Heart of Ice

11. Assumptions

"Would you believe me if I told you I was psychic?" Kayla asks Hollie, the two of them sat on the sofa in the living room. Talking absolute nonsense like they usually do on a not-so-special, thursday evening.

"That depends." Hollie smirks playfully. "What do you see in my future?"

"Hmm," Kayla starts, stroking her chin, pretending to be deep in thought. "I see a man, he might be looking over you, I don't know, but he's definitely closing in, peering over your shoulder, always."

Now it should be know that Kayla spotted Dylan walking into the living room right before she started predicting Hollie's pretend future, and it should also be know that Dylan very much wanted to play a trick on Hollie, so he slowly crept closer and closer, with Hollie not seeing him as she had her back to him. Until she felt him breathing down her neck. "Oh my God!" She screams, literally jumping out of her seat, but her heartbeat quickly returns to normal when she sees that it was just Dylan. "I hate you, I hate both of you." She laughs, sitting back down. 

"Always a pleasure." Dylan laughs in return before heading outside, into the garden. 

But Hollie watches him as he walks away. "What's he doing out there?" She asks, looking at Dylan instead of Kayla. "He's going to freeze."

"I forget that you go to bed so early that you don't realise he does his." Kayla starts, and Hollie looks at her again. "He goes out every night to look up at the stars. I don't know why, he just started doing it recently. He never used to."

"Wait." Hollie says, suddenly getting serious. "He's only been doing it recently?" She asks, a smile forming on her lips, she didn't mean to smile, she just couldn't help it.

And even though Hollie never actually said anything, Kayla knew that the reason he looks up at the stars was because of her. Just the smile on her face said it all. "You know, you're right. He will freeze if he stays out there too long like that." Kayla tells her friend, trying to play cupid. "Maybe you should take this blanket to him."

And without any suspicion that her friend is trying to set her up, she takes the blanket out of her hand, "yeah, I probably should." She says, standing up from where she was sat, "I'll be back in a sec."

"No you won't." Kayla says with a smile, under her breath, and luckily Hollie didn't hear it. 

Instead, Hollie went outside, completely barefoot, and headed towards Dylan, who was sat on one of the folding campfire chairs that were constantly positioned in the corner of the garden. "Thought you might be a bit cold." She says as she approaches him, holding the blanket out towards him. "Here, take this."

"Well aren't you adorable, thinking about me." He jokes, then takes the blanket out of her hands. "Thank you."

"How could I not think about you, you nearly gave me a heart attack just now." She playfully jokes back, secretly wanting to stay outside with him and not go back into the house.

And almost telepathically, Dylan granted her that wish. "Why don't you join me?" He asks, "I know you like looking at the stars."

And instantly Hollie smiles, "yeah, sure. I'd like that." She tells him, sitting down in the chair next to him, and he offers her half of the blanket that she just gave to him, making sure that she doesn't get cold herself. 

And as Hollie stared at the stars, Dylan stared at her, the two of the both admiring the beauty in front of them. Until Dylan just couldn't keep it in any longer. "Hollie," he says, causing her to look him in the eyes. "I need to tell you something."

"What is it?" She asks him in reply, completely oblivious to what's about to happen. After all, how cold anyone ever love a girl like her?

"Honestly?" He says, trying to find the courage to say what he's going to say. But maybe, he thought to himself, it was better to just get it over and done with, like ripping off a band-aid. then there would be no going back. "I have feelings for you."

Hollie tilts her head ever so slightly, realising that the impossible has come true. "What?" She asks, convinced that she heard him wrong. 

"I have feelings for you Hollie, and I have done since the moment you stepped into this house." He smiles, not believing that he's managed to actually utter these words. "I want to be with you, and I was hoping that maybe you'd feel the same way. That you want to be with me too."

And it takes a few seconds for Hollie to process everything that Dylan had just said, and she adverts her eyes to the floor, physically unable to look him in the eyes as she says what she's about to say. "Dylan," She starts with a small sigh, "you're my best friend, you make me laugh when I'm at my lowest, you know me inside and out, and there's no one else that makes me smile like you do." And after taking a deep breath, she continues, "but..."

"But." Dylan repeats solemnly. "I should have known there would be a but." But as he says this, his tone quickly changes, he's not sad, he's angry. "You know what? I don't believe that. I think you do have feelings for me, you're just too scared to admit it."

"Dylan, I'm telling you the truth." She lies, but the thing about Dylan and Hollie's friendship is that they know everything about each other, including how to know when the other person is lying. 

"No, you're not." He argues back, looking frustrated, and rightly so. "Why won't you let anyone love you?"

"Because it's always the people we love that end up hurting us the most." She argues back instantly, not missing a beat. And in doing so, revealing something that she didn't quite want Dylan knowing. "So I've learnt to protect myself by-"

"By refusing to let anyone love you?" Dylan interrupts, not letting her finish. "Jesus Christ, Hollie, do you know how lonely that sounds?"

"I'd rather be lonely than broken again." She yells at him, not realising what she's said until she's already said it, and there's no way of taking it back. 

And in these last few, very important moments, a very wrong assumption was made. And unfortunately, assumptions are extremely dangerous things to make, because even the most microscopic of mistakes could be disastrous. And this wasn't a small mistake, it was in fact a very large one. You see, the mistake made wasn't Dylan assuming Hollie had feelings for him too; it was Hollie assuming that if she admitted these feelings, she'd lose him as a friend. "You know what, I can't do this." Dylan says after a few moments of silence between the two of them, and he gets up and walks away. 

"Where are you going?" Hollie shouts after him, sitting there alone, watching him leave her. 

"To bed." He shouts back, not even turning around to look at her, then disappears back into the house. 

It's funny that, how bedtime arrives just when things are getting interesting. Because according to Dylan, it has nothing to do with their little argument, he just so happened to get tired right at that exact moment. Which, if you ask me, seems rather unlikely, given the situation. 

"You know, I thought you were smart!" Hollie yells once more, knowing that he'll still be able to hear her, even though he's now inside the house. But what she didn't say, and what she desperately wanted to add onto the end of that sentence was, 'I thought you realised I love you'. But alas, those words went unsaid, and Dylan walked away, not knowing how Hollie truly felt.

And Hollie knew that their shouting probably attracted the attention of everyone in the house, so she knew that she had to go back inside and be by herself, where no one could see her and ask question. So she quickly ran inside and locked herself in the nearest bathroom. And as soon as she locked the door behind her, a single tear fell down her cheek, onto the bathroom tiles. She didn't know why she was crying though, but that's the thing about tears, sometimes they arrive at what seems to be the most random of times. 

And just as she felt terribly alone, she heard a light knocking on the bathroom door. "Hollie, it's me. Can you let me in?" Kayla's voice soothed her instantly. And she knew that she needed her friend, especially at a time like this. 

So she unlocked the door and explained what just happened. And Kayla gave her the look that Hollie was dreading, the look that told her that she fucked up. "Why didn't you just tell him?"

"What if he doesn't like what he sees?" She asks her, her tears finally drying up.

And instead of answering her question, Kayla asks her own question in return, which holds so much more power than an answer ever could. "What if you don't let him look?"