An Aromatic Dream (Dream)

27: "I LOVE HER" | JUNE 4

"Dude, it was crazy," Clay began, and Sap immediately chuckled.

"Stop lying, you stupid idiot," He rebuked Clay, "It was not that bad." Somehow, between all of the Minecraft and Manhunts and the things in between, catch-up conversation had gotten so far away from the trio of best friends that Clay never had the opportunity to tell George about everything that had happened. So they set time aside to talk over Discord after almost a month had passed so Clay could share all the details. Clay had been talking about his time spent with Cel and her family; specifically, about their first meeting. The Keyses had spent four days down in Florida, and Clay had joined in on two of them.

"Alright, fine. It was actually pretty fun," Clay admitted. "Her parents are cool. And her little brother is adorable. He has the same glasses as Cel does." George giggled, a sound Clay was used to hearing, but not in this context.

"That's so cute," He gushed, "I wish I hadn't left so early. Then I could have met them." Before Clay could answer, Sap jumped in.

"No, you couldn't have. I didn't get to meet them and I live here," Sap said. "Plus, you don't wish that at all. You want to spend all of your time with your girlfriend." Clay chuckled, and George let out a huff in response.

"You know what? You're right, I do want to spend lots of time with my girlfriend," George began rather defensively. He was even seeing her then. He cut himself off for a moment, and then when he came back to the line, he said, "And she says hi."

"Well, we say hi back," Clay responded, effortlessly painting over the fake rift that George and Sap had created in their conversation. In the background of the Discord call, they could all hear George speaking to someone again, and a muffled but familiar woman's voice called out,

"Hello!" Sap and Clay chorused back their greetings. George passed on the message, and the voice muffled back and sounded generally cheerful before George returned.

"So, anyway," He said, ever focused on the topic at hand, "What did you do when you met them?" And Clay divulged all of the information, Sap filling in any detail he happened to have missed. They were perfectly content to sit over the phone, chatting like a group of mothers over landline phones in the 1950s.

And, while they were chatting away, comfortable and warm, Cel was hard at work on the ice, pounding her routine into her muscle memory.

Over and over again, she ran the dance routine through - the leaps, the axels, and the butterfly: for her, the most intimidating trick of all. She'd even gone so far as to avoid doing it properly, only able to mentally commit to a reduced version where her skates hardly left the ice. She'd experienced mental block before, so Cel knew that, eventually, she would just have to do it. And this next run of the routine, she decided, was the time.

She mentally prepared, physically prepared. She slightly bent her knees, primed her arms, lifted off the ground -

And rotated too far, throwing off every sense of balance she had.

She landed hard, on her hands and knees. They gave out instantly, meaning all the extra momentum carried her torso directly into the unforgiving ice beneath her. Her glasses went sliding across the ice, far enough away that she knew finding them would be a lost cause. Cel floundered around without them on, blinded by blurriness and unsure of where she was going. Her biggest fear on the ice had always been messing up a butterfly, and it had finally happened. Without looking, she could feel that both of her knees were bruised, the left one beginning to swell already, and her palms were scraped. She couldn't have cared less about the cuts to her pride, being far too overwhelmed to even consider pride. Cel was choking on the silence in the arena, the drone of the air conditioner akin to quiet.