knj imagines

hot chocolate meltdown || d. statham

"You understand, right sweetheart?"

I nodded sadly before remembering that they couldn't see me over the phone. "Of course Mom. You and Dad deserve a vacation."

"And of course we would have bought a ticket for you too but we figured you would want to spend Christmas with all your new friends," my dad chimed in. I cringed at the mention of the friends that didn't exist and I had just made up so my parents wouldn't worry about me. "We'll still see you for New Year's, right?"

I scoffed silently that they were making New Year's plans with me when they didn't even consult me on Christmas, but I kept my tone light as we ended the call. I was so irritated I could scream but for the sake of my neighbors I bit my tongue and decided to go to the kitchen instead.

If I had a friend to rant to that would obviously be my first coping mechanism for dealing with this but that was just not the case. The next best thing would be Christmas cheer in the form of a festive drink that would make me happy despite the fact that my parents were ditching me for a cruise ship. Hot chocolate would be the only thing to pull me out of this funk.

Opening the cupboard just caused my funk to worsen when all I could find was an empty box. Why would I put the empty box back and tease myself like that? Now that my heart was set on watching a Christmas movie with a warm mug in my grip, I was forced to head to the grocery store to replenish my cabinet.

The aisles were packed full of people and I tried to make myself as small as possible as I squeezed through everyone on my way to my favorite aisle. However, it seemed to be everyone else's favorite aisle tonight too. My mouth dropped open at the emptiness of the shelves and I crossed my fingers that there was a box of happiness tucked somewhere out of sight.

I saw a box at the back of the top shelf and was beginning to go towards it when a guy grabbed it and threw it into his basket, continuing to walk past me. That was all it took for me to completely break down in the Walmart aisle, full-on sobbing as I sat down on the ground. The boy whipped around at the sound and rushed over, kneeling down beside me.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" I buried my head in my knees, embarrassed at my public breakdown. He put one hand on my shoulder and the other one on my knee, giving them a light squeeze. "Hey, talk to me. Are you okay?"

I took a deep breath and wiped my snot on my sleeve before nodding and looking up to see his concerned eyes. I tried to duck my head away from him but he leaned his head in my line of vision no matter where I turned. I felt the full wave of my embarrassment hit as I pathetically whimpered, "You took the last box of hot chocolate."

He looked from his abandoned basket back to me and swiveled around to look at the now empty hot chocolate section. "And that's why you're hyperventilating on the floor?" I nodded slowly and the look on his face confirmed my suspicion that I looked like a lunatic. "Is hot chocolate really that important to you, because if so you can have it?"

I shook my head although I wanted nothing more than to take the box and run far away from him so I could stop feeling so embarrassed. "No, I've just had a really bad day and I didn't have any hot chocolate at home and I know I look crazy and I'm sorry you stopped because I'm sure you have better things to do," I rambled, tears still flowing.

His hand was still on my shoulder and he rubbed his thumb lightly along it. "You do look a little crazy but you've obviously had a rough day and maybe you need to talk about it." I started sobbing harder at his niceness, and he looked frantic as he tried to figure out what to do to make me stop. "Oh no, what did I say?"

I let the whole mess of the day spill out and he listened to my blubbering, wrapping me up in a hug when I was finally done. I thought about how weird we looked as I weakly hugged him back. He stood and reached his hand out to help me up, then started to walk away, turning to see if I was following him. Much to my confusion he motioned for me to walk with him. "What are we doing?"

"You're coming with me to a movie night with my friends tonight. You obviously need people to hang out with and I have a bunch of them just waiting at home." I could feel myself start crying again at how nice he was being and he furrowed his brows. "Please stop crying. I don't know how to deal with strangers crying let alone people I actually know."

When we got out to his car I hesitated at the passenger door. Now that I wasn't sobbing I could see how totally crazy this was. He noticed and stood with his door open, giving me a questioning look. "Are you going to kidnap me? Well obviously that's a dumb question because you wouldn't tell me if you were going to but like, now you know I have no friends or family around here so there would be no one to look for me and,"

"Just get in the car. I promise I won't kidnap you," he said with a smile. A kidnapper couldn't have that nice of a smile, but then I remembered that there were attractive serial killers and I was calculating if I could outrun him when he broke me from my thoughts. "I'm Dylan, by the way. Now that you know my name, we're friends and friends don't kidnap friends."

He got in and closed his door, so I did the same, pushing myself against the side of the door as tightly as I could. I was still a little unsure about the whole situation and putting more distance between us made me feel safer. "I'm (Y/N)," I said and he reached for the radio to fill the silence. When we pulled into the driveway, I couldn't help but gape at how nice the house.

"Not my house, by the way. But if I were kidnapping you, it would be a pretty nice place to be locked in, huh?" I'm glad my terror was amusing to him. I followed him into the house and was taken aback by how many people were there. He introduced me to everyone and told the entire story, meltdown and all.

Instead of looking at me like I was crazy, they were quick to welcome me into their group. "That's awful! You can spend Christmas with me," Brian said, pulling me into a hug. "Who goes on a cruise for Christmas?"

"That's what I thought," I said with a giggle. After a few minutes, I felt like they were all my best friends and I was completely comfortable around them. I had been talking to Nezza and Crawford when a mug was put in front of my face.

I turned to see Dylan smiling and I gratefully accepted the mug of happiness. "I hope it was worth your meltdown." I took a sip and nodded, and Dylan laughed. "I'll never be able to look at hot chocolate without being reminded of tonight."

"Yeah, me either. I think the embarrassment will stay with me for the rest of my life," I said and he laughed. "I'm glad you didn't kidnap me."

"Oh, there's still time. I haven't agreed to take you back home," he said, a smirk on his face as he walked away.