A/N: Here's chapter 2. Thanks to all of those who read chapter 1, and a special thanks to Clio195 for reviewing. :)

I still don't own anything.

Enjoy!

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Acrophobia, Chapter 2

This is what would happen:

She would smile at him, her eyes crinkling, and he would get goosebumps up and down his arms. If she'd say something even a little flirtatious, he'd get short of breath and the room would spin. If she casually brushed her hand across his shoulder or even gave him a high hive, suddenly the air would be a different consistency and his heart would beat wildly.

Yes, this was partially because when he was around her he felt giddy, nervous, frustrated, happy, confused, sad … basically the whole love package. But there was something else, too.

Sometimes, when she said or did something particularly engaging, it felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff. Like being perched on a tiny ledge sticking out of the face of a mountain, with the sky stretched out in front of him.

He imagined that behind him, there was the vertical rock wall, the side of the mountain. In front of him, the ledge cut off suddenly and beyond it was a drop so vast that he couldn't see the bottom through the clouds.

It took him three long years to get stranded on that little rock ridge. Over time he just kept climbing, not realizing that there was no way he was going back down, unless he wanted to fall. And one day, when he couldn't possibly love her any more than he already did, he got to a little plateau in the rock, and he had been there ever since.

He didn't have much choice in the matter. He couldn't successfully climb back down the way he came. It was impossible to keep climbing upwards. All he could do was, one day, step off the edge of the cliff and tell her how he felt. Only after he mustered the courage to leap would he know what happened next.

Mostly he supposed that he would plummet, unwanted and rejected, to the ground below.

xxxxxx

A/N: Thanks for reading, guys. Reviews are b-e-a-utiful, and I'll update again as soon as possible.