Cloud Walking (A Find You in the Dark novella) by A. Meredith Walters Page A

That I wanted to know what I had done wrong and then it happened. 
     
          “Yes, we're friends!  But damn you, Daniel!  I love you!  I'm tired of you hurting me!” Rachel cried out, covering her face with her hands.  I stood there completely dumbstruck.  She loved me?  She loved me!  But I needed confirmation.  I needed to make sure I heard that correctly and that it meant the same thing to her as it did to me.  I stared at Rachel, willing her to look at me, but she kept her face covered.  Her shoulders shaking with sobs that ripped my heart out.  So I turned to Maggie. 
     
         “She loves me?  What the hell is she talking about?” Please, just tell me what I want to hear , I begged my friend silently.  Rachel tore away from Clay and Maggie and ran down the hallway to our room.  Away from me.  And then I couldn't take anymore.
     
         So I punched the stupid fucking wall.  I knew it was a shitty thing to do, but I just couldn't keep it all inside anymore.  And then I freaking left.  I walked out into the freezing snow.  I needed to get away from all of them.  Away from the craziness. 
     
         I headed to the lake and sagged down on a bench.  I didn't feel the cold.  I was too caught up in my erratic thoughts.  Rachel loved me.  Once she said that, it all clicked into place and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted her.  I wanted a chance at happiness...with her.  But I was worried that I had messed that all up.  How do I approach her now and say, Hey there, I love you too...wanna be my girlfriend? 
     
         Maggie found me a few minutes later and she talked me off of that cliff, just like she always did.  She convinced me that I needed to go talk to Rachel.  That I needed to sort things out. I didn't lay things out for Maggie and admit how deep my feelings were for Rachel.   Call it dumb pride, but I didn't want to admit all that and then have my heart broken publicly by Rachel's rejection.  I was too unsure of how things were going to go. 
     
         I hadn't realized Clay was standing there until I got up to walk back into the house.  He didn't look happy, but the truth was the dude rarely looked happy and my mind was focused on the girl inside.  The girl who could shred my guts in an instant.
     
         So I made my way back into the house.  I slowly walked down the hallway and stopped outside the door to the room we were sharing.  Should I knock?
     
         Screw it.  I pushed open the door and went inside...and froze.  Rachel was curled in the middle of the bed, her chin tucked into her chest, looking completely destroyed.  Had I done that to her?  Oh lord, I didn't want to do that to her. 
     
         I had told her love shouldn't make you feel like that and here I was making her fucking feel like that.  That ends now.  Tonight.  I didn't care about the damn consequences.  I needed Rachel to know how I felt, that the hurting had to stop.
     
         I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her.  She was so beautiful.  Had I never really appreciated how incredibly gorgeous she was?  Even with her face red and splotchy from tears, she was the most intensely amazing thing I had ever seen.  My life began and ended with her.  She was the one who always made me feel like I was able to put one foot in front of the other.  She was the one who had held my hand as I cried (as much as I had tried to hide it) after breaking my arm in the second grade.  She was the one who had brought me soup last year when I was sick with mono.  She was the one who had kept me company in the dark days after my parents split up.  Maggie was my best friend too.  But Rachel had always been that something more. 
     
         This girl was my rock...my heart.  My everything.  I had been such an idiot for so long.  Why did I ever think Kylie could mean to me what she did?  I realized now that these feelings had always been