I Won't Say It

She had to be as quiet as she could so she didn’t wake him up. The last thing Kole wanted at the moment was Dan to open those gorgeous brown eyes and find her trying to sneak out. He’d ask questions that she would really not rather answer right now. If ever.

With a quick glance around the lounge, she found her shoes, slipping them on before shrugging on her jacket and grabbing her bag. Making her way out the door, she chanced one last glance at him. He was sprawled out on most of the couch, the only clear space being the fraction she’d taken up just moments before. His face was blank with sleep, unlined and unbothered, his fringe sticking up in all directions. With a sigh, she hurried out the door and down the stairs.

A tube ride and short walk later she was walking through the door of her own flat. No sooner had she done so though she felt her phone ring in her pocket. Fishing it out, she found Dan’s face looking back up at her with a dorky grin. Shaking her head she discarded the device on the sofa with her other belongings before going to the bathroom for a shower.

With ‘Soap’ pouring from her phone speaker she stepped under the warm spray of the shower and began to contemplate the conundrum she found herself in. How had she found herself in this situation again? How had she found herself falling for one of her best friends? After how things had ended the last time, how could she let this happen again? She chuckled darkly to herself, realizing just how painfully appropriate her choice of shower song was.

Dan was probably blowing up her phone right now. She couldn’t hear it what with the falling water and the music, but it was something he would do. He would probably think he’d done something wrong and was desperate to apologize when in reality it wasn’t him at all. It was her stupid issues that were the problem.

Standing under the water with Dan on her brain she couldn’t help but think back to when they’d first met.

It was lashing rain outside. The rain was typical in London but this? It was insane. She wouldn’t even be out in this mess if it wasn’t for her boss Shayna. How on earth could she have mixed up the schedules? On top of that, there was a tube strike and there was no way that she could afford a cab all the way back to her flat. So here she was trudging along with her flimsy umbrella in pouring rain.
She was half tempted to start gathering two of every animal for the ark that would soon probably be needed. Getting some of the animals would be hard, though. Pigeons, cats, dogs, squirrels…those were all easy to find. It would be the more exotic ones that would be the issue.

She was formulating a plan that would allow her to break into the local Zoo and free enough animals for her ark as she walked into the tiny café in search of tea. A warm drink was exactly what she needed in this weather and if the cookies weren’t too pricey maybe one of them as well. However before she could even approach the counter she bumped into something very solid, tumbling back onto the black and white tiled floor.

In her spaced out state about gathering animals for her theoretical ark she hadn’t noticed that someone was in front of her and crashed right into them. That person had also been holding a cup of coffee (thankfully not too warm) which was now splashed all down her front.

“Oh my god! I’m so so sorry! I shouldn’t have been looking at my phone. Oh god, I’m such a fucking klutz!”

Suddenly there was a guy about her age crouching down in front of her. He had a swoopy brown fringe and bright brown eyes that were at the moment looking very troubled. Napkins were clutched in his hands which hung awkwardly in the air seeing as the drink had spilled down the front of her chest.

Reaching out she took the napkins from his hands and began to blot the coffee from the front of her t-shirt, “No way it’s totally my fault. I wasn’t paying any attention. My mind was zoned out.”

“No really. I was going out the wrong do anyhow.” The guy insisted.

She laughed, “Look I don’t think either of us is going to let the other accept responsibility. How about we’re mutually at fault.”

His face split into a crooked grin, and she saw he had a dimple in his cheek, “Fair enough. At least let me buy you a drink since I totally annihilated your shirt.”

“Sounds good.” She smiled.

“My name’s Dan by the way.” He said standing up, holding out his hand to help her up.

“Kole.” She replied as she accepted the hand, getting to her feet.

Dan bought her a tea and a new coffee for himself before ushering her over to a table. They began to talk, passing questions back and forth between the two of them. She learned that he’d just moved to London from Manchester with his best friend, Phil. The both of them made videos on YouTube and had quite a few subscribers between the two of them. She told him about her job and moving to the UK a few years ago on a whim. Before either of them realized a couple of hours had passed.

“Oh wow…has it been that long?” Dan asked glancing at his phone.

Reaching out she checked her phone too and saw that it was nearly 6

“Wow. I didn’t even realize.” She laughed.

“Me neither. I should probably get home before Phil thinks I’ve been murdered or something. I don’t want to be creepy here or anything but can I have your number? We could get coffee sometime without the head on collision first.” He smirked.

She pulled her phone out, “Only if I can have yours too.”

“Deal.” He nodded and took her phone as he passed her his.

Once they had exchanged numbers they parted with a wave.

That had been nearly four years ago now. He had texted her the next day, and they had met up a couple of days later. At first, she had considered that it might be something more, but before she knew it, they had settled into a comfortable routine that was nothing more but friendship. In fact, they were probably best friends. Not at the level, he was with Phil but still pretty close.

