Hi guys. I've always liked this movie and I enjoyed Dylan and Lily's scenes whenever I've watched it, so I wrote this fic for it.
Disclaimer: I don't own We Bought a Zoo or its characters.
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Dylan strode through the rain, trying to reach the house before the downpour worsened. He felt a mix of emotions. He was thrilled by the successful inspection and shared everyone's excitement for the zoo's imminent reopening, but his mood was dampened by the way Lily continued to ignore him.
He reflected back to the first few months his family had lived on the zoo. Despite still being consumed at the time by grief for his mother and anger towards his father for moving them, Lily's eager friendliness and upbeat demeanour had brought some light into his life. He had grown to look forward to the times she would come talk to him, and how happy she seemed to be to see him. Then she'd suddenly distanced herself after telling him his family might be leaving. He knew he must have missed something important she was trying to tell him, but at the time he had been too focused on the possibility of going home and seeing his old friends, and somehow had inadvertently messed up his friendship with her.
"Guess I just can't talk to girls that well."
"Well talking to girls is easy. They'll tell you everything. Secret to talking is listening."
"I guess I didn't listen to something she told me or something? I mean I liked her. It's like you embarrass yourself if you say something, and you embarrass yourself if you don't."
As he passed the zoo's cafe, he suddenly noticed something different and doubled back to stare at the window where Lily had placed the welcome message on their first day. There was a new message there, one he realised Lily had left for him.
IF
YOU
LOVE
ME
LET
ME
KNOW
Suddenly everything clicked, and he realised how Lily had tried to tell him how she felt about him, and he realised how he felt about her. As he tried to figure out how to fix this, he remembered his dad's advice to him.
"You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage."
Nodding, he took off sprinting through the rain to the nearby house where Lily stayed. As he approached Lily's window, he saw her sitting on her bed working on something, back turned towards the window.
"Twenty seconds of courage. Twenty seconds of courage," Dylan muttered to himself as he glanced at his watch and gathered up the courage he needed. "Okay, okay."
"Just, literally, twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery."
He knocked on the window, and Lily turned and saw him there. She then got up and approached the window to open it. "Hi," she greeted him, looking curious about why he was there.
"Hi," Dylan responded. Then before his confidence could leave him, he quickly continued. "Look I meant to say that I missed you like crazy a lot. A lot!" Seeing her processing this, he remembered their conversation on the roof about his name and continued, "Plus, I wasn't named after Bob Dylan. I was named after a dog named Dylan."
Lily smiled at him and let out some cheerful laughter, and he started to feel hopeful of this working. Waving her hand dismissively, she said, "I don't even care. Who cares?
"Sorry about the rain," she said, while pushing her hair back.
"No I love it," Dylan started gushing, "I love your hair, and I love your sign, Lily. I love you."
Lily stopped laughing and her face turned to shock as she processed what he had just said. Dylan anxiously waited for her reaction while feeling overjoyed and surprised himself by what he felt and said. A moment later, his heart lifted as he watched an elated smile spread across her face.
"And I promise you, something great will come from it."
Simultaneously, both kids moved forward and wrapped each other into a tight hug, clutching each other with sheer joy. Dylan beamed as he felt the happiest he'd felt in a long time.