dusk • brance

.;9;.

(i'm so excited for this chapter.. 😜😜🤭)

"vance, i understand. your father was just like you when we met. you see him now, he has changed. so can you. terry and jonah are not good friends, you have to do what you want, not what they want." vance repeats what his mother said to him earlier in his head. perhaps she was correct. vance really did need to stop listening to terry and jonah. maybe vance should just stop being so indecisive about bruce and just be nice.
*

later at school the next day, vance wrote down two simple words on a piece of paper, then handing it over to bruce. vance watched as his eyes darted back and forth between the words between picking up his pencil.

bruce confusedly grabbed the note from vance. what did he want? he has been acting so strange. bruce unfolded it, shocked at the words he'd never expect vance to write down. 'im sOrr y' his scribbled handwriting read. bruce read it over and over at least ten times before he picked up his pencil. 'ok.', it read in bruces neat writing. he handed it back to vance and turned to look back at the teacher.

vance read the note quickly, taking a quick glance over towards bruce before looking back at the note.

ok? just ok? what did that even mean?, vance wondered. maybe it was a good ok. even so, vance will still be nicer, no matter what his friends say. once the bell rang, vance quickly shoved everything in his bag and followed bruce out the door. in the corner of vance's eye, he noticed terry and jonah coming out of their classes, then following vance.

before they were to call out his name, vance placed his hand on bruce's shoulder to stop him from continuing his walk. bruce turned around, seeing vance, then seeing terry and jonah.

"vance!" terry called out shortly after. bruce confusedly looked from the two, back to vance, who was staring at him.

"what are you doing," bruce asked, lightly pushing off vance's hand, which was still on his shoulder. vance looked back to terry and jonah who were now directly behind him.

"what're we doing to bruce today, vance?" jonah asked with a smirk. "nothing," vance said flatly.

"fuck you mean, nothing?" terry asked. without saying another word, vance held up both middle fingers, flipping off terry and jonah. their eyes widened from the unexpected gesture.

vance turned around, tugging bruce's shirt along with him. something surely bad would happen if vance were to have left bruce with them.

bruce stumbled backwards before he turned around, speed walking so he could keep up with vance's fast walk. vance didn't say anything until the two walked outside.

"still got that stephen king book?" vance questioned. "it wasn't mine. but yeah, my dad has it," bruce answered him. vance hummed for a second as a reply.

when vance reached bruce's tree, he sat down. "this is uh.. why are you.. what-" bruce cut himself off to keep him from saying any more awkward things.

vance didn't say anything either, he opened his bag and pulled out his binder. the only paper resting inside was the pages to bruce's dads book. he pulled them out and handed them to bruce without a word.

"how did you get these?" bruce asked as he took the paged and looked through them. those were the exact pages he was missing. when he gave it back to his dad, he was very disappointed, but now he had them.