell of cigarettes
that lingered in his room now. His bedsheets and pillows especially, ever since Estrella had taken up
smoking. Kyrie hadn’t been a fan of her smoking from the start, but he kept his mouth shut ever since the
first time he had brought it up.
They had been lounging around his room.
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Estrella always carried a pack of cigarettes with her now. For some reason though, she didn’t
have them now.
When she first started smoking, there were a few days that she traveled without them. That was
always after she ran out. But, now it was a constant in both of their lives. After months of her staining the
smell of nicotine into his comforter, there wasn’t a day Kyrie didn’t catch glimpses of the cigarettes
packaging.
He was sick of it, to be quite frank. Sick of watching her put her cigarettes out on his windowsill,
sick of doing laundry only to be rewarded with the memory of her cigarettes when he inhaled his sheets.
Estrella had told Kyrie that she only wanted to try it out, see what it was like. It’s not like if Kyrie voiced
it didn’t seem like a good idea it would do much, so he could only sit back helpless when she lit her first
cigarette.
Now he was doing the same thing, but this kind of sitting back was much more preferred. Kyrie
was on his bed, back against his headboard with a movie playing on his tv. Estrella was curled up in a
bundle of blankets with her head in his lap and dealing with a pounding headache. Not that he liked
seeing Estrella in any kind of discomfort or pain, but this was better than seeing her with a cigarette in her
mouth.
Nicotine withdrawals weren’t something Estrella had taken into account apparently. The dreaded
day when she couldn’t get her hands on a pack had never even been considered.
So now she was forced to lay here and grit through the pain, at least until she managed to find a
way to stumble across another pack.
“Christ, this headache won’t go away.” Estrella whined, kicking the blankets off of herself.
It had been like this since she came over and Kyrie did what he could. He made his room as dark
as possible, Lights off, blinds closed shut, and the only light that was found in the room came from the
movie he had put on. Even that was on the lowest volume, barely audible to the point Kyrie was getting
by reading lips and captions. All in hopes that the headache would ease up or that Estrella might be able
to get some sleep.
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“It has to eventually. Do you want more water?” Kyrie glanced over at the glass of water resting
on his nightstand. It hadn’t even been touched. “Or I read somewhere that coffee might help.” He
brushed her bangs back out of her face and ran a hand through her hair in a soothing manner.
“I don’t want water and I know coffee won’t do shit.” Estrella quipped. She pulled back from
Kyrie and sat up.
“We haven’t even tried it-”
“Kyrie.” Estrella cut him off and put a hand up, as if verbally cutting him off wasn’t enough. “I
know you’re trying to do what you think will help, but it’s going to do nothing. I don’t want caffeine.”
She sighed and pulled herself to the edge of the bed, swinging her legs off. Her hands rested at her side as
she stared out the window facing her.
Kyrie frowned. “Then I don’t know what else to offer.” He paused the movie and shifted to sit
next to Estrella, placing his hand over hers. He squeezed it lightly. “I’m just trying to help. Like you
said.”
“You’re great help and great company while I die from a headache.” Estrella gave him a weak
smile. “You think that’s a thing? Dying from a horrible, horrible headache?” She rested her head on his
shoulder.
“I doubt it.” He said. Kyrie welcomed the weight on his shoulder, leaning his own head on top of
hers.
“Why don’t you look that up huh, rather than any bullshit that won’t even help me.” Estrella
laughed(though it came out more like part whine, part scoff, and part laugh.), nudging his side with her
elbow.
Kyrie wasn’t in much of a laughing mood, but he mustered up what he could to humor her. After
that they sat in silence. Not their usual comfortable silence, but something much more heavy and
suffocating almost. Kyrie wanted to speak, to at least make an attempt to find the right words that would
deal a gentle blow that could serve as a maybe wakeup call for Estrella to the fact that he hated every time
he saw her take out her lighter and a cigarette.
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She would at least take what he said into consideration right?
“Ky, I got it.” Estrella withdrew her hand from underneath his and instead wrapped her arms
around his. She pressed herself closer to Kyrie, the two practically sharing the same warmth. “Do you
think you could buy me a pack?”
Kyrie blinked, lifting his head from atop of hers and stared. “..I’m not even legal”
“Well yea, no shit. I’m not either, but you could just- slip an extra hundred to the cashier or
something. Lord knows they need it!” She said, this time her laugh came across as more contrived.
Something to soften Kyrie and help him get around to what she was saying.
“I’m not.. buying you cigarettes and bribing a cashier for them.” Kyrie tried to laugh along with
her and that came off just as contrived.
