quixotic. ↣ d.h.

lviii: brave

when zoe finally pulled away, she realized they were stood right in front of the entrance to the park. their park. they always seemed to end up here, even when they hadn't been searching for it.

she let dan lead her through the iron gates, down the muddy path and through the twisted pine trees. it was a chilly spring day, but the sun was warm on their cheeks as it thawed the frozen ground.

the mangled playground came into view as they passed through a clearing in the woods, and zoe smiled in spite of herself, in spite of the chaos the past day had been.

"i hadn't a clue what i was doing that day," she admitted to dan.

he glances at her. "what?"

"that day i followed you here. into the park. i didn't have the first bloody notion of what i wanted to say to you or why i felt the need to say it, but i just knew i couldn't leave things the way they were when i ran off. getting scared and running away is my habit, it always has been; but it truly bothered me that day; for the first time, i felt the absence of what i might be missing out on."

dan squeezed her hand in his and tugged her in the direction of the swing set. "i'm glad you did, for what it's worth. i know you have to fight a million times harder to do the tasks which the rest of us manage with ease, and i appreciate that about you. i'm glad you've started doing things even when they do scare you."

"i'm pretty sure if my parents understood me half as well as you do..." zoe trailed off, suddenly not wanting to finish the sentence. she knew it was true; if they understood her, her limitations, and how hard she had to fight just to leave the house each day, they'd be happy she had made it to this point in her life at all. they'd stop asking her to be and give what she was simply incapable of.

"smile," she heard a mere second before the shutter went off. her eyes flew to the camera that had appeared in dan's hand, the soft affection that was written all over his face.

"sorry," he said. "i thought it might be easier if you didn't know it was coming."

it had been. zoe clamped down on her mind as it began to race with wonder of how she looked in the picture. of what dan saw every time he looked at her.

"can i ask you something?" she said suddenly. she hadn't planned on saying this, not now. but she wasn't as good at holding her tongue as she used to be.

dan stepped closer to her and reached to brush a stray bit of hair from her cheek. "anything. you know that."

"why do you like me?" she blurted. "i mean, i know what you told me at the hospital that night. but i guess i... i mean, what drew you to me in the first place? that day we met, in shy club. you didn't even hesitate, just sat at the desk right next to mine and never stopped trying to strike up a conversation. most people give up and move on when they see how little i have to say back, but not you. you never stopped trying. why didn't you stop trying?"

her eyes darted up to his frowning expression for a fraction of a moment before returning to rest on the scuffed toes of her shoes. they felt safer there.

Dan didn't even know how to begin an answer. Not because his feelings for her were lazy, or anything of the sort, but because inside of him, they felt like chaos. Like madness. Like a storm brewing over warm water.

When he tried to think of why he liked Zoe, the most sensible thing he could come up with was, "because she's Zoe." But that surely wasn't the kind of answer she was looking for now.

"Sorry," she said quickly when the silence between them had gone on for a beat longer than Dan should have let it. "You don't have to answer; I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that."

"No!" Dan shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. It was an absolute mess between yesterday's rain and the sleepless night spent tossing about on zoe's bedroom floor.

"No, I mean... it's fine. I want to answer. I'm just not good with words. Not like you, anyway."

Zoe waved a hand in the air and lowered herself onto her side of the swingset. "Whether someone's 'good' with words isn't really relevant. If they're speaking truthfully, that alone will make the words lovely."

Dan's face spread into a smile. He took the swing next to Zoe's and twisted in it to face her.

"I like your phrases," he said. "The way you talk. The weight you put behind all of your words, the way every word you say matters. And true, you saw fewer of them than most people, but that just makes the ones you do say that much better. They're more special."

Zoe was barely holding back a smile of her own now. "You like the way I talk?" she asked, almost managing to sound like she didn't think it was one of the cheesiest things she'd ever heard.

Almost managing to hide how much she liked it anyway.

"This can't be much of a surprise to you," Dan joked, cheeks beginning to flush. "Don't you remember, all those weeks ago, at the coffee shop?"

Of course she remembered. It was the first time they'd really spoken. The first time she'd actually wanted to speak to someone in ages.

"I was in awe of you then, and I'm in awe of you now," Dan added softly.

"Bleeding hell." Zoe leaned back far in her swing. Her hair was longer now than it'd been when all of this began; the ends of it danced across the frosted tips of grass beneath them.

"You sound like something straight out of a book," she said finally. She kept her eyes on the motionless clouds above them.

"Is that a bad thing?" Dan asked. He couldn't imagine it was; he was pretty sure Zoe would shrug off her mortal body and dissolve right into the pages of her favorite books if ever given the chance.

"Not in the slightest," she amended, finally swinging herself back into an upright position. She faced him again. "Is that it, though?"

The emotions were overwhelming him now. The storm had finally come ashore, and he was caught in the midst of the wind and the rain and the hail.

"I like you because you're brave," he said. He raised his voice when he saw Zoe roll her eyes.

"No, really. I know you think you're not, because you're small and quiet and soft and sweet, and I know that you've let your family make you feel that way for so long now. That you've taken on your timid exterior as a sort of shield against them. But I think there's more to you than that. I've seen it."

Zoe ducked her head, trying to hide the effect dan's words were having on her. He reached out to take her hand and she let him.

"The way you stand up for me. The way you were there yesterday, the way you ran towards everything, just because you knew I needed you. And even if this shield has become more of who you are than you ever meant for it to, that's okay. You don't have to stand strong in every storm to be brave; sometimes, the real bravery is in letting yourself be swept away."

Zoe raised her head then, and Dan startled when he saw the tears brimming in her clouded eyes.

"You think I'm brave?" she asked. Her voice was vulnerable, simultaneously asking so much and so little of him all at once.

"I think you're the bravest person I've ever met."

She kissed him then. A fierce kiss that started with her tugging on the front of his sweatshirt and ended with both of them gasping for breath.

"No one's ever called me brave before," Zoe said.

Dan kissed her again.

"Then clearly no one's been paying attention."