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“Yes?”

“Wanna come talk to me for a moment? There’s something important I need to tell you,” I said, keeping my voice calm.

It was easy being around her.

She made me feel safe and down to earth, but what mattered the most was how she made me feel loved.

“Of course. Is everything okay?” She walked over to me and grabbed my hand, then she tilted her head to try and figure out what this was all about.

“Yes, everything’s okay. There’s something I need to get off my chest though.”

She nodded and leaned in to kiss my cheek, but I turned my head so her lips landed on mine.

Cupping the side of her face, I kept her close and kissed her passionately before breaking the kiss again to look at her.

“Come on,” I whispered.

We walked into my bedroom and I closed the door so Mama wouldn’t hear us talk if she were to come home early.

“Did you finish the letter Mrs. Irvine asked you to write?” she asked as we sat down on my bed.

“I finished it last night when you fell asleep. You?”

“I finished it yesterday too,” she stated.

Mrs. Irvine made us both write a letter. One we would keep to ourselves, no matter how much we wanted the other to read it.

We poured our heart and soul into that letter, and on our last visit tomorrow, we’d read it one last time before ripping it apart and burning it.

It was Mrs. Irvine’s idea, and Ves and I did what she suggested.

“What is it you wanted to tell me?” she asked, her hand still in mine.

I watched as her fingers played with mine, never able to keep still when she was feeling unsure.

“You have nothing to worry about, okay? I know I should’ve been honest back then, but I didn’t wanna lose you. Or upset you.”

I paused, waiting for the right words to appear on my mind.

Vespyr was patiently waiting for me to speak, and when I finally looked at her, she smiled to encourage me.

“Remember how Mrs. Irvine talked to you about interpreting reality abnormally? And how you said those dreams started when you were younger, but got more intense the older you got?”

She nodded at me, her eyes narrowing before tilting her head. “They stopped now,” she pointed out.

“I know. Though, those nights you had those dreams about me when you first came to the forest…”

I stopped, and after a while of silence, she looked back down at our hands, her fingers still interlocked with mine.

“You mean the fever dreams I had.”

“Yeah, those,” I sighed, biting my bottom lip before saying what’s been bothering me all this time. “Those weren’t dreams, Vespyr.”

I let that sink in, but it didn’t take her long to respond.

“I know. I mean, I figured they weren’t. They felt far too real,” she said, her voice soft.

“You’re not mad at me for making you believe that they were? What I did to you during those nights wasn’t okay.”

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