I swear I must be nocturnal. The entire herd is nestled up in the cave, and I'm lying next to Peaches, staring out the cave's mouth and wishing for someone to talk to… again…
It's only been a few days since Eddie told me he likes James, and James told me he likes Crash… James has barely been able to function around Crash, and Eddie's the same with James. James hasn't noticed Eddie whatsoever because he's busy staring at Crash, and I'm worried now that if I actually do ask Peaches out, James is going to break Eddie's heart and have Crash break his heart. I can walk almost as well as before I got bitten which means I don't have an excuse to wait at the cave, so I haven't talked privately with anyone about any of this. How the hell am I going to fix all of this?
I, literally, have to ask Peaches out. I'll be honest here, she's going to get impatient with me if I don't find a way to tell her soon. But I need to call off this dumb bet with James… Why did I agree to that stupid bet!? I have to get James alone and convince him not to ask Crash out… Ugh, but I want him to be able to ask Crash out if he wants… and I want Eddie to be able to go out with James… and I want to go out with Peaches… and I don't even know who she wants to go out with anymore. Having all of this weighing in on my trying to tell Peaches is not in the slightest bit helping. I can barely handle my own heart; I can't have everyone else's jumbled up with it.
I sigh and murmur, "Oh well…" I'm not going to give up on trying to fix this, but I can't think of anything useful to do about it right now…So I might as well brood over something that makes me happy instead. I curl up closer to Peaches and smile cozily as she unconsciously wraps her trunk around me. I run my hand adoringly through her fur then bury my face in it, trying to harmonize my breathing with hers. I love her... and I know that I've become redundant at this point, and I know that none of this will ever matter anyway, and I know that there's so many other things I could be worrying about, but I love her. She makes me so happy; she's the only thing that really, really makes me happy. I kiss her trunk and rub my face against it sluggishly, hoping she's not awake and hoping that she doesn't find this weird if she is.
I lay there, feeling the weight of everything on top of me… I wish she could be the only thing on my list, but I've still got to worry about James, and Crash and Eddie, and, well, pretty much everyone else in the herd… and, oh gosh! I completely forgot about those sabers! That one… Zeke, I think, said I had a week to get Peaches alone so they could…
No! No. I'm not going to even think about them… If they couldn't get Peaches when she found me, they can't get her when she's with any one of the bigger mammals of the herd. But still, I should probably tell Diego about that threat. Manny can't know though; he'd squash me for not telling him. He might even try to extinct my entire species… I should probably be concerned about the fact that I can't think of Manny as anything other than a violent bully. He raised Peaches, and she's awesome. Why don't I give him the same chance as everyone else? For all I know, he'd rather Peaches go out with me over Ethan, or he'd like both Ethan and myself to drop dead… But, either way, people tend to surprise me when I stop being cynical for long enough to give them a chance. I guess I could tell him tomorrow…
Peaches shifts herself imprecisely into, what I can only assume is not, a more comfortable position which involves partially orienting herself upwards while tightening her trunk around me. I can't see how that doesn't hurt, so she's probably either asleep or doesn't care. Understandably, she must not be used to sleeping on the ground. I need to tell Manny and fix this sociopathic-saber-problem, if for no other reason than to get Peaches a place where she can sleep contentedly.
I turn to interminably stare out of the cave again just in time to see a small shadow streak across the floor, exit the cave, and evaporate into the forest. Who was that? Eddie? Crash? James? They're the only ones small enough to cast a shadow that short- well, it could have been Granny, I guess. But I've never seen her move that fast. Regardless of who that was, where was he or she going?
I wait a few minutes, but nothing else mentionable happens. I feel like I should go figure out what that was. Standing up, I try to gently move Peaches' trunk and step over it. I trip almost immediately and tumble out of the cave haphazardly, rolling out into the middle of the clearing right outside of it and stopping with a sore landing right on my rear. I hobble back up and brush myself off. There's a rustling in the bushes directly in front of me. I start, whipping around, prepared to bolt back to the cave if necessary. My heart stops racing when I see James' head pop up from behind the bush.
He looks at me, surprised, and says, "Louis? What're you doing out here?"
"I could ask the same of you." I respond.
"Me? I was just clearing my head…" He explains, "I'll be honest with you… these past few days have been rough. When exactly were you planning on asking Peaches out again?"
"Uh…" I start, "about that whole 'bet' thing… I'm not gunna be able to go along with it anymore; feel free to tell Crash how you feel, though."
"What are you saying?" He looks at me, almost angrily.
"I'm calling it off. I can't tell Pea…"
"Sure you can!" He interrupts. "You're the one who made me promise to go through with this whole thing in the first place, and I kind'a need you to lighten the blow on me asking Crash by asking Peaches first…"
"Okay… I've known you for a week, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that was sarcasm…" I say, hoping he'll laugh off the conversation.
"The second part was, but I was being completely serious when I said you could do it. You just have to tell her that you're crushing on her, that you love her." Letting his last few words hang in the air, he awaits my response with a triumphant grin on his face. Because conceding is totally my style…
"But I don't just want her to know that I have a crush on her. I don't just want her to know that I love her. I want her to know that she's better than her friends make her think she is. I want to tell her that- even when she's arguing with her dad, or her friends, or even me- he still loves her, and they still love her, and I do too. I want to be able to hug her in public and not have to worry about ruining what little of a reputation I still have, or even worse have to worry about ruining hers. I want to feel warm and safe around her, like that first day we met, and I want her to be able to feel the same around me… and I want to scream 'I love you!' as loud as my scratchy, little voice can go right in front of her. Right in her face, and I wish that I didn't care about how she'd respond, but I do. And I want her to look at me with her beautiful smile that I barely ever get to see anymore, and I want everything to be okay…" I trail off, not wanting him to pick up on my foreshadowing.
"You know," He says wryly, "it looks like you could use a little thing we non-hyper-idealists call 'practice.'"
"Like?" I ask.
This chapter's song is "Open Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol.