harvard hargrove iii

Very funny.

Is neither an option?

I guess... If my arm is twisted? Casey. I miss him. Don't really have any other guys to talk to the way I could talk to him, so. Wish he wasn’t such a backstabbing dick, but! Guess that’s the way things go, huh? 

I guess that depends - which version of Elaine to I get to have?

It’s Mac, for the record. At least I know when it ends it'll probably be me that stomps all over everything, you know? He’s too good to go breaking hearts... Even when someone probably deserves it. So. 

closed starter for @harveyiii​

Mackenzie had never exactly been excited for a football game, had never been the picture of school spirit. That was more Leo’s thing, weirdly enough. Mac thought it must be about the memories of watching the Rams with Mackenzie Sr. back in the day. Not that Leo would ever own up to that. His uncle had avoided the topic of Mac’s grandfather for as long as he could remember and Mac had never prodded- after all, he knew all about rocky relationships with parents. All of this is on his mind as he eyes up the trophy case in the hall, fingers reaching out to run over a picture of Mackenzie Sr. himself, all padded up years and years ago. There’s a flash of his little brother, a picture he’d seen on the walls of Laura’s house, looking just the same. He wondered if that was any sort of comfort to his grandfather, that at least one of them had lived up to his all-American family dreams. Leo and Mac sure hadn’t, it was evident in the disappointment that rolled off of him every holiday. 

He sees Harvey’s reflection in the case before he actually hears his footsteps, and he can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips. All dressed up in his varsity jacket, who knew Mac would be into that? “Hey… gearing up for the big game?” 

『 … ♘ … 』

It was so simple - so casual - that Harvey couldn’t help the way his eyes narrowed in Mac’s direction; the little smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. Had they reached a place that could be considered so lighthearted? Could Harvey simply wish for Mac to reach out and straighten his collar or tug him closer without having to analyze what it meant until his chest ached, and his head felt like it was pounding in his skull? “More like avoiding the crowd for as long as I can. Have you seen that potluck? Pretty sure the whole town is here.” 

Harvey took a minute to rake his eyes over the case that Mac had been focused on before he had arrived, shoulder to shoulder with the boy; touching but only by technicalities. Pictures of Fighting Cherries past - Hargroves plastered over every inch - and every part of it only making the contrast between the scenery of ‘The Homecoming Game!’ and Mackenzie Walsh ever-clearer. “Speaking of the whole town...” Harvey peeked over; he felt like laughing at himself, but the anxious chuckle stuck in his throat.

“I don’t know,” Brown eyes focused on the ceiling above them; wandering hands found their way to purchase in the empty hallway, even if it was just Harvey’s pinkie lassoing it’s way around Mac’s fingers. Pulling him in by mere centimeters that felt more like fucking milestones. “Guess I didn’t expect to see you here tonight, Mac Walsh. Football games aren’t really your scene, right?” 

Harvey had always felt this deep responsibility in his bones to be the life of the party. He was Harvey Hargrove The Third - he was the man with the house, and the life, and everything everyone wanted. He was the captain of the Football team, and president of the Fraternity. Maybe that was what made it so easy to float through the potluck, and why it was so easy to fake the cheesy grin dipped over his lips. 

Wasn’t it only right to pretend that he was having the time of his life with his privilege? Wasn’t it only right to put on a show? 

The truth was that Harvey didn’t really know. Regardless of his knowledge of the nuance of Public Appearances, though, he knew the feeling of his father’s eyes on the back of his head like he knew his ABC’s, and that meant... pretending - well, for as long as he could in the face of the Gang. Even if not all of them were his friends right now. 

It was easy to see the way his perfect mask fell the moment he locked eyes with [INSERT NAME HERE] - even if the smile never left his lips. It was just a little more hollow now: like he was caught. Playing pretend again, Harvey Hargrove? Shame on you. 

“Hey,” Harvey choked the words out over the table of Chili that separated them; they lingered for a moment, before falling and bubbling into one of the stray crockpots: ‘Southwest Style - spicy!’ 

“He’s not looking is he?” When in doubt, bring up your Daddy issues, right? Harvey peeked over his shoulder. “God forbid I have to hear another speech about crushing the Stompers tonight. Don’t know if he’s been trying to quote Varsity Blues all day, but...” 

Avoidance? Expected. Message? Received. But she was glad that he seemed to humour her none the less. Hold a conversation for longer than the two seconds it took to get some game tokens. She sucked her teeth, falsely sympathetic for the loss of votes, genuinely sympathetic for the injuries he sported. “ Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think there’s a little more than your ugly mug keeping your dad’s name off people’s ballots. ” Her tone was joking but it was the truth, wasn’t it? Maybe not from his position, the prodigal son, or whatever. But from her’s it felt clear. “ Like, I dunno. I just got a feeling, you know? ” She smiled, leaning more towards joke than serious. She could be cool. It was one of her few recognised talents.

She nodded in acknowledgement. Sophomore year. If she was lucky, that wouldn’t be her next year. This would be over with. “ Scary stuff. ” She mused, grin pulling at the corner of her lips. And then the question in return. She nodded. “ Yup, ” She popped the ‘p’, following it with a quick smile. Not that grin that she sported so easily. “ Would love to say I’m the first Zhōu to go to college, but my dad stole that title. Bastard. ” It’s an affectionate joke. But! She wanted to talk about her dad probably as much as Harvey did so she moved on before the joke even had time to settle. “ You got any tips for lil old freshman me or what? ”

『 … ♘ … 』

“How could someone possibly take that the wrong way?” If Harvey were in a worse mood he might let the phrase, ‘ugly mug,’ bounce around in his head for a couple rounds; bang against bumper synapses in his brain, and racking up points toward total breakdown with every ‘ding! ding!’  With Rocky, though, and the sound of the actual arcade drowning out the games in his head, it was easy to let the phrase fade in favor of the ever-so-complicated thoughts on his father instead. Sure, it was people like Rocky who weren’t going to vote - South Siders who had always gotten the short end of the stick when it came to decisions made by a mayor who hardly left the Proper. Or people like his friends who had always been able to see through the façade that his father put up for the rest of Cherry’s population.  It was exactly that population that couldn’t see through the façade that he worried about, though: uppercrusters, and church fiends. Those who just didn’t care enough to let anyone but a Hargrove make decisions for them. Maybe one day their eyes would be open... Maybe it would be in time to save them from two years with his father as mayor.

“Here’s hoping you’re right about that little feeling, though. Can’t say I’d be stoked to spend all my time, volunteering,” He framed air quotes around the word, “at Town Hall this semester, you know? Minimal time in a tie is usually my ideal.”  

Harvey scrunched his nose, and pulled his expression into a grin that matched Rocky’s. Tips for college? That was something that Harvey wasn’t sure he had any jurisdiction in, considering the disastrous ending of his Freshman year back at Georgia State... ‘Talking about your failure is unbecoming,’ though - or something along those lines, as his father always said! - so Harvey shut up about it in favor of, “Ah, come on. Don’t worry about it! That’s the most important advice.” Instead. 

“Freshman year is easy, Rocky Zhōu. Make some new friends - go to the parties you get invited to - and spend the rest of your time in the library? You’ll be good to go.” 

who: @harveyiii what: group breakdown? group breakdown.  where: the beach at like,, stupid o’clock

The Jacksons had endured a brutal week. Rory has woken up screaming nearly every night since they got back from the lakehouse, and she could tell it was wearing on everyone. She caught her uncle falling asleep at the dinner table, elbow in his spaghetti. He couldn’t run the snackhouse like this, and god knew Zahra needed to get some actual sleep if she was going to go toe to toe with Elaine for cheer captain. The circles under her own eyes were dark as she’d ever seen them, purple half moons stained into the pale skin under her eyes giving her a skeletal look a little too early for Halloween. She didn’t want to see it all again tonight. Couldn’t see it again tonight. Staggering through the forest with her father’s cruel laughter giving chase. The beast slashing her chest open again and too much blood– bleeding out on the ground, like mother like daughter. The house on fire, choking on smoke, but in the dreams it isn’t the beast that’s trapped inside- it’s her. And her father is the one who lights the match. She can’t. Rory can’t fucking do it again tonight, so she slips on her shoes and sneaks out her window instead. 

She doesn’t mean to go anywhere in particular, just to go. And for once her feet don’t take her to the wretched Town Square. She doesn’t even realize where she’s heading until the sidewalk under her feet has turned to sand. The salt air doesn’t do shit for the tightness in her throat, and maybe this was a bad idea, because the beach hasn’t been a safe place for her in a year now, but where the hell is safe anymore? It’s too late- too early? for the guards to be out, so she can sit with her feet hanging off the edge, staring out at the staring out at the ocean like there’s salvation somewhere in the swell.

But a hand on her shoulder jars her from her thoughts, slamming her straight back into reality as she full body flinches away, a scream caught in her throat. “Oh my god. Harvey?” She stares up at him incredulously as she tries to get her racing heart under control. “What are you doing here?”

『 … ♘ … 』

Rory. She’s probably the last person that Harvey is expecting to see on the beach this late - not that he sees many people on the beach this late at all - but the youngest Jackson had cause to have his chest aching in concern.  He looked over her head at the horizon. Was she there with someone? Was she safe? Was something wrong? It wasn’t anything he could figure out on his own, as hard as he wished for clairvoyance... So, finally his eyes focused up on Rory’s. “I think the question is what are you doing here, Jackson? ” He was a regular, after all, especially in the moonlight hours. 

“I was getting a workout in -” Harvey explained only a moment later, and he shook the water off of his hair to prove it. It was more like getting his head clear... but it didn’t seem worth mentioning while his senses were on such high alert. “Taking a swim. I like it better when the tide is a little low.” 

“What about you?” He paused.

Mackenzie had spent a lot of time thinking about what the inside of his brain looked like, other than the obvious scientific answer. Half the time, he decided it was a hot wheels track, thoughts racing through and over one another in all different directions, eventually crashing or veering off course. The other half it was like looking out at the ocean, stretching on forever into nothingness, contents bobbing up and down from the surface and slipping right through your hands. In turn, he’d thought about what the inside of Harvey’s brain might look like and so far all he could see was a puzzle, one that Mackenzie was supposed to put together without ever seeing the front of the box. 

He’d figured out he was in trouble when it came to the taller boy weeks ago, when he couldn’t close his eyes without feeling the ghost of Harvey’s touch all over him. He’s accepted the distance, the silence on their drives to and from Mac’s apartment, the way they barely seem to look one another in the eye until they know they’re completely alone. And those moments when they are alone? They’re enough to keep Mac holding onto… something for an eternity. Kisses sprinkled across collarbones and hands tangled in hair and warm breath pressed into their shoulders. The looks in both of their eyes, finding excuses to stay in the moment longer and longer with each passing day.

So as much as he wishes he could stand his ground about leaving, he wishes he could stay close to Harvey for even a minute longer. Of course, the latter wins the battle in the end. Ever so carefully he lowers himself back onto the bed, stuck somewhere between wanting to reach for Harvey and staying as far away as possible. 

“Okay,” he replies, voice barely above a whisper. A few tense, silent moments pass between them before he finds the courage to look over at Harvey, “Do you want me to stay over here or um- we could try that other thing again?” 

‘

『 … ♘ … 』

Harvey doesn’t want to breathe the sigh of relief that’s pressing out of his lungs when Mackenzie lowers himself back onto the bed, but he does. It starