Chapter 15: Open Your Heart

The race began. Jayden hadn't been prepared, but she tried to dash off to keep up with everyone. Sanu and Dark were in front. It was clear they did this race often. She wish she had been warned. She ran along-side Drayden for a while, but then she started to pull ahead of him. Maybe she was a better runner than she thought! She caught up to Zula who was laughing delightfully. Ahead of them was Dayya. Jayden watched her sister's light red back with a dark red colored spine move up and down. She tried to catch up with her, but Dayya was fast and pulled farther ahead. Jayden was beginning to lose speed, then noticed Dark nearby, slowing as well. Dayya zoomed ahead with Sanu.

Some space had appeared between the lions behind Jayden and Dark, and in front of them. They locked eyes once, then took on determined expressions, and pumped their legs harder. Without saying it, the two had begun racing each other. They were consistently neck and neck until Jayden bravely bumped her shoulder into his to try to slow him or knock him off balance.

"Hey!" he said, but he wasn't slowed. He lightly nudged her back, and she laughed as she ran. She nudged him slightly harder, and this time he almost tripped. He quickly regained his footing. "No fair!" Dark exclaimed with a smile.

"It was no fair you didn't warn me about the race!" Jayden managed to shout. She was really losing steam now.

But I can't stop now, this is so fun! Jayden thought. Dark gave a return-nudge with his large black shoulder. This time Jayden tripped. It happened so fast: Jayden gasped loudly, her paw hit a large rock and went backward. She landed full force on her chest and cheek. Her momentum forced her back end to fall over her front. She landed with an oomph! flat on her back. Dirt was flying through the air around her. She lay stunned for a moment. She was aware of hard paws racing toward her. Jayden rose to her paws and shook her head.

"Jayden!" It was Drayden from behind. He had seen her rising up from the ground. "Are you okay? Did you trip?"

"Uh… Kind of." she replied.

At this time, Zuna and Zula came running up from behind too. "Are you okay?" they said in unison.

"I'm fine." Jayden replied, then grit her teeth with a hiss, she pulled her right paw off from the ground.

"Your paw! What's wrong?"

"I hit a rock." she muttered.

Now Dark was approaching. "Oh no, did I nudge you too hard? I'm sorry." he said, looking worried.

"You did this?" Drayden said, his ice blue eyes glaring at the black lion. "She's hurt."

"It's fine, Drayden, I'm fine. I nudged him first, I started it." Jayden said, testing her paw on the ground. It hurt less the more she did it.

Drayden scowled, but didn't say anything else.

"It's not broken?" Zula asked.

"No, see? It moves fine." she demonstrated.

"That's a releif." Dark said. "I'm still sorry. I think I nudged you harder than I meant to."

"It's okay, don't be sorry." she looked at him.

"Well I am."

"Can you walk?" Drayden interjected. Jayden tried and found she could walk easily. It barely hurt at all.

"Looks like I can." she smiled, trying to lighten the mood. "Let's keep going."

"We can go at a walk." Dark suggested. "Mom and Dayya will notice we aren't with them eventually."

"One of them will be the big winner." Zuna added.

"You all can keep racing." Jayden tried to tell her friends. "I'm sorry I held everyone back."

"It's okay," Zula replied, "I was really struggling anyway. I was going to stop soon."

"Me too." Dark agreed.

Jayden realized everyone, herself included, was breathing hard, so she stopped feeling bad. They was quite a race though.

What fun!

They walked on, and Jayden's friends talked around her. Jayden noticed Drayden wasn't talking though, and when she looked at him, he wore a frown.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

He seemed like he wasn't going to answer at first, but only after a couple seconds, he said, "I thought you were really hurt. I was worried."

"I'm okay, don't worry."

"Alright, I'm glad." he said, though he didn't seem very convinced. Jayden suspected he had more to say but was holding it back.

The stroll around the waterhole went on. Dayya had won the first race, and insisted they do another one since most of the group had stopped when Jayden fell. Jayden felt well enough to try again. Her paw did keep her form running very far, so she slowed to a walk during the rest of their race. She didn't mind. She knew she wasn't the best runner, so she didn't think she'd win anyway.

Eventually the group headed home. Each lion got a great work out. On the way back, Dark padded to Jayden's side. "Sorry again about your paw. I feel really bad."

"Come on," she replied, "I'm fine. It'll be 100% better in a couple hours, I'm sure."

"It was my fault."

"No it wasn't." she tried to say firmly.

"Don't feel bad, Darky!" Dayya interrupted, literally jumping into the conversation. She pushed herself between Jayden and the black lion. "Jayden is pretty clumsy!"

"That said from the mouth of the clumsy sister?" Zula whispered from Jayden's other side. Jayden knew Dayya was teasing, so she didn't take offense.

"Jayden's got the brains," Dayya went on, "But I win at everything physical."

"That is actually true." Jayden said. The lions around her laughed. Jayden looked behind her at Drayden who was not laughing. He still looked bothered.

Her suspicions prooved to be true when they were nearby at Pride Rock and Drayden said to her, "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Sure." she replied and halted. She locked eyes with Zula before they walked away. Zula gave her friend a suggestive wiggled-eyebrow look. Jayden rolled her eyes at her.

When they were alone, Drayden cleared his throat.

"What's up?" Jayden said, feeling awkward.

"That guy, Dark, he tripped you on purpose?" he went right to the point.

"No! …Well yes. But not really." she stammered.

"That doesn't make sense."

"Well I mean, I pushed him first. Just for fun. I was trying to slow him down. We were racing."

"So he pushed you back to make you almost break your paw?" his tone was a little hard.

"No! It was an accident. He shoved me on the shoulder a little too hard. I know he didn't mean to. Like I said, it was an accident. We were racing. Dark and I used to be friends when I loved here before. We're just really familiar with each other."

That's not exactly true… Jayden thought, we're basically strangers again.

"Oh." was Drayden's reply. "I guess what I'm trying to say it… well I care about you, Jayden. I don't want you to get hurt."

Jayden's heart raced. Cares about me? Doesn't want me to get hurt? Is he saying physically or emotionally? He must mean my paw… how could he know how I used to feel about Dark? I'm certain he means my paw.

"I'm fine." she said with conviction, hoping that would end his doubts. "Really."

"Well alright." he sighed.

"Thanks for caring about me though." Jayden smiled, like she would to a friend. Drayden only nodded and the two headed back to Pride Rock.

Zula jumped her as soon as she was alone. "WHAT DID HE SAY!?"

"Woah!" she took a step back. "You almost ran into me."

"Sorry. Come on, tell me what he wanted to talk to you about." she said as she walked beside her older friend. Theyw ere headed up the stone steps that led to the cave.

"Nothing."

"Please, Jay! We're friends. Don't say 'nothing'."

"Ugh! Fine! He asked if Dark hurt me on purpose."

"What! Why would he say that?"

"Well he didn't say it, he just implied it." The girls were in the cave now and went to the back where they could be alone. Jayden really wanted to sit down. Her paw did sting a little.

They sat down, "I explained we were just messing around, I was trying to slow Dark down so I could beat him." Jayden blushed when she remembered the happy feeling she got when she was running beside Dark, both of them smiling and laughing.

"And he said…?" Zula prompted.

"Then he said something weird… he said he cared about me."

"Woah."

"What?"

"He cares about you?"

"I guess."

"Are you two dating?"

"No! You know that." Jayden said, becoming embarrassed.

"Well it could have happened and you hadn't told me yet. Wait, did he ask you to be his girlfriend?"

"NO! Zula!" Jayden said, exasperated. She was glad they were alone in the back of the cave.

"Did he say anything else?"