When the two were done pretending they were left right where they started. Silence. Estrella
looked at Kyrie and he stared back, though his gaze really couldn’t stay on just her. Her expression was
almost unsettling to him, not because he couldn’t read it or place his finger on what she was thinking.
But, because he knew exactly what she was thinking and could read her like an open book just as well as
he always could. Her expression read disappointment, surprise, maybe even resentment?
Kyrie settled for looking down rather than reading her any longer.
“Seriously?” Estrella started. Kyrie couldn’t escape all of the emotions building up in her just by
looking down, her tone voice said it all. “Come on dude, I barely ask you for anything. Not favors, not
gifts, not- anything! And I’m seriously in a lot of pain here.”
That was true. Estrella rarely asked for anything. That didn’t stop Kyrie from already knowing
what she always wanted off the top of his head. She never needed to ask, he already knew. Wasn’t that
the best part of knowing someone so intimately?
“Then maybe you should just stop now. Before it gets worse.” Kyrie had seen his opening and he
took it. Partly. “The withdrawals I mean.”
“I know what you mean, I’m not stupid.” Estrella snapped.
“I never said you were!”
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“Whatever.” ‘Whatever’ usually meant Estrella was done with an argument. Conversation.
Whatever you wanted to call this. But she kept going, to Kyrie's surprise and slight mortification. “It
won’t get ‘worse’. I won’t let it. And I think I’m getting the worst of it right now.”
“Well I don’t want to see you get this bad again.” Kyrie confessed. Worry was normal, right?
Kyrie was allowed to do that, he was her boyfriend for christ sake. And before that he was her best friend,
she would listen. “I don’t like seeing you in pain and if you keep.. Smoking then it’s only a matter of
time until you get like this again.”
Estrella’s expression only further soured at Kyrie going as far as a scowl.“Me smoking really
shouldn’t affect you much, you act like you’re the one lighting the cigarette.”
“I’m not, but I am the one taking care of you now. And I’m the one who deals with picking up
after your cigarette butts around my room, and the smell in the blankets, and-” Kyrie could go on and on,
and he planned on it. Until Estrella pulled away from him, her arms now being used to wrap around
herself for some semblance of comfort that Kyrie was usually there to provide.
“Deals with? You deal with it?” Estrella scoffed. The disbelief on her face from what Kyrie had
said was grounding in a weird way for him. Maybe she really did need this wakeup call.
“...I mean yea. I’d rather you just didn’t do it, so I’m dealing with it.” Kyrie didn’t even realize he
was putting distance between them too, inching away from Estrella. It felt like he could breathe easier in a
way.
That didn’t mean he wanted to just get up and leave though. Estrella stood from the bed and
snatched up her bag off the floor. Kyrie watched, frozen from the suddenness of everything.
“I’ll get out of your way so you won’t have to deal with jackshit.” She collected anything she had
brought with her, spare clothes to stay the night, her brush from the nightstand, and stormed out the door
without so much as a second glance back to Kyrie. “Because god forbid Kyrie Cozbi be inconvenienced!”
She yelled on her way down the staircase of his home, uncaring if his parents heard.
“Estrella!”
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Kyrie followed her to his doorway and then stopped from the realization of what would I even
say? Should he ask her to stay? Apologize? Keep trying to get her to hear him out? The list of
possibilities went on.
He did none of that. He stayed at his doorway and waited until he jumped at the sound of the
front door slamming shut.
Then, a few hours later he went to her house and went with the second possibility. He apologized.
Kyrie was eighteen and already knew breakups were just waiting games. Like watching the sand
in an hourglass. The size of the hourglass and rate that the sand fell really depended on the whole
situation that even put them in this position.
Kyrie was quicker to apologize, just wanting to get it over with. Estrella dragged her apologies
long overdue and late, but Kyrie always accepted them anyways. This was, what? Their sixth time
splitting? Kyrie wasn’t even sure anymore, there were a few times in between any official breakups where
they took brief ‘breaks’ from each other.
By now, they already had a well-known meetup location to regroup and talk about where they
were going to go from here. What was going to happen to them. They just called it ‘the spot’, at least
that’s how they referred to it when requesting to meet up there.
The spot was an equal distance between Kyrie’s house and Estrella’s apartment, where she
roomed with her mom.
It was a park, barely full in the mornings and afternoons, completely deserted at nights. Kyrie
wasn’t exactly sure why it was always so empty, but he wouldn’t be surprised if it was due to some kind
of safety regulations bullshit. The thing was old, it had been there ever since Kyrie moved into town all
those years ago and it was there before that too according to Estrella. It looked like it had never gotten a
paint job in its life or new swings and slides unlike the other parks surrounding it in the neighborhood.
