Dahlia did not like for people to see her cry. Supposedly, there was a mythical race of people who could cry and still look pretty while they did it, but Dahlia was not one of them. When she cried, her face got all red and blotchy, her eyes swelled, and her nose ran. It was ugly, and she didn’t want Brice to see her like that. Usually, if possible, she tried to go off on her own, get all the crying out, and then wash her face and fix herself up before she faced anyone else. However, that was impossible at the moment—she was in the middle of nowhere, with Brice right there in front of her, and all she had to hide her face in was a tree. Of course, she didn’t rub her face on the tree—that would be stupid. She just turned toward it, letting her hair fall down around her face, and holding her fingers up to her cheeks to wipe away the wetness and try to control the snot. It was only partially effective, especially since Brice wasn’t letting her regain composure and fix herself; he was petting her hair, which was nice, but… not at the moment. She shrugged her shoulder to try to hint that he should remove his hand and give her some space. He didn’t get the hint. Of course not. Brice was a wonderful boy, but he was not good at picking up her hints.

“Dahlia? You are going to get splinters in your face.”

“I”—hic!—“am not,” she protested. She tried to resist his pulling hands, but he was too insistent, and she ended up with her wet face tucked against his neck. At least, with her face pressed against him, he couldn’t see the blotchiness. Her arms involuntarily went up to loop around his neck, and she was able to swipe at her face every once in a while over his shoulder. Her shoulders were heaving with her sobs, and she kept hiccupping when she tried to talk. It was pathetic, but it didn’t seem like he was going anywhere, so she just clung to him and cried. She couldn’t seem to stop.

“Dahlia, don’t cry. It’s okay.” 

“No”—hic!—“It’s not!” He didn’t understand. He just didn’t understand. She wasn’t crying because he loved her. That was a nice thing. She was glad that he loved her, and there was nothing to cry about being loved. She loved him, too. Theoretically, they should embrace and kiss and run off into the sunset and live happily ever after. But this was not one of her romance novels. This was real life, and there wasn’t some author controlling things who could just make everything turn out right in the end. How did this even happen? She supposed it was her fault. She had known that he liked her more than he should, and she shouldn’t have encouraged him. But then, it was so nice to be wooed, and he was so very good at the wooing. Nat Warwick could care less about wooing her, and quite frankly, she doubted she would like being wooed by him. But Brice was so romantic, with gifts and moonlight and chocolate and compliments, and she couldn’t help but like it. She was not made of stone.

She probably should have been, and if she were to ask her mother (which she would never, ever do), her mother would say that she only had herself to blame for the mess she was in—if she had been acting properly, he would have gotten over his little crush, and they would have just moved on with their lives. That may or may not have been true, but it was too late now. Now they were… in love. And it was a huge mess.  Dahlia didn’t see how it was going to be a happy ending for them. And what was the point if there wasn’t going to be a happy ending? It was pointless and hopeless and sad, and all she wanted to do was cry. All of his words, explaining how he’d loved her since they met as children, and how all he wanted was for her to be happy and he would always love her forever… they were just making it worse. “Brice,” she hiccupped, with a little groan, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. She wanted him to just stop talking. Why couldn’t he ever stop talking? He meant well, she knew, but it was just awful.

“Don’t feel bad if you don’t feel the same. I-I know that it’s hard to…force something that isn’t there.” 

She huffed a little in a sort of half laugh, with a few hiccups thrown in, and slid her hands up to twist around the curls at the back of his neck. “Brice,” she sniffled, “you silly. It is there. I do love you. I love you very, very much.” Her eyes filled with tears again, and her voice choked off, so that she could barely get out the next sentence. “That’s the problem,” she mumbled against his shoulder. “What are we going to do, Brice? We can’t… we can’t… there’s nothing.” She wasn’t even making any sense, but none of this made any sense. And there was nothing they could do to fix it. And she couldn’t think. And all she could do was cry. “Do you”—sniff—“have a handkerchief?” she asked him.