Dreamcatcher

17

"...I think I love you, Aerial."

I think I love you, Aerial. I think I love you, Aerial. I think I love you, Aerial....

The words echoed inside Aerial's brain, but the words couldn't register. Chase didn't love her. That wasn't possible. He didn't love her. He couldn't love her.

Aerial didn't realize her mouth was open as she stared empty-mindedly at the stars. They seemed far away but somehow still in arm's reach at the same time. But the more she stared, the more they grew closer, closer, closer, until she blinked and they were far away again.

She clenched her fists and re-opened them. A knot formed inside her throat.

"Aerial...?" Chase's cheeks were red, and the silence from the girl next to him only made the beating in his chest grow louder. "Aerial..."

He doesn't love me. He's lying. Chase is a liar, a big fat liar. He doesn't love. He doesn't love me. He can't love me. I'm unlovable.

"I told you my dream was almost completed," Chase whispered. He shuffled around uncomfortably, then decided to sit up while looking away from the still girl. "But it grew, Aerial. I don't just want a friend – I want more than that."

He doesn't love. He doesn't love me. He can't love me. Chase is a liar, a big fat liar.

Chase is a liar, a big fat liar.

"You...You lied to me," Aerial croaked out. Her words weren't picked up by Chase, who instead tilted his head and looked at her with raised brows. "...You lied..."

Chase's eyes glistened, and again he looked away from her. "...So that's a straight rejection, no?" He tried to let out a chuckle, but it was weak and almost pitiful. "...I get it, I get it. You still hate me, don't you?"

Aerial let out an exasperated sigh. Why was this happening now? How could this happen now? She sat up from the ground, back also turned away from the teen, and together the two sat in chilling silence. The stars were forgotten behind them, a faded backdrop.

And finally she looked. She turned around and stared deep inside Chase's eyes, so mournful and despairing and bleak that it told her that Chase wasn't lying, that he actually did love her, that he actually did think that she hated him regardless of whatever they experienced, whatever she went through to wait for him.

If only he knew...If only he knew that she waited those two weeks in the park alone, thinking that she had failed at Chase's dream, tearing herself apart for being such a bad person, thinking that she deserved more, that Chase deserved more....If only he knew what she felt that day and now.

'I get it. You still hate me, Aerial.'

He's lying. Chase is a liar, a big fat liar.

She reached out her hand without looking. The cold, bare skin....his arms wrapped around his legs...his shoulder...she felt it all. She felt how cold he was, felt his heartbeat, felt his warm breath on her hand. He was so, so still, almost like he was still lost in another world as Daydreaming Chase. But this was Real Chase, and Real Chase loved her.

Then came another hand. She was looking at him, but she didn't see – only felt. There were both shoulders. She wrapped her arms around his body in a tight hug, as if comforting him that things would be fine, things were already fine. He sat still, frighteningly still.

Then she let out an uneven breath. She made her way closer, arms still wrapped tightly, tightly as she could, tightly as she wanted, and she was now so close that she felt his breath on her neck, his quickening heartbeat on her own chest, and she could almost, almost feel what he felt, thoughts almost the same as what he thought.