~°~Chapter Thirty-one~°~

I doze lightly, the gentle rumbling of the car and Dale's steady heartbeat keeping me grounded.

At one point he stopped at a drive-thru to get sandwiches and drinks and I tried my hardest to ignore the knowing looks the attendant kept throwing my way.

Somehow, we end up at the park, the furthest end from it that merges into the forest.

What was it with these boys and trees?

He opens the door and steps out with me, still in his arms.

"Y-You ca-can p-put me d-down now." I stutter to him, my legs might not work right if I try to use them but being carried around like this was a little bit uncomfortable.

"Not yet." He replies. "There's a bench in front, I'll put you on it and if you still want to stand you're free to as long as you do it beside the chair." He says reasonably.

I don't complain at this, my legs feel like jelly anyway and if I insist I'll just end up getting hurt.

The bench is warm and I realize that I haven't eaten a bite all day, the sun is sufficiently high enough it the sky to indicate that it's almost noon but there are trees giving protective cover over where we decide to sit down.

Dale goes back to the car to bring the sandwiches and I get a good look around, I've never been to this part of the park before. 

There's a really old fountain in front of the bench I'm seated at and there's another identical bench on the opposite side facing me, the rest is just green grass, the occasional flowers and the trees.

"You must be hungry." Dale says quietly, sitting down beside me.

We eat the sandwiches in comfortable silence, if it's a little strained, I make no comment about it and Dale is equally quiet.

 There's nothing but our quiet sounds of eating and the sounds of the forest between us for a reasonable while and I find myself eating more slowly than necessary because nothing is more scary at the moment that being alone with Dale without anything else to fill up the silence.

The sandwiches don't last forever and soon we're done eating and just sitting down, I'm looking at everywhere but Dale's face and I hope he keeps staring into the distance.

If you ask me what I think about how Dale feels about me, I'd say this.

Virgil and Shana are my friends that much I'm sure off so if Dale was just messing with my feelings, they would definitely come at him, so the only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that he cares for me, as a friend.

And they probably think I'm going to turn aromantic so they're trying to simulate a scenario that might help and I also think that I just happen to be the most common reference point of their rivalry.

I wasn't anything but a good sport so I'm trying not to take their attention seriously, it's not easy not to though.

Virgil hadn't even shown any interest in me until Dale showed up so it only goes to solidify and back up my point soon they'll get over their unnecessary need to butt heads over everything and then I can go back to being a aromantic, closeted gay teenager who has the hugest crush on one of his best friends, scratch that, make it two of them now.

"How do you feel now?" Dale's asks me, looking at me in concern, one arm thrown over my shoulders to pull me closer.

I gulp. I had even already forgotten about the puppy incident, too engrossed in trying to figure out Dale's motives. I mean I understood them when he still thought I was a girl but that had been cleared up a long while ago, right? 

Dale isn't gay and sadly, neither is Virgil.

"Way b-better." I reply quietly, stiffening so that I don't have to lean into the comfort of his arm.

"Good, I'm still sorry for doing that to you." He apologizes again.

"N-No… N-No, it's fine." I wave away, I shouldn't have been so scared in the first place. "Another thing to check off in my bucket list."

Dale looks at me and then huffs out a laugh. "That's a strange thing to put in your bucket list."

I fake gasp at this. "What's better than 'getting attacked by monster puppies and having a major panic episode' as a bucket list item?" I ask, waving my hands extravagantly.

Dale laughs this time. "Nothing."

We go quiet for a while again, the beauty of the place we're staying is just a little bit too distracting.

The fountain is broken and water don't spout from it again, vines crisscross the now pale white bowls. The rains just abated so I can still see water in the fountain, full of algae and microscopic organisms.

"How did you find this place?" I ask, the key to not taking their attention seriously is to act like it isn't serious, because it isn't.

"On a run." He says vaguely because this part of the park is far removed from the main one, almost like someone created their own mini park in the middle of the forest.

"Oh." Is the only thing I say, the conversation keeps drying up because Dale is tense beside me like he's about or wants to say something.

I peek up up at him. "Are you okay? I hope this isn't about the puppy thing again." I warn.

"No... maybe." He corrects. "But it's not what you think."

His voice goes sad again, something I notice happens whenever he's talking or want to talk about his sister.

"Is it Jade?" I ask softly, unconsciously moving closer with the need to comfort him.

"Yeah but I don't want to burden you with things like that." He says shakily, averting his face.

I rarely ever see them show fragility and Dale looking like this breaks my heart.

"You aren't burdening me, you're unburdening yourself." I say, still staring up at his averted face. "Besides you owe me for trying to feed me to giant puppies." I tease lightly.

He stiffens at this reference, unintentionally pulling me closer.

"D-Dal…"

"I don't know why I want to." He starts to say, cryptically, looking down at me with pale green eyes that reflect the sunlight.

"I've never wanted to tell anyone before but you make it so easy to." He continues seriously and I have to dig my nails to remain focused on his face, a Herculean task when he's staring so intently at me like that, like I'm a gemstone.

I wonder what he could be wanting to tell me, I'm not really good at predicting.

"She was killed by wolves." He says in a toneless voice, the lights going out of his eyes that even the sun's reflection couldn't bring it back.