Past midnight, Tuesday, 30 December, 1997

Chloe knew she'd sway toward one tree with a smack pretty soon. She was holding onto her resolve as if it were a vine. She was either going to crash into Daniel again, and love him like she used to, or she was going to close her window and tell him to go away; she did not want to be nice about it either.

"Daniel, please, don't say that."

"I meant it. I'll make it up to you, babe."

She began to bite her lip, feverishly, and her chest was heaving allowing Daniel to feel all of her secrets.

Chloe wanted Daniel just as much as he wanted her. There was no denying that. Her brain, though--that deceitful organ--the chemicals in her brain were in a frenzy. A frenzy to get her out of another torrent of romantic hell. Those fires she had walked through twice now and she always told herself she was too good to play with fire. Yet that fire was very, very tempting ...

As if he could read her freaking mind, Dan breathed, "I feel it, too. I'm burning for you."

She almost leaned in, preparing to give him just one quick kiss on his flushed cheek and then tell him to go back home, but then Daniel's head looked down below him, quick as lightning.

His black blood boiled within him. "Shut up!"

"What?"

Daniel felt as if he had swallowed a ball of fire. "Chloe, I'm sorry. I didn't even know I said that out loud." He shut his eyes tightly and then looked around him trying to focus back on her. "I was telling my heart to stop beating. It won't stop beating for you."

That was a lie. His heart did not beat anymore. For anything or anyone.

That rustle in the bushes they had both heard earlier was Ben and Chris. The boys panicked when they realized Daniel had escaped. They checked the lookout and then they came straight to Chloe's house. It really ticked Dan off how well his best mates knew him. Maybe they knew him a little too well.

Chloe still had no clue who was down there, hiding and whispering behind the bushes. Her human ears could not detect their pleas to Dan to leave her alone, come down, and walk back home with them.

Daniel was livid. This was his endless life. He was in control of it, not his blubbering mates. What the hell did they know about love anyway?

"We know you can hear us, Daniel, come down from there, please," Chris begged again in a frantic whisper.

"Are you alright, Daniel?" Chloe was getting a little freaked out. She was worried about her first love. He really didn't look like himself. The more his features battled with the emotions inside of him, the more she felt like letting him in her bedroom was not such a great idea.

He didn't answer her, so she put all of the cards of her heart back into the deck, nice and neat, and told him, gently and with pure love laced in every word, "Daniel, I love you with all my heart. Nothing's going to happen tonight between us, though. You need to go home, and I need to go to bed. It's very late. I have work in the morning. I'm working with my dad at the vet clinic now, remember?"

Daniel's features softened then. He had completely forgotten about that. "Oh. Yeah. You did tell me about that. You know how I can, uhm, get carried away at times. I'm very sorry."

"Oh, I know how you can, Dan. That's one of the things I miss about you the most."

Dammit, Chloe, why did you have to say that to him? Chloe felt herself unhinge. Her cards fell to the floor. There's one other force greater than gravity -- the flames of past loves. Daniel really had to go or else they would pick up their dance right where they left it off before silverchair went out for their last tour of the year. This was all getting to be too much to handle.

"Daniel, what the hell are you doing!? If you don't come down right now, mate, I'm gonna come out and scare the fark out of Chloe, ya hear me? I'll tell her the truth!" Ben was adamant. His heart drummed in his chest, loud and heavy and furious.

"Ben, for heaven's sake, you wouldn't dare," Chris looked at his friend in the dark, who he was crouched down real low with in the grass, as if he didn't know him anymore. "You wouldn't dare."

"Yes, yes I would. Watch me."

The frontman's black heart squirmed for the right words. "Uhhhh--Chloe. Yeah. I think it's best that I be off now. May I ring you tomorrow? Please?"

The drummer's fury was swiftly put out.

Daniel didn't really give Chloe any time to think. "Yeah. Fine." She felt sucker-punched.

Bewilderment and melancholy returned to her face as she saw Daniel slide her window back down from the outside. She didn't want to watch him go, so she turned around and held back the tears that were threatening to fall if she saw him leave, again.

By the time she turned back around, he was gone.

♡ ♡ ♡

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