Estrella was the one who had initiated this meetup, despite the fact that it was near midnight and
winter was at its peak. Especially this late at night. Kyrie had been dealing with another sleepless night
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when he got a notification from her, asking him to talk at the spot. It didn’t take much convincing on her
end.
This time, Kyrie was the first one to arrive at the spot. The air chilled him to the bone as soon as
he got out of his car , despite the longsleeve he had underneath the band shirt he had been wearing to bed
and the jacket he had layered on top. He didn’t bother to change out of his sweatpants.
The spot was as empty as ever and a thin sheet of frost coated most of the playground equipment.
Kyrie walked over from his car to the set of swings that he favored over sitting awkwardly at one of the
picnic tables near the park. He wanted the excuse to just be able to look forward during this conversation
and not have to look at Estrella. That would be his undoing.
He used his sleeve to brush the frost off of the swing seat and sat down. There was a nagging
sense of annoyance that was starting to take hold of Kyrie the longer he waited. Estrella had been the one
to ask him to meet her here. And she was the one who was late, leaving Kyrie alone in the cold.
Kyrie pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened Estrella’s contact, about to ask her where she
was or maybe even tell her that he was going home. They could talk about this some other time. The
sound of a car pulling up nearby made Kyrie put his phone away back in his pocket and he squinted his
eyes, trying to make out the figure who came out of it.
Taffy pink hair he knew all too well and wasn’t exactly thrilled to see.
That was usually how these things started. Kyrie, annoyed and ready to put an end to the years of
insanity that they had been through together. And then after no more than 30 minutes of talking, he’s
walking Estrella back to her car and they’re holding hands.
Kyrie dreads the day that they don’t leave the spot together, rather apart and going their separate
ways.
Estrella sprinted to the park and stopped in front of Kyrie, slightly out of breath and carrying a
cup of coffee in each hand. The steam and heat that came off of them made Kyrie colder without realizing
it. Estrella also had a plastic bag hanging off her arm. From one glance at the logo the bag had printed on
it Kyrie knew it was from the gas station near her house.
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Estrella wasn’t dressed much different from Kyrie. She even had one of his shirts on, probably
something he had forgotten at her house once or something she just took the liberty upon herself to
borrow. Estrella fixed the jacket she had on and zipped it up, taking a seat next to Kyrie in the swing
beside him.
“What’s in the bag?” Kyrie asked, breaking the tension between the two of them. He didn’t look
at her and when he looked her way, he just stared down at the plastic bag.
“Oh, uh-” Estrella was about to take the plastic bag off her arm when she remembered her hands
were occupied. She offered the coffee to Kyrie, a silent truce. “It’s cold and late. You aren’t one to turn
down coffee Ky or did I really fuck up that bad?”
Kyrie wouldn’t say that. There wasn’t anything that really caused this breakup, no singular action
or incident from Estrella at least that caused Kyrie to make this decision. It was more like a buildup of
things that Kyrie was sick of in his life and a lot of those things just so happened to stem from Estrella.
But, a lot of good things stemmed from Estrella too. Really good things. That was why he was here,
waiting to hear her out as to why they should try again. He hoped she would convince him.
“Come on, I didn’t poison it.” She offered him that smile she knew he loved, another truce and
strategy to ease the tension. She nudged the coffee against his hand and waited for him to take it.
Kyrie sighed and accepted the coffee, taking the lid off of it and breathed in the mix of shitty gas
station coffee with bitter winter air. He lifted the coffee cup to his lips and let the liquid burn down his
throat in a few gulps, refusing to savor something as mediocre as the coffee the gas station spat out.
Maybe he should’ve saved it a bit longer, at least for the warmth it provided his hands just from
holding it.
“Alright, so. Now that you’re awake and have had your coffee.” Estrella started, her cup of coffee
still in hands undrank. Kyrie was starting to suspect the second cup was for him too.
“Never answered what’s in the bag.” Kyrie eyed the bag still hanging off her arm.
“Oh! Yea.” Estrella wiggled her down her arm and held her coffee in one hand, extended the bag
out towards Kyrie for him to take a look with her other.
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Kyrie was hesitant, but grabbed the bag. It wasn’t light enough to only be cigarettes, maybe a few
cans of beer too. A new lighter? Kyrie looked down in the plastic bag and felt his face heat up from
shame, despite the cold.
