Thin Line- Charlie Dalton Love Story

Chapter 21: Sunrays Shine

{Charlie's POV}

I made up my mind. I was finally gonna tell her. I mean I certainly felt it at the moment. Why shouldn't I tell her. There was no rule or time limit. If I love her then I love her dammit.

I began, "I...uhh-" the confidence in me was slowly subsiding, "I-"

"Uhhh, good morning?" Neil said.

Neil? What the fuck?

There Neil was, arriving at the worst times imaginable. Here I was trying to confess my feelings, and Neil comes in with a fucking good morning. Took me a minute to notice that Knox was there behind him. Why had they even come here at this time? I looked at Valerie and she looked shocked and surprised. I was too, because what the fuck is this?

Neil' eyes landed on my hand which were on top of Val's hand and immediately averted his eyes and turned around, forcing Knox to turn around with him.

"Would you relax, it's not like we're naked." I said.

"uh.. Valerie Chase, Rebecca is looking for you. She says she's worried you didn't come home last night." Neil said, in a robotic tone.

"Now we know why." Knox commented, trying hard not to laugh.

Valerie took her hand away from mine and collected her stuff. She looked at me, and for a moment I thought she would kiss me or at the very least say goodbye, but instead, she punched me on the chest. With that, and nothing more, Chase made her way out the cave.

Well that could've gotten worse. Yeah, It could've. She could have vomited on me. She could have punched me in the face. She could've shot me. Suddenly, I felt irritated at both Knox and Neil.

"What the hell are you guys doing here!" I shouted, "I was about to-"

"About to?" Knox said, finally turning around.

"Nevermind." I said, in a calmer voice, "Neil, is it your hobby to intervene at the worst fucking possible moments?"

They both came into the cave and leaned against the rocks.

"What are you even doing here?" I asked, irritated.

"Like I said, Valerie's roommate was worried and Knox figured you would be here with her, and kudos man." Neil said, before high fiving Knox.

"What are you two doing here?" Knox said, raising his eyebrows up and down.

"Oh my god. Were you about to-?" Neil said, finally putting the pieces together.

While Knox and Neil freaked out and teased me about my capability of love, I got up and started tidying up the place. The candles were all melted away and had left hard to remove wax all over the rocks, which I wasn't gonna bother cleaning up.

Knox picked something off the floor and said, "She must have dropped this."

Without hesitation, he opened the folded piece of paper and began reading aloud. It was the poem that I had given her. She must have dropped it on her way out.

"Sunrays shine! A light struck through so-Hey wait a minute!" Knox said.

I leapt at him to retrieve the poem but he was much taller than me. He somehow handed the poem to Neil, from behind his back. This made Neil begin shouting out the poem.

"I feared what was and could not touch! Hey, what's an Aether?" Neil said, laughing aloud.

Finally I grasped it in my hand and yanked it out of Neil's hands. "Come on you guys, it's personal."

"So did you figure out if you love her or not?" Knox asked after laughing hysterically.

"Yeah. I do. I love her. Why do I love her? It would have been a lot easier if I didn't love her. What do I do?" I asked, looking at Knox, desperate for some useful advice.