Dear Dan (A danisnotonfire fanfic)

Chapter 2

Two weeks on and still no reply. Tayla took comfort in the fact that she knew it had got to him, but wasn’t sure as to whether he had dismissed her words as junk mail or a chain letter and discarded it without a second thought. Her mother, Mandy, tried her best to convince Tayla he was drafting a reply as she had drafted the initial email, but in her heart she knew it was hopeless, and scolded herself for trying. After all, why would a gorgeous British YouTuber ever to talk to a girl with IHD?

Another day, another trip to the doctors, another encouraging comment from the receptionists, but still no reply. Every day the agenda stayed unchanged, it was like tomorrow never came.

However, one day, one normal Saturday morning, Tayla met up with her two best friends, Hannah and Hannah, with whom she knew she could share secrets with. They were prison gates, them two - they guarded her and her secrets and never let anything slip away from their clutches. They made her feel wanted; despite the fact fate had made an ugly series of events in her life, they stayed by her side. They hugged her when she broke the news to her. They cried when she cried, they laughed when she laughed.

Tayla opened the door to her two grinning friends: Hannah S, the bubbly short one with curly, untamed brown hair and a multitude of freckles, and Hannah M, the Scottish strawberry-blonde one with a faint set of freckles and even fainter eyebrows. The ghost of a smile crept across Tayla's lips as she saw her friends again, but the corners tugged down still.

After brief ‘you look great’s and ‘how do you feel’s, Tayla put Kerrang! on the TV and sat down next to her Hannah’s and looked both of them in the eye: first Hannah M with the blue sparkling irises and then Hannah S with the hazel brown shade, not dissimilar to Tayla's own eyes.

“I have something to confess…” Tayla began. She was ready to get that weight off her shoulders - that childish, fool worthy weight of even attempting to reach Dan Howell.

“Oh. My. Gosh. You are not pregnant.” Hannah S said, that familiar cheekiness returning to her voice.

The ghost of a smile turned in to a reluctant smirk - Hannah Number Two could always cheer her up.

“No, no. I was an idiot. I… I emailed Dan Howell-”

“YOU WHAT?!” Hannah Number One, the Scottish one, stood upright, knocking over the bowl of onion rings she had been precariously balancing on her lap. Tayla repeated what she said, and explained that these next few years in her life were dedicated to taking risks.

"I am not afraid to keep on living," Tayla smiled as Hannah Number One started to fangirl because of the MCR reference. "I am not afraid to walk this world alone," Tayla continued.

"But you are afraid of not getting a reply?" Hannah Smith asked, not catching onto the reference.

Tayla slumped back into the sofa and nodded, her momentary happiness gone. Hannah M demanded to see the email she sent, trying to cheer Tayla up. The two Hannah's followed Tayla upstairs, waiting as she flipped open the laptop lid and moving out of the way as Tayla went to stand by the door. She watched the Hannah's eyes moving identically across the screen as they read the email, then saw their faces fall as they searched for a non-existent reply. 

“Why didn’t he get back to you?” Hannah Number Two asked, tears welling in her eyes.

“No point getting upset, Han. He doesn’t care. After all, who does?” Tayla sat down across from the now crying Hannah and stared at her All Time Low poster. 

“Who cares? Who cares!? WE CARE!” Hannah Number One returned to her usual way of communicating: shouting. “We care about you! We don’t care about your problems, we don’t care about your IHD, we care about you, and your reply from Dan Howell.”

Hannah stood up next to Hannah, wiping the tears from her eyes, and announced, in a shaky voice, “Yeah, we care. You should too. Now let’s re-send this thing.”

“Come again?” Tayla's voice was radiating with so much misery even she was surprised.

“You heard me,” the two Hannah’s said simultaneously.

Tayla sat back in her bed, resting her head against the decorated wall and stared at her friends, standing in front of her, to see if they were serious. They stared back in response, and Tayla had no choice but to let them re-send the email.

She was waiting for about two minutes, then: “Okay, Tay, I think we're finished…” Hannah Number Two said, stifling a giggle, and Tayla came strolling over and rested on the back of the two chairs her friends were sat on.

“That didn’t take very long…” Tayla commented, and as Hannah M showed Tayla the email, she understood why.

Dear Dan,

Hi. Tayla's friends here. Listen, she was being serious in the whole meeting you thing and if you don’t reply to her, we swear we will send this email to you over and over again UNTIL YOU REPLY.

Yours dearly,

Hannah S and Hannah M :)

PS - we love your videos, you're adorable.

“I will never forgive you if you send that to Dan Howell.” Tayla turned to Hannah S, as she knew that Hannah would be the most pliable to get her to re-write the email properly, but Hannah just looked at the other Hannah, shared a quick smile and a wink and Hannah M said, “Too bad, Tay. Because I just did.”

Tayla groaned, thinking how much Dan Howell was going to hate her now. “You guys are the worst.”

“You’re welcome,” Hannah S smiled sweetly but couldn’t resist the upcoming fit of giggles.

“Come on, stop whining. We’re going to order some pizza. Want any?” Hannah M piped up, already heading down the stairs towards the kitchen.

Tayla motioned for them to go ahead and stood alone in her room, hugging her chest and generally having an existential crisis. She breathed slowly, attempting to slow her heartbeat. Too much excitement or adrenalin could cause her heart to malfunction - the last mistake she would ever make.

Ten minutes had passed when Hannah M yelled, "Hey, Tayla the pizza's here."

"Yeah, the pizza guy's really cute, hurry up," Hannah S added, her usual observation skills in boys evidently kicking in.

for Tayla to come to the door, the pizza guy was at the door, and apparently cute.

Tayla glanced at the screen of her computer before heading to the her bedroom door, and an unread email popped up in her inbox, catching her eye. She smiled to herself, properly this time, and thanked the god she wasn’t sure about for letting her meet Hannah and Hannah.