Snacks. It was just snacks. Most of them being his favorite too, a few of her guilty pleasure
sweets and candies wedged in between his own favorites.
The guilt of his previous assumptions felt like a bucket of cold water being poured on him. He
looked up at Estrella and she still had that smile on her face, now even wider that he had taken a look at
what was inside the bag.
“Estrella-”
“No, let me start.” She said, handing him the second cup of coffee. Turns out it was for him.
Kyrie nodded and took the second cup, this time sipping at it rather than chugging it in one go. He set the
empty coffee cup on the ground next to the pole that held the swings into the ground.
“I’m not going to act dumb.. I know why you broke up with me. Or at least I have an idea.”
Estrella paused, taking a moment to gather herself together. “It’s the smoking again, isn’t it? You said you
don’t like the smell and I said I would stop, but I haven’t- and I know that’s shitty of me. And I’m trying
to, Ky I really am trying to.”
Kyrie stared at Estrella with an impassive expression. He took another sip from the coffee in his
hands and almost cringed from the taste. Black coffee from the gas station was another type of crazy even
Kyrie was struggling to stomach.
Estrella took his silence as an okay to keep going. “I’ve cut down! You haven’t really been
around to see, but I’m serious. I’ve cut down to barely a pack.” She explained frantically and held up one
finger to Kyrie’s face to emphasize her point. When more silence was all that followed, Estrella’s face
shifted to worry. “You can talk now, sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off.”
“It’s fine, I’m just.. Thinking.” Kyrie said.
“About?” Estrella pushed.
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“How to word this.” Kyrie put the bag of snacks down with his second cup of coffee, officially
done with that.
Estrella clearly didn’t like that response, but she readied herself for whatever Kyrie was about to
throw at her.
“Estrella, it isn’t just the smoking. It’s a lot of things, things that I probably should’ve brought up
but I let it get to this point because I had no idea how to even start.” Kyrie grabbed onto the metal chains
of his swing seat, gripping onto the frosted over metal until it started to numb the skin on his hands. “It's
how much I worry about you when you aren’t right by my side, the fact that I.. at this point I barely trust
you.” It felt so much worse saying out loud. “I don’t even know if you love me sometimes, you rarely say
it unless I do first. I don’t know why you stay.”
“What? Kyrie, I.. Of course I love you. More than anything, you’re the thing that’s kept me
going. You’re the reason I try to get better and I know I’m not perfect, but please just give me this one
last chance to prove to you I really am trying.” Estrella reached out and put a hand on Kyrie’s knee since
holding his hand wasn’t much of an option. “You’re my everything and.. I know I’m yours, somehow.
We’ve already seen each other through four years of this shit.”
“I know.” Kyrie exhaled, able to see his own breath in the late night winter air. “It’s exhausting.”
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry.” Estrella rubbed his knee with her thumb, back and forth in a
soothing rhythm like he always did to comfort her. “Imagine us when we’re married and we have kids
and we have all these stupid stories to tell them about how dumb their parents were.” She laughed in an
attempt to lighten the mood, giving him another smile.
Kyrie didn’t want to leave alone tonight. There had been sincerity in everything Estrella said
tonight and nobody was perfect. Things had never been perfect about their relationship, but wasn’t that
the best thing about them? The fact that no matter what, they always worked things out? Even if
sometimes things were truly never worked out, but swept under the rug.
This was going to be her last chance. Kyrie hoped she wouldn’t need another.
He smiled back at Estrella. “I think I’d have more stories about you than your stories about me.”
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Estrella’s smile grew tenfold.“Yea, well I’ll be the cool parent.”
Kyrie wasn’t sure what kind of parent Estrella would be or if she should even be one, but he
played along with the fantasy.
“Whatever.” Kyrie let go of the swing chain, placing his hand on top of hers. She did him one
better and intertwined their fingers together, standing up from her swing.
“God, it’s freezing.” She exaggerated her shivering for the added effect and pulled Kyrie up from
his swing. “Your place?”
“Yea. That sounds good.” Kyrie said, picking up the bag of sweets he had placed on the floor,
hung it on his arm and stacked the two empty cups of coffee so he could grab them with one hand
comfortably.
“Great.” Estrella grabbed onto Kyrie’s jacket for a moment and pulled him down for a kiss. Their
lips pressed against each other and Kyrie savored that warmth more than anything he had gotten from the
coffee. Estrella pulled away. “I love you.”
Kyrie stole one more quick kiss from her, desperate for anything he could get from her in this
moment. “I love you too.”