StarFall (Completed)

Ch. 29 (part 2)

His legs clung together, pointing inward on themselves as he clung desperately to the rope railings.

"Why would you do that?"

"I don't know."

"You just told me not to do that."

"I know!"

I turned around on the spot slowly and faced him. "Miller, look at me. It's going to be alright."

His eyes were shut tight.

"Miller, hey, look at me. Come on."

He slowly peeled his eyes open and squinted over at me.

"There you go. Good boy."

"I'm not a dog, you know."

"Sure, sure." I mocked.

Miller scoffed as he tried to keep himself from repeating his previous mistake.

"Just look at me and everything is going to be fine. Listen to the sound of my voice, and follow after me." I waited. "Are you ready?"

He took a breath and nodded. "Mhm."

Slowly we stepped over planks. I walked backwards, hoping no unforeseen pitfalls awaited us. We were halfway there, each small step gaining ground as we reached ever closer to the nameless queen's domain.

"You're doing great. Just keeping moving towards me."

His legs trembled with every step. "Sorry about this."

My face took on a scrunched up appearance. "Why?"

"Because...this can't seem very manly to you...right?" 

I couldn't help but laugh.

"Yeah...I figured."

"Miller, are you kidding me? Please say you're kidding me."

"What?"

The wind rocked the bridge back and forth. His knees buckled instantly as he tried to keep his cool.

"Look at where we are. At how far we've come. After all that..after all you've put up with and survived with me...with all of us...how could you ever think something as silly as that?"

He looked up at me with a half-smile before it fell from his face. "Adeline...I remember."

We were nearly to the other side, two dozen planks or so before we'd reach solid, and stable, ground. 

"Excuse me?"

"That night..by the water...when you tried talking to me about..you know."

My eyes grew wide as I stopped walking. "Excuse me?" My tone heavy.

"I know...I shouldn't have lied, but we had just dealt with so much. Bobby had transformed, you changed as well, and heck, I almost died." He tried to laugh. "It just didn't feel like the right time to focus on something like that."

Idiot..idiot, idiot! I repeated inside my head, wanting to shout at him. But I knew better at this moment in time. What was I supposed to say...was there anything I could say?

"Miller, I--"

"What's that?"

The bridge began to shake and tremble as we watched on in horror. From behind us the rope had begun to snap, planks collapsed down into the nothingness beneath us in the blink of an eye, as a wave of falling planks made their way to us.