Still Dreaming - Treebros

Chapter 16. "Some Things Live, But All Things Die"

Sunday, November 10th

One year ago, today, Connor and I had made pancakes in his kitchen. It was one of my favorite memories. When my feelings for him were first starting to blossom. When I looked forward more than I looked back,

Now, instead of celebrating with Connor, we're sitting behind the counter at Speedway and watching the clock.

"This how you imagined spending your birthday, Con?" I ask, sighing. We've already been here for a couple of hours. I had just barely clocked in when Connor waltzed in the door and started complaining about the room next to his.

"I didn't exactly have any other plans. I already spent yesterday with my family and if I did anything more taxing than this I'd probably vomit," he shrugs. Despite the disgustingness of the floor, he's settled down next to the wall of cigarettes and pulled his hoodie tight around his head. "Give me a 5 letter word."

I peep over his shoulder to see he's playing Wordle. "Smoke." Upon entering the word and receiving all gray squares, he gives me the bird. "Well, you don't have to stay if you don't want to. My shift doesn't end for another 3 hours."

"Do you wanna go out after this? Like to dinner?" Connor asks, typing away on his phone. He must not being doing too well, because he furrows his eyebrows. After a few more seconds of typing, he closes his phone with a pout.

"Um..." Finally, he notices what he just said.

"Not! Like that! Just like... I don't know. To a diner or something," he chokes out, pulling the strings of his hoodie tighter until I can just barely see his eyes. His nose is red, though, and I don't think it's the cold.

"Sure," I shrug, fiddling with my name tag. I can't believe I still get flustered around him. After all we've been through, I still feel like a high schooler holding his hand for the first time.

"And you'll eat?" Connor asks, voice muffled. My gaze falls away, embarrassed. A worn sneaker connects with my shin.

"Yes! Fine. But I'm paying. It's your birthday," I say. I haven't gotten him a gift, and I feel so bad. If I'm being completely honest, I forgot it was his birthday until this morning.

After a moment spent fiddling with his hoodie string, Connor speaks up again. "I really didn't mean it like that. I don't want Sam kicking my ass."

"I don't know if you'll have to worry about that," I admit. I didn't want to tell him about my relationship problems, but they looked like they might be coming to a head and I just wanted to get it off my chest.

"What do you mean?" Connor asks, taking off his hood to make eye contact unhindered.

"He's still kind of pissed about Halloween," I confess, joining Connor on the ground.

"Really? That was a while ago." His phone gets slid into his pocket. All his attentions on me know.

"Yeah, he says I'm pulling away from the relationship. And then the other day he kind of... um," I trail off.

"What? What did he do? I'll fucking kill him."

"No! It's, uh. We were, um, kissing, and it got kind of... far. And he asked if we could go, like, all the way." He'd already said that he'd had sex before. Connor has too, but this felt different. With Connor, I could trust that he wouldn't judge.