Jayden hesitated. She didn't want to tell the gray lioness the "I don't want you to get hurt" part because then she'll have to share her small worry that Drayden might have been hinting that Dark could or would hurt her emotionally. She hadn't even sorted out what he had really meant to herself. And telling Zula would just complicate things. Not to mention that would mean she'd have to explain how she used to be in love with Dark, and she did not want to go there.

I'm supposed to be thinking of Dark as only a friend, not reminiscing on how we used to be.

"He only continued to say he was worried I was hurt." Jayden said, which wasn't a lie.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"I thanked him for his concern. That's all."

"He was totally trying to tell you."

"Tell me…?"

"That he likes you. Mayne even loves you!"

"No way." Jayden said, rolling her eyes again.

"Come on. He said he cared about you. What words did he use exactly?"

Jayden thought for a second, then quoted, "'What I'm trying to say is: I care about you."

"Oh Kings!" Zula said, looking excited. "That was totally a confession!"

"No it wasn't."

"Yes it was!"

Jayden sighed and moved from a sitting position to a laying position, putting her head on her paws. This conversation was making her tired.

"If you had responded appropriately, you two would be dating right now."

"What if I don't want to date him?" Jayden muttered.

"Why don't you?"

"I don't know. I just don't like him that way."

"Why not? He's totally cute." Zula said, laying down beside her. "You could like him if you just opened your heart to him. He's kind and funny."

"You date him then." Jayden joked.

"I wish I could!" she grinned.

Jayden decided she'd try to change the subject to Zula's love life. Zula did seem interested in talking about that sort of thing.

"You could either date Drayden or Nundi." she said with a smile.

"No!" she giggled, "Not Nundi!"

"What's wrong with him? He's not much younger than you."

"I don't care about that. He's just…kinda quiet and anti social. If I tried to hit on him, it'd be like trying to hit on this floor."

That made Jayden laugh.

"In fact, I might as well try to hit on the floor, if you'll just excuse us for a few minutes?" she joked.

The brown lioness was cracking up. "You have to share the floor with me right now, I'm about to fall asleep on it."

"Oh fine."

The conversation lulled from there, much to Jayden's relief. The two took a cat nap. Before falling asleep, Jayden thought about what Drayden said, and decided there was no way Drayden could have known Jayden's feelings. Besides, Jayden wasn't gonna let her heart get broken by Dark or anyone ever gain, so there was no way she would be hurt emotionally. Drayden was just concerned about her paw.

And with those calming thoughts passing her mind, she fell asleep.

Someone nudged Jayden awake later.

"Wake up." It was Ciara.

Jayden stood quickly, stiffling a yawn.

"Will you join the hunting team?" Ciara asked. "We're going on an evening hunt. On eof the other lionesses requested it."

"Oh sure, sounds fun!" Jayden said.

Zula was waking up now too. "Could I come?"

"Sure, let's go."

Ciara headed toward the exit and Zula and Jayden followed. They met Tikana and Toni at the base of Pride Rock, and the five of them headed out into the awaiting evening. Koru passed the group, heading home. Jayden remembered he had went out late last night.

As they stalked into position out in the grasslands, Jayden's paw started to sting again. She had forgotten it was sore, and wondered if she should back out of the hunt, but the group was already approaching a herd.

Too late now. I better not screw this up. she thought.

Jayden did fine on the hunt despite her apprehensiveness. Ciara was a really good lead huntress. She lead and ordered them well. The team caught two large herd animals and brought them home.

Jayden ate up while the rest of the Pride joined in. Night had fallen heavily. When she finished, she headed back to the cave to continue resting. Her paw hadn't gotten worse during the hunt, but it still felt sore.

She was about to climb the stone steps when she saw the large figure of a Black lion heading toward the side of Pride Rock where the two of them had met last night.

She paused. Does he go there each night?" Something strange stirred in her, and she felt her paws moving forward, toward him, and her mouth was opening "Hey Dark!"

He turned around to look at her.

She trotted to his side. "Need some help looking out for a shooting star again tonight?"