Chapter 3
"Listen, Dawn, there's something I need to tell you. I lo-- I really like you. Like, like you, like you. You're kind and badass and...just a really cool person. And, uh, I was wondering, if maybe, you'd wanna...get coffee with me sometime? Because that, uh...that would be great. Yeah."
Donna banged her head against the mirror in frustration. Wow, I'm really bad at this.
"C'mon, Donna," she murmured to herself as she closed her eyes and tried to imagine the spine of steel that ran through Diana. "How badly could this go?"
She picked up the rose she had bought from a nearby flower shop, praying to God and Athena and anyone who could hear her that Dick was right about this part. Then, she looked in the mirror one more time, took a deep breath, and fixed a lock of her hair before walking out of her room.
As she walked past the living room, Dick was watching TV, but offered Donna a quick thumbs up as she passed him.
Donna hid around the corner, watching as Dawn walked towards her room. She looked at the rose in her hands, recited what she was planning to say one more time, and then turned around the corner...
...only to see Dawn making out with Hank.
Donna froze on the spot, as she felt her mouth go dry. Her hands were shaking so much, she almost dropped the rose.
Idiot, she cursed herself as she felt her heart breaking. You stupid fucking idiot.
Dawn broke the kiss and turned to see Donna standing there, who had made a quick decision to hide the rose behind her back.
"Oh, sorry about that," Dawn gave an embarrassed smile. "We just get a bit carried away sometimes."
"Uh, y-yeah. Sure, yeah, it's fine. Fine." It took every ounce of Donna's willpower in that moment not to let her tears fall and keep her voice from breaking.
"Uhhh, I'm gonna go now..." was all Donna managed to blurt out before she turned around and hurried away. With every step she took, her heart broke even more as she started running.
Meanwhile, as Dick kept watching TV, he couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't heard the lift open.
Donna was going to meet someone face-to-face to confess her feelings, right? The only way out of the building was pretty much the lift. Sure, she might've taken the stairs, but why would she? That wasn't practical. Did she bail out? No, her pacing as she walked past the living room sounded confident, she probably had this quick burst of confidence, to do this ASAP. So why didn't she take the lift?
Unless, the person she was referring to was someone in the tower. No way. It wasn't him, and the only other two people in the tower were...
Uh-oh.
Dick switched off the TV, and leapt to his feet, sprinting for Hank and Dawn's room as fast as he could.
As he reached the door, he found that it was shut. He could hear Hank and Dawn on the other side doing, well...that, but Donna was nowhere to be found.
So where was she?
Donna had dropped her pacing into a slow walk as she shuffled into her room. She sat down on her bed and held the rose in front of her, as she felt her eyes fill up with tears.
How could she have been so stupid? How had she not figured it out? And how could she think she ever had a chance with Dawn? Dawn was amazing, beautiful, and deserved a whole lot better than being with someone like her.
"...fuck," she whispered to herself as she closed her eyes. The first tears started to drip onto the rose.
Donna took another look at the rose in her hands, and in a moment of anger, frustration and most of all, heartbreak, she shredded the rose with her fingers and threw the pieces in the trash can that lay nearby.
Her chest hurt, her vision blurred from her tears, and she couldn't think straight. She'd never felt so crushed and defeated before in her life. A voice in her head began whispering.
Stop it. Stop it, Donna. You're Wonder Girl. Keep it together. You're supposed to be tough, right?
And yet, Donna felt herself slowly lie down on her bed and curl up into a ball as she began to cry.
The girl she was completely in love with --yeah, she admitted it-- was already with someone else, and now, she'd never be able to confess her feelings to her.
She'd lost track of how long she was in there, crying her eyes out, she could barely pay attention to anything...even Dick, who had come into her room and sat at her bed with a slightly guilty look on his face.
She heard Dick clear his throat to announce his presence, and tried to stifle her sobs as she sat up and wiped her eyes, sniffing.
A moment of silence passed.
"You want some ice-cream?" Dick offered.
Donna gave a deep, shuddering breath.
"...yeah."
In the kitchen, a few minutes later, Dick had pulled out a tub of Rocky Road ice cream (Donna's guilty pleasure), took out two big scoops for her and put it in a bowl. Donna wasn't even that hungry, but found herself shoveling down heaping spoonfuls anyway as she tried to numb her sadness with brain freeze.
It was when she was going through her third bowl that Dick finally spoke up. "I'm sorry, Donna. I wouldn't have told you to do it like that if I knew the person you were into was--"
"Yeah, I know, it's s-stupid, but I can't help myself alright?" Donna mumbled as she wiped her eyes before digging her spoon into her ice-cream again.
There was a minute of silence as Dick just silently watched Donna try to eat her pain away. And then he said:
"So what is it you like about Hank anyway?"
Now Donna felt even worse, which (probably) had nothing to do with the 5-- wait, 6-- lumps of ice cream she had just downed. "Wha... Hank--? No, you idiot, it's DAWN! Okay? Just..." Her voice trailed off as she pushed her empty bowl away from her and covered her face with her hands, trying to resist the urge to beat the crap out of Dick.
She took a deep breath, and lay her head on the countertop as another round of self-loathing started in her head.
So. Fucking. Stupid.