Doodle Heart | ✓

chapter seventeen: friends?

a/n: this is a low-key sad chapter :( have tissues out cuz the boys are hashing it out this chapter. 

S E V E N T E E N : FRIENDS?

Thursday (2 days until the due date)

PARKER DECIDED that he was finally going to be honest with his best friend. The whole week had been awkward between him and Mae, after waking up on her couch hugging a pillow. And Dustin had sensed the tension anyways.

Thursday night, he drove through the gates of Jin Mansion and stopped short along the curb. He was dreading this moment, but he sighed and made his way up to the door.

Dustin let him in after 30 seconds, and the two sat down in the kitchen to talk.

"So, what's up?" He asked through a mouth stuffed with goldfish. "Showing up at my door at 10pm isn't exactly something you do, and plus, you already know that I have my presentation tomorrow and the formal."

Parker scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I know, but... I have to tell you something about me and Mae."

Dustin stopped chewing for a millisecond before starting up again. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What happened?"

"You know Snow?"

He nodded, "The girl at my parties all the time who can hold her goddamn alcohol?"

"And you know Mae."

"What are you trying to get at here, man?"

"Mae is Snow," Parker blurted out, feeling like a thousand pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders

Dustin didn't even flinch, however. "Okay, so what does she have to do with you?"

Parker winced, then jumped into a full explanation: "After starting to talk to Snow three, four months ago, I started really liking her. I wanted to know who she really was and to get to know her.

"And then there was Mae, who you were partnered with about a month ago. But you already knew that. The truth is, I had a suspicion about Snow's true alter ego being Mae since that first day. I just needed to prove it. So I... when Snow and I were meeting up again, recently, I gave her absinthe to get her drunk.

"It was so stupid, I know! But—"

"Is she okay?" Dustin asked cutting him off, "how much did you give her?"

"Just a shot, I promise."

"But Parker, you're my best friend and all, but you could've ruined her." Dustin had a subtle expression on, but the way he crumpled up his Goldfish bag and chucked it into the trash, Parker was a little scared. "And so you did it to get her drunk and to get answers out of her, I assume."

"Yeah."

Dustin stood from his seat and ran his hands down his face and through his hair. "Do you like her then?"

Parker stared at him dumbstruck. "What?"

"Do you like Mae?" Dustin reiterated, beginning to pace. "Do you like Snow? Who is it now?"

Parker soon his head and glanced at something other than his best friend. "Dustin, I... I like Mae. And I might have accidentally told her that when I was drunk and went to her dorm last night...?"

Dustin fixed him with a look. "So you went over to her dorm, too? Did you stay the night?"

"Uh... yeah?"

Dustin was silent for a moment and Parker basked in it. He could breathe for a nanosecond before his best friend would yell at him again. This conversation hadn't gone exactly to plan. He had imagined his best friend to be slightly upset, but not passive-aggressive like he was being now.

"I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?" Parker asked, looking at him. A half-scoff, half-laugh came out of his mouth as he said, "Dustin, I'm fucking jealous, okay? Did you want me to say it? Did you want me to admit it first?"

Dustin shook his head. "Dude, don't go there. I wouldn't go that low."

"Okay, yeah. Sorry, man." Parker stepped up from his stool and leaned against the counter with his arms crossed. "You don't understand then I guess. I knew Snow before you ever knew Mae."

"Not true." Dustin pressed his lips together with an unknown emotion flashing in his eyes. "I knew Mae since the time she and Lewis were dating. I just pretended to not know... I was hoping I could find out why they broke up in the first place, but Lewis and I aren't close enough yet for him to tell me the whole truth, and Mae... she's not close to anybody besides that Icelyn girl."

Parker was shocked, but didn't show it. Dustin knew Mae when she was a Freshman? How could he not have noticed her, too? "Look, what's your point here?"

"Whatever your point was from the beginning," Dustin quipped, gesturing to him with his hand before it fell limp at his side.

Parker's point? "I guess I only got to see one side of her."

"And I, the other."

More silence followed that sentence and Parker found himself tense with the one person he trusted more than his mother and brother. "I'm sorry... for going to her dorm, getting her drunk, making her tell me things."

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to her. She chased me up to my room on the night of my birthday and held me. Freaking held me while I fucking cried about my stupid parents who don't give a crap about their son here in America," he spat. "A true dent to my ego, but I was glad it was her and not you or Lewis."

Parker's jaw clenched and dropped open. But he deserved that, he realized, he deserved that and whatever else Dustin wanted to throw at him. But Parker Ly wasn't known to let himself get beaten up. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? What's so great about her sympathizing and slipping into your room to hold you while you cried?"

"Because I really like her, too," Dustin admitted, stuffing his hands into his pockets and rolling his shoulders back. "But at least I had the guts to tell her that without one of us being drunk."

"You didn't even actually tell her!" Parker shot back. "She literally has no idea whether or not you actually like her. All she knows is that you asked her to a stupid dance, and that you might leave her, too! At least I was there when she was vulnerable."

"When you made her that way!" Dustin argued, throwing his hands into the air. "Feeding her more poison than she had already taken in... were you trying to kill her?" He laughed wryly and shook her head, "I see now. If you can't have her, no one can."

"Why do you even word it like that? This isn't some mother effing soap opera! I just like her, and I wanted to be the one with the upper hand for once."

"And you made a dick move, Parker." Dustin was clenching his fists tightly in his pockets. Never had he felt this way about a girl, especially someone like Mae Chen. "Why are we even fighting about this?"

"Because we both like her and she probably doesn't like either of us, honestly."

"I can see that," Dustin said with a nod. "But just don't be salty that I asked her to the dance."

Parker grumbled back a, "Wasn't planning on going anyway."

Dustin bit his tongue to keep from saying something else stupid. "Good."

"Fine."

And that was the night Parker and Dustin's friendship was put to the test, and shattered like thin ice.

a/n: 1) don't be mad; be proud that I updated on time 2) now you can be mad 3) who knew boys could be so dramatic lol but seriously, I'm already planning out the sequel and the thir--- oops, can't say that...