At least, that was what it seemed like. In fact, she was certain of it. Until the previous night at least.

She didn’t bother to knock anymore when she went over to the Phan flat. In fact, Dan had bestowed keys upon her to both the outer door as well as the door to their flat ages ago. She used them mostly when they were out of town so she could water Phil’s assortment of house plants, get the mail and double check that they hadn’t left the kettle on the stove.

“Hey, losers! Help me!” she called through the apartment, her arms laden with ASDA bags.

Phil appeared at the top of the stairs and hurried to help her. With some of the bags out of her hands, she ascended the remaining steps before following Phil into the kitchen to deposit them on the counter.

“What did you buy? There’s so much!” Phil declared.
Kole smirked, “I may have been a little hungry when I went shopping.”

“A little? We’re watching a movie not preparing for the apocalypse.” Phil replied.

“Hey, you never know when the apocalypse could start. We could be stranded here for weeks while the zombies devour the rest of the population. You’ll be grateful that I brought all of this when that happens.”

Phil laughed, “True.”

She grinned, “So where’s Dan at? Why didn’t he come and help?”

“In the lounge on Tumblr.” Phil replied.

“Seriously?” Kole replied and with and eye roll headed to the lounge.

Sure enough, Dan sat on the couch, laptop on his lap as he scrolled. Reaching out she grabbed one of the multicolored pillows and threw it at him. It smacked him right in the face making him jump.

“What the hell?!?” he asked, his head snapping up to look at Kole.

“Why didn’t you come help with the groceries?!” she asked.

“Phil said he had it!” Dan replied.

“You still could have come helped you jerk!” she snapped.

“They still got up here didn’t they?” he asked.

“You are such as lazy ass! Just for that, you don’t get to have any of the candy I bought.” She said and with that turned on her heel, heading for the kitchen to help Phil put stuff away.

“What? Wait! Kole!” she heard Dan sputter.

Ignoring him she walked back into the kitchen, shutting the door behind her without a thought. A moment later there was an audible ‘thonk’, and she turned around just in time to see Dan sprawled out on the floor rubbing his forehead.

“Oh shit!” she shouted and hurried over.

“Are you okay?” she asked dropping to her knees.

“WHAT KIND OF BLOODY MASOCHIST MAKES A DOOR ENTIRELY OF GLASS?!? OW!!!” He said frowning.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t even realize I shut it!” Kole replied.

“Does this mean that you’ll let me have my candy now?” he asked.

She laughed, “Yes. Fine.”

“Good.” He smirked.

Shaking her head she stood up and headed back into the kitchen.

“He okay?” Phil asked.

“Yeah. No more brain damage than was already there.” She replied.

They put the rest of the groceries away before heading into the lounge where Dan had already set up the movie. Snacks in hand they piled onto the sofa with blankets and settled in.

Four movies later Phil tapped out and headed for bed, bidding them goodnight. With the extra space the two of them spread themselves out more on the couch, Dan at one end and Kole at the other, passing bowls of candy and popcorn back and forth as the movie started.

“What is this?” Kole asked as the opening credits popped up and she saw they were all written in kanji.

Dan shrugged, “Can’t remember the name. Some Japanese horror movie I found when I was out shopping the other day. The guy there said it was more cheesy than scary, and I couldn’t resist.”

“Cheesy horror? Count me in.” Kole grinned.

It soon became apparent however that the movie wasn’t cheesy at all. In fact, scary wasn’t even the word for it. It was horrifying. The plot was complicated, to say the least but whenever the little girl with the long hair was on the screen something gruesome happened that left both of them peeking through their fingers.

Finally, mercifully, it ended, and the credits started to roll.

“You call that cheesy?! That was terrible!!!” Kole asked looking at Dan.

“I was going by what the guy said! How was I supposed to know that little girl was going to make Samara look like a girl scout?!” he replied.

“Well, now you do! J-Just put something else in. Anything!” Kole stuttered, wrapping herself in one of the blankets they’d brought into the lounge.

Dan got up and shuffled through the movies before finally settling on one. He put it in the player before plopping back on the sofa.

“What did you put in?” Kole asked.

“The Notebook. Nothing terrifying to be found.” He replied.

She nodded, “Just tooth rotting fluff.”

“Agreed.” Dan said.

The movie started, but Kole would have been lying if she said she still wasn’t creeped out by the movie. The room was dark, and every little sound sent her into a near panic, head whipping around to make sure the creepy little girl from the movie wasn’t crawling towards her to eat her face. After the fourth jump, Dan took notice.

“C’mere you scaredy cat.” He said and tugged her to his end of the couch, tucking her under his arm.

