friends (rick riley and scott holland)(INDEFINITE HIATUS)

chapter fourteen

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chapter fourteen: what adam knows

a/n:

I love kind teenage boys. I wish they existed.

tw(s) — new kids on the block and donnie wahlberg slander

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Adam's first steps were taken trying to get to Gwen.

It was at his first birthday party. She and one of their various cousins were running around their yard, and Adam was watching them from where he was sitting in the grass with their mother. On her third or fourth lap around, Gwen stopped to say something to Mrs. Banks, and he must have wanted their attention, because he pushed up to his feet. Then, while they were watching, Adam, with little hands outstretched, took one, two, and then three steps toward her before falling. Gwen caught him and hugged him tightly, and then she went on to tell anyone who would listen to a five-year-old that her littlest brother loved her this (with her arms stretched open as wide as they could go) much for months afterward.

Adam's not sure how much of the story he can believe. Jake, who was the only one to tell him the story, is weird about his relationship with their older sister, after all. He figures it makes sense, though.

Gwen has always, as far as he can remember, been his favorite person in the world.

The rest of his family, and his friends, and, hell, even Charlie, all pale in comparison.

She, who cut the crusts off of his sandwiches, and let him hide from imaginary monsters in her bed, and taught him how to tie his shoes, knows him better than anyone. No matter how she's feeling about him on any given day, he can count on her; she'll always take care of him, and support him, and keep his secrets with a wink in his direction and a lie for others on the tip of her tongue.

Which is why, when Jake pulled him aside that Saturday after homecoming to warn him Gwen was having a rough time, Adam decided that he would have to do something to help.

Do what she'd do for him, at the very least, and give her a hug.

So, when, after days of being unable to catch her attention, an opportunity to talk to her falls into his lap after school that following Wednesday, he jumps on it.

She's sitting on the back patio, wearing a too-big hoodie that he knows isn't hers and hugging her knees to her chest, when Adam finally finds her. He slides open the door, undeterred by how she's too consumed with staring at her beeper with an indiscernible emotion to look up at him.

He eyes the crumpled box of cigarettes on the floor next to her. "I didn't know you smoked."

"Huh?" Gwen's head snaps up to him, a slight furrow in her brow, before she follows his gaze down. "Oh, uh, I—— they were in the pocket."

Adam nods and sits down next to her.

The skin around her eyes is red and swollen, and she sniffles, turning the device over in her hands, as they fall quiet. He knows that she was crying. She's been crying a lot as of late. More than he's ever seen her, actually.