We walked out side by side. I was a little embarrassed for acting out. We said our goodbyes, and walked into the forest. It Wasn't long until we had a couple rabbits and some berries to snack on. He asked me a few questions, each one sounded like he had rehearsed them several times. I was sick of him picking the topic, his questions made me sad. So I did the first thing that came to mind. It was a really dumb thing, and if I had waited one second to start talking I might have said something different.
"Do you love me?" Too vague. "Really love me?" I was terrified. I didn't want to hear his response.
"Of course I do, I always have." What a terrible liar. Him and his friends talked about how annoying I was all the time. We were looking at each other now, trying to decide whether or not we should kiss. I didn't really know how, but I went for it. I took a couple steps towards him, leaving the space between us only breaths away, throwing my berries to the ground. I closed my eyes and the next thing I knew we were connected. Every movement we made was completely in sync, like we practiced before. It was amazing, and more than I had hoped for. Nothing could have separated us in that moment, nothing except the one thing that did.
"Dominic! April!" My mother.
She was sprinting towards us screaming our names. We ran towards her, and when we were close enough she said to me, "I figured it out! The letter!" What in the world is she on right now?
"The cloud letter?" Dominic spat out.
"Yes! It's something we used to say all the time!" Okay actually what is happening right now.
"Okay slow down, where is it?"
"It's a little diner right by the border of here and the Underlye."
"Wait, Marty's fish and chips?"
"You know it?"
"Of course I do, my dad would take me there all the time when I was little, we called it the space station though."
"Yeah no, when me and your mom met we would go there and eat on the south side right over that ledge, we were 'eating with the birds on the clouds'."
"How did you get the letter?"
"I was cleaning and found it laying there, figured you didn't know what it meant yet so I didn't think to tell you."
Now? Really mom? You had all day.
"Yeah that's great mom, we're going to find a couple more rabbits and hopefully some mushrooms and we'll be back soon."
"Okay perfect, see you both later. Love you guys." She walked off and we kept looking for rabbits and mushrooms. Although it wasn't as easy as before, we were just life long friends before, nothing new had started just a few hours ago.
"Why did you tell your mom we were getting mushrooms?"
"No idea. I saw some growing back there and I just wanted a way out of that conversation." He laughed, but obviously thought I was dumb for making an excuse, she definitely saw us.
We walked for three minutes, making sure my mom wasn't going to run up on us again.
Dominic turned to me, "Should we maybe talk about what happened?"
"We probably should, I don't know what to think about it."
"Me either, it was fun, don't get me wrong, but is it something we should be thinking about right now?"
I didn't know how to respond so I sat there for a minute.
"I say let's go for it. What have we got to lose? If it doesn't work out we'll still be friends, right?"
"Yeah, yeah that sounds good. Let's maybe wait a bit to tell my mom, I don't want to get her hopes up."
He nodded, and we walked back to the house, making sure to grab a few mushrooms on the way.