“I wasn’t scared.” Kole muttered.

“Right…I saw you jump when those people shouted outside. Now hush and watch the movie.” He said.

She meant to watch the movie, she really did. However, all of the sugar in her body was slowly fading away, her energy crashing. That, along with the fact she was cozy under the blanket and curled up next to Dan’s warm body, made her eyes slowly droop. In no time she was asleep.
Kole woke to the sound of birds chirping softly and the pale light of morning shining in her eyes. She started to turn over but was stopped by the fact that there was an arm wrapped firmly around her waist. Slowly opening her eyes, she found that she was pressed against the back of the couch, curled up into Dan’s side with her head in the crook of his arm. He was asleep, one leg hanging off the side of the sofa while the other was stretched out over the arm. He looked so relaxed while he slept and a little younger. His hair was messy and had started to curl a little which didn’t help the younger bit. He was cute.

Wait…cute? Did she just refer to her best friend as cute?

Well, he was. She couldn’t deny it. She could see what all of those other girls who religiously watched his videos saw. However, unlike those girls, she got to see the real him and not just the personality he put out for the public.

It wasn’t that Danisnotonfire was fake, no he was still quite like that. Awkward with a dry and self-deprecating sense of humor was exactly who he was in real life. However, they didn’t get to see the other stuff.

Like they didn’t get to see the time he’d come over to her house and had breakfast, and she’d made some stupid joke that had made him laugh so hard he spit milk across her kitchen. It had taken forever to get it cleaned up. And by the time they’d done so they had forgotten what he’d even been laughing at.

Or when he had come over to celebrate her birthday with her even though he’d just gotten back from VidCon and was exhausted. He’d even brought her a gift back. A pair of Mickey ears in her favorite color, and her name embroidered on the back as well as her favorite flavor of cupcake with a little candle in it. She’d made him sleep on her couch that night because she was afraid that if she didn’t he’d take the wrong train and end up on the other side of London. However, she’d been so grateful that he’d come over.

He was always so considerate. Well…he was most of the time. When he wasn’t too busy scrolling through Tumblr, that is. And he could always make her laugh no matter how low of a mood she was in. She loved him for it.

Love?

Did she love him?

Well, she didn’t NOT love him.

Suddenly everything he’d ever done for her flashed through her mind. The way he made her laugh, the way he smiled when she made an awful joke that really wasn’t funny, how he’d made sure that she had tea and soup and medicine when she was sick and then the next week blamed her for giving him the plague. There wasn’t another person on Earth that could make her feel the way he did, and she didn’t want anyone else to make her feel that way ever again.

She couldn’t do this.

She couldn’t be in love with Dan.

It would ruin everything.

That was when she had ran. It had been hard detangling herself from Dan’s limbs, but she’s managed. She just couldn’t handle going through everything she’d gone through with Adam.
He had been her best friend since middle school and had been about as close as she and Dan were. They had movie nights and inside jokes and that vaguely insulting yet playful banter that you could only have with someone who knew you inside and out. It had never been anything more than a friendship to her. At least, until the day she looked at him and realized there were butterflies in her belly.

She had flip-flopped on whether or not to tell him for a long time. However, eventually, he’d picked up on the fact that something was off. So, knowing that she’d always been able to tell him anything, she’d told him she loved him.

The confession had taken him aback, to say the least. Once he recovered from the shock, he’d gently let her down. He loved her too but not in a romantic way. He loved her like a sister. She’d accepted it; there wasn’t much else she could do after all.

After that, she’d hoped that they could go back to being friends, but things had changed. They hadn’t been obvious at first, just a phone call that went unanswered or taking hours to reply to a text. Then he started canceling plans to hang out with other people. Before she knew it, she hadn’t heard from or seen him in weeks.

Then one day, about a month and a half after she’d confessed to him, she’d been lamenting to a mutual friend that he had stopped talking to her when the bombshell had been dropped. He didn’t want to hang out with her anymore. He thought things were weird now that he knew how she felt. He didn’t want to deal with how awkward it would be. He didn’t want to deal with her.

It had hurt.

A lot.

She couldn’t do it again.

She couldn’t lose another best friend.

Only when the water had started to run cold did she finally shut it off and step out. Reaching out she turned off her music, and that’s when she heard it. At first, she thought it was someone stomping around upstairs only to realize a moment later that it was someone furiously beating at her door.

Wrapping a towel around body she hurried to the door, wondering what was going on. Was the building burning down? Was someone trying to break in? Cautiously she walked into the front room, peering through the peep hole. On the other side, she saw an all too familiar mop of brown hair.

“Dan?! What the hell?” she asked opening the door, leaning around to look at him.

He was still dressed in the clothes he’d fallen asleep in the night before and it looked like he had somehow attempted to flatten his hair. His face looked frantic, to say the least, his face was lined with worry.

“Oh thank god you’re alive!” He said throwing up his hands before pushing his way into the apartment.

“What are you doing here? Why were you beating down my door like a crazy person?” Kole asked.

“You weren’t answering your phone and I-” he said swinging around only to stop the moment he was facing Kole, his eyes growing wide.

She looked at him, “What?”

Dan put a hand over his eyes, “You’re um…you’re just in a-a towel.”

Kole looked down quickly and saw that indeed she was clad in nothing more than the thin purple towel she’d wrapped herself when she’d stepped out of the shower. She felt the heat rise in her face and hurried out of the room. Ducking into her room, she found her dressing gown and quickly tossed it on, making sure the belt was secure before walking back into the front room.

Dan stood in the same spot as she’d left him. When he heard her coming down the hall, he quickly covered his eyes again.

“I’m decent,” Kole said.

Dan slowly put his hand down, removing it fully only after he was sure she was dressed.

“So why were you attempting to break down my door?” Kole asked.

“I woke up, and you were gone so I called your phone, but you wouldn’t pick up. I thought something had happened to you.” Dan replied.

Kole rolled her eyes, “Well here I am. I’m fine. I just decided to go home. You were sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake you. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get dressed so if you would kindly leave so I can do so it would be appreciated.”

Dan frowned, “D-Did I do something wrong? Like did I sleep talk and insult you or something?”

“No. Why?”

“Because last night we were fine but now you’re treating me like we haven’t been friends for the past I don’t know how many years,” Dan replied.

“Four.”

Dan’s brow furrowed, “What?”

“Four years. It’s been almost four years since we met. It was right after you and Phil moved from Manchester, remember?” Kole replied.

“Yeah I do. And that’s why I want to know why you’re treating me like this. If I did something wrong tell me so I can fucking apologize already!” Dan said with an exasperated sigh.

“I can’t tell you what you did because you didn’t do anything!” Kole replied just as exasperated.

“Then what’s going on?” Dan asked.

“I just…I…damn it! I don’t know how to do this, Dan. I don’t know how to say this, and I won’t say it because I know that if I do it’ll just mess everything up! After everything with, Adam I-”

“Hold on…Adam? That guy you used to be friends with?” Dan asked.

She’d mentioned Adam a couple of times to him. It was hard not to when they’d pretty much grown up together. However, the reason they’d stopped being friends was something she’d kept her mouth shut about.

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“What does this have to do with him?” Dan asked.

There was no going back now. She should have just made up some issue. Or kept her mouth shut. Anything just to avoid having to do what she had to do now.

“Please don’t make me say it, Dan.” She pleaded.

“Well, you’re going to have to because honestly I’m lost right now.” He replied.

She took a deep breath, “I fell for him. I-I fell in love.”

“You fell in love with him? What does that have to do with me?” he asked.
Kole stared at him. Dan was smart but sometimes he could be a little slow on the uptake. And sure enough, after a moment, he caught on.

“Y-You mean…you love me?” Dan asked looking at her cautiously.

“Yeah. Look I know you don’t feel the same way okay? I get it. All I ask is that if you’re going to ditch me that you at least just be upfront with me.” She replied.

“Why would I ditch you?” Dan asked.

Kole sighed, “Because it’s going to be awkward now and no one likes being in awkward situations if they don’t have to. And I’m pretty sure that being around someone who is in love with you when you’re not in love with them counts as an awkward situation.”

Dan snorted, “Are you serious? How long have you known me? I’m literally the king of awkward situations. I’ve been in plenty of them, and this is the least awkward situation I’ve been in. Besides, this isn’t awkward in the least.”

“It’s not?” Kole asked uncertainly.

Dan smiled and stepped forward, “Not in the least.”

“Why not?” she asked.

She didn’t get an answer, though, at least not the one she was expecting. A moment later Dan had closed the space in between them and pressed his lips to hers. Her body stiffened at the sudden contact, unsure of what to do. However after a moment, her body finally responded, and her hands came up to wrap around his neck.

A few moments later he pulled away, resting his forehead against hers, “See? Not awkward at all.”

“So this means…I mean…you…” she stuttered not able to get the words out.

“Love you? I thought it was obvious, and you were just being nice. You should hear the way Phil teases me when you’re not around. It was getting unbearable.” He chuckled.

“I don’t think this is going to make it any better.” She smiled.

“Probably not but at least he’ll have you to tease now too.” He replied and pressed another kiss to her lips.

When he pulled away from the second time he pulled back a bit, “Let me hear you say it.”

“Say what?” she asked.

“You know what.” He replied.

She took a deep breath and looked up at him, “Fine. I love you.”

He grinned, “Good. I love you too.”