Dawn was halfway through her ice cream, just short of a brain freeze of her own, when the blonde spoke up. "How's the ice cream. Good? It's not too cold right? Or too-too chocolatey?" A grin slid onto the teens lips as she looked up, meeting her gaze. "It's great. I'm not even sure if there's such a thing as too cold or too-too chocolatey when it comes to ice cream." The teenager pretended not to notice that Tara was nervous about something-that she probably wanted to talk to her.
But Tara was pretty persistent. "And okay..There was moe to this then mocha madness." Her gaze fell back to the bowl in front of her. "Yeah, I kinda thought so."
"Dawn...You know that I love you, right? And Willow...She loves you, too. We both do. And we would never want to hurt you in anyway, right?" Dawn nodded a little, looking up a second time. "I...I know. And...it wasn't that I thought that. Not really, anyway." She'd made up with Willow, but apparently Tara wanted to make sure everything was okay. "It was more...I felt so...excluded. Like...like none of you wanted me here. Or around." She glanced down to the dark brown melty puddle surrounding some of the still frozen treat in her bowl. "Like you'd rather I had been the one to jump, instead of her."
She paused for a moment. "I almost did. I don't think any of you know that. But she stopped me."