this love ☼ dreamnotfound

{ 20 }

( cw // accidental disordered eating )

"there you are," jace realized as he walked towards george. the park was crowded, presumably because people liked to be outside on nice summer days. how crazy?

george mimicked, "here i am." he could already feel the awkwardness forming in the air around them.

jace did that awful nervous laugh. "i thought you were gonna blow me off," he half-joked.

"me? i would never," george claimed. he definitely would.

"sure..." jace dragged out the word sarcastically. that was something clay always did.

"okay, you think i'm an asshole. i get it," george rolled his eyes. he really couldn't blame jace; he was kind of an asshole. "are you going to show me around or not?" he sassed.

"you're not that bad," jace responded to george's self-deprecating comment. "not a complete asshole, but definitely not an angel."

george snapped back, "i'd beg to differ."

him and jace had become almost insanely comfortable with each other just over phone calls, so hanging out in person felt natural after the first couple minutes.

jace took george all around town- he showed him the best restaurants, the gardens, the little shops that nobody actually bought anything from, and even his school; bluehill high school. george definitely remembered their football teams playing each other at some point. speaking of school, jace was actually a whole grade younger than george. george was seventeen going into his senior year, and jace was sixteen approaching his junior year. for some reason that made george feel old as hell, but jace thought he was being dramatic.

the two had stopped and gotten ice cream and then argued for a good five minutes over who was paying. jace insisted on paying, but it was useless against george and his abused credit card. george couldn't let someone younger than him pay for him. it just felt weird.

they sat at a park bench and did exactly what they usually did; george ranted about his problems and jace gave impressively good advice. if jace was this good at dealing with other people's issues, his life must be absolutely perfect.

"i just don't know what to do-," george dragged out with a groan. "i think he's actually depressed and i can't do shit about it. i suck, don't i?"

"it's not your job to fix him, even if he's your boyfriend and you feel like you need to," jace assured. "think about it; your best friend is struggling and you don't find out until they have to leave for the whole summer because of it. i don't know about you, but i'd be pretty damn sad. whether i had an amazing boyfriend or not, it would suck."

"you really think i'm heartless, hm?" george observed. the amazing boyfriend comment flew right over his head.

jace defended himself, "i didn't say that, stupid."

"well that's what you were implying, stupid," george echoed. it felt nice to have a new friend.

"was not," jace pleaded. "seriously though- you said you're not good at showing your emotions. you're probably really upset too, but you're just too focused on him to realize. you're allowed to focus on yourself."

george thought for a moment. "he's done so much for me though."

"because he loves you," jace explained. "he would tell you if he needed you to help him or if there was anything you could do. that's how healthy relationships work."

"clay's not that simple," george addressed, "he feels like he has to constantly make things up to me and feels guilty when i try to do things for him."

"why would he have to make anything up to you?" jace grew curious.