No Hard Feelings

seventeen

a / n : 

hi guys! i know it's been forever and frankly, i'm struggling but please bear with me for a while. there'll be one chapter + short epilogue after this one. i haven't written it yet. i barely even got to to write this one, but i hope this is enough for now. 

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 S E V E N T E E N

"HERE."

Dexter looks up at Adrian, then drops his gaze back to his outstretched hand. His fingers are wrapped around a can of beer and Dexter only blinks at it for a long while before finally reaching for it.

"Thanks."

Adrian huffs and takes a seat next to Dexter, popping his own beer open as he stretches his legs out the front porch steps. He holds it up, asking for a toast, and though Dexter shakes his head, he opens his can and clinks it with his brother's anyway.

They take a long swig, tipping their heads back almost completely in sync, and finish exactly at the same time.

Neither of them speak for a long while as they stare out at the dark, empty street, seated on the front porch steps of their little house. After a while, Dexter checks his phone. No new messages. He lets out a breath, his grip tightening around the near useless thing. Stupid. What was he expecting?

He feels Adrian's stare, heavy and probing.

"What?" Dexter asks, sounding defensive without really meaning to.

Setting down his beer next to him, Adrian leans back against his hands and shrugs. "Why don't you just call her already?"

His gaze darts to his brother for a second and then falls back to his phone. He considers dodging the question, but it would have been futile anyway. He couldn't fool Adrian even if his life depended on it.

Days have passed since the day he and Hadley fought. It's unsettling, to be honest, to watch the last couple weeks of their summer dwindling down so quickly. He feels like he's still stuck in that moment, when he told Hadley that they should stop being friends, and now an important piece of his life had gone missing and his world had stopped functioning without it in place.

And if there's one thing he realized about this whole new world without her, it's that the only thing worse than being with Hadley is not being with Hadley.

It's driving him crazy.

Back then, it felt as though the only thing that could make things better was to break it off with Hadley completely. He can't remember what, exactly, he was hoping for when he decided they should stop being friends, but whatever it was, it wasn't this.

He's been spending his days checking his phone, waiting—quite stupidly—for Hadley to leave him a message, to ask if they could meet so that they could patch things up and everything can go back to normal. It's like the sun isn't nearly as bright as it should have been and Dexter's left fumbling in the dark, blindly walking around hoping he'd reach the end of the tunnel someday.

Beside him, Adrian lets out a groan. "You know what?"

Dexter fixes him with a wary look, but Adrian moves quick, snatching his phone without so much as a warning.

"If you're going to mope around waiting for someone to call," his brother says, "then what's the point of telling her to fuck off?"

"I didn't tell her to 'fuck off,'" Dexter protests weakly. He tries to grab the phone but Adrian keeps it out of his reach.