The Tree in the Forest

Chapter Seventeen

~~~

You're laying on Rose's bed, taking up all of her space.

"Dave, what do you want?" She asks, putting her book down.

"Well, I have secret. Do you promise to keep it? It won't be a secret for very long anyway," You said. She nodded, suddenly very interested in what you had to say.

"Um, so you know Karkat. Okay, so I finally got enough courage to ask him out." You tell her. She smiled broadly at you and grabs you and shakes you a little.

  "What did he say?" She asked. Why was that even a question? I was smiling about it, so of course he said yes.

  "Yes. Duh, Rose. Don't think I had to spell that one out for ya'," You say. Rose just shoved you shoulder and smiles more.

"I'm so proud of you. Welcome to the Dark Side. We have cookies," She joked. You knew she was talking about being 'Officially Gay'.

"Hey, I'm down for those cookies. Unless they're raisin, ew," You were happy that it was such a loose conversation and it didn't feel like you had to act differently.

"But I promise I'll keep your secret until two weeks from now. If you don't tell Mom and Dirk by then, I'll tell them," She said. Fair enough.

"Don't worry, I don't think you'll have to wait two weeks. I might just tell them at dinner tonight," You shift so that you can sit with your legs under you.

  "Besides, they know I'm gay so it won't be this sudden epiphany of 'Hey, look! I like guys'," You said.

  Rose was Roxy's daughter. You two were around the same age and were born on very similar dates. Roxy was also your cousin. In all technicality, Rose was your second cousin and Roxy was your first cousin, but you just called them your cousins.

  Roxy had Rose when she was only a teenager. You weren't alive to see that, but you were in your own mom's stomach at the time, so you couldn't see much of anything.

  You don't really remember your mom very well. Bro told you that she 'punched her own ticket' and you didn't find out what that meant until third grade. Your mom had committed suicide.

  You didn't know why she had done it, but Bro did. You remember how he found a letter from her, but wouldn't let anyone else read it. Everyone got really angry at him for that, but he didn't care.

  You never even knew your dad. You didn't know his name, what he looked like, what type of job he had. You knew nothing. Personally, if he still hasn't come to see you, you don't want to see him. He was deadbeat, you just knew it.

  Anyway, enough about your family. Let's talk more about how happy you are. You can't believe that Karkat said that he would go out with you. You'd been wanting to go out with him for years now, and now you do. It makes even the darkest recesses of your mind light up.

  You wanted him to come over, but you wanted to tell Roxy and Bro first. You hoped that they wouldn't have a fit about it. You just wanted to be Karkat's boyfriend and nothing more.

  Dinner felt like it came around quicker than normal. You walked out of Rose's room when Roxy called,  with Rose not far behind.

  You sat down around the coffee table. That's about as close as your family gets to a dining room table. Food on plates were sat in front of each of you and silverware was given out before everyone started eating.

  Rose shoved your leg with her arm, wordlessly tell you to go for it. Fuck it, here you go.

  "So, I have some important news. Well, it's important to me at least." You began.

  "What is it, Davey?" Roxy asked. You used to ask her to stop calling you that, but it was a lost cause. She would never stop calling you that.

  "Um, you see, I think I've begun the process of becoming a man," You said, trying to lighten the mood. Bro told you to keep going.

  "Karkat said that he'd go out with me," You shoot out of your mouth, not thinking about it. They didn't say anything.

  "So, uh, we're boyfriends now," You finish reluctantly. Roxy just burst into a smile and hugged you tightly from across the table, saying how happy she was for you and how she knew it was going to happen. Bro shook his head a little.

  "It's about fuckin' time," He laughed. You smiled, very excited that they were happy about it. You were worried for nothing.

  You saw Rose smiling from the floor as Roxy squeezed you. You smiled back. You were going to let yourself smile and that's all you were going to do.

  "But seriously, lil' man, we were waiting for you to ask him. We saw the way you looked at him," Bro said. Your face flushed, but you still smiled.

  This was probably one of the best days of your life. You didn't want anything more than this.

  When Roxy let you go, you sat down and ate. Everything tasted even better than normal. The world was better, even if your little actions did nothing to actually better the world, they bettered your own little life.

  Everything was suddenly worth it. All of the fear, nervousness, hiding your feelings, it was all worthwhile.

  When you finished dinner, you stayed in the living room for a while, but then went to your room. You laid on your bed, sitting in the dark, thinking about the day.

  You couldn't keep yourself from chuckling at yourself. Karkat would've called you an idiot for laughing at seemingly nothing.

  You thought back to when you wanted that Polaroid of him, when you say for hours trying to figure out how to ask him to a dance, how rejected you felt when you thought he didn't want to be your friend after you asked him, and how you played what you were going to say millions of times in your head.

  Everything thing led up to this and you couldn't be happier.

                                       ~~~

I'm so proud of this child. He's getting somewhere with his (love)life.

Dave is 16 and Karkat is almost 16 in these past two chapters btw. I forgot to bring that up. It'll be that way for a bit because of how I'm doing things. The next few chapters take place over about two months.

But anyways, he's so happy and I find it kind of adorable. So basically, I have to tear it apart from the inside out and my outline of the story will really come out.

I'm planning to write an epilogue after the story ends to tie up some loose ends. I'm also working on a comic for it to go along with what happens in the epilogue, but no spoilers for you!

There's going to be art in an additional chapter but that is an optional read. Well, the epilogue could be optional if you don't want you read it. But it will clear some stuff up and yep.

Alrighty, that's all! See you soon!

~Ghostie