Pen Pals // d.h

The Longing

Aubree

Sunday rolled around slower than I'd have like it, but it was here.

Dan and I's date.

Could I call it a date?

He sent me kisses in our emails. I could call it a date, right?

Maybe I was overthinking this. Perhaps it was Dan telling me how excited he was to go back to London and leave me.

But he told me he never wanted to leave.

I got ready quite quickly, dressing myself in a loose grey dress that tied at my waist. I slipped into some opaque black stockings and brown boots. Grabbing a maroon fedora, I walked out the door and towards the path where Dan had told me to meet him.

And when I got to the park, I was surprised to see absolutely no-one there.

I mean, he never ever wanted to leave the house unless it was for some extreme cause, but Dan was supposed to meet me here.

I found a hand drawn hop-scotch game on the pavement where Dan had told me to meet him. Upon closer inspection, it had my name scrawled along the pavement in front of it, and little bits of paper that'd been folded up on the nine squares.

"What are you playing at Daniel?", I muttered, picking up a pebble that'd been conveniently placed next to my name, which was written in pink chalk.

I tossed it at a square, it landed on number 7.

Hopping towards it, I picked up the piece of paper laid carefully over the number and unfolded it.

Reason 7: You're my best friend. It read.

Reason for what?

I sighed, slipping the paper into my pocket and picking up the pebble to throw it at another square.

I continued until I'd read all the papers. On one of them, bits of confetti fell out when I unfolded it, another had little llama stickers stuck to it, one even had little stars painted on it in yellow.

The rest of the 'reasons' read the following:

Reason 9: You love llamas (hence the llama stickers)

Reason 6: You're fun to be around (confetti)

Reason 1: You're creative

Reason 4: You're there for everyone when they need you

Reason 2: You somehow didn't kill me for what happened

Reason 5: Your eyes can show me all the stars in the world (the painted stars)

Reason 3: Your laugh is literally the best thing ever

Reason 8: You are my other half

Not only that, but each bit of paper had a letter written on the back, one of which had an exclamation point.

These were the letters:

I V O E O U L Y !

It took me a forever to unscramble it, but when I did, I doubted myself.

I LOVE YOU !

Surely this was just a coincidence. Dan didn't love me.

Maybe you could make another series of words with the letters. Perhaps it was just gibberish, Dan did things like that.

I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

That was, until a flower crown was thrown onto the ground in front of me.

My head shot up, finding a smiling Dan.

I couldn't find words. There were hundreds of questions I wanted to ask him but I couldn't get the words out.

Instead, Dan held his hand out for me to take. So I did.

I let him pull me to my feet, and into a hug, which surprised me.

Everything surprised me today.

"I see you unscrambled my message", he mumbled.

"I don't know how you came up with such a creative idea", I chuckled, still in his tight embrace.

"I found it on Pinterest"

And as he picked up the flower crown and placed it on top of my hat, I did the most surprising thing.

I kissed Dan Howell.

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GONNA LEAVE IT THERE FOR THIS CHAPTER FOLKS I'M CRYING WHOOP PLEASE SOMEONE BUY ME A DAN HOWELL PLZ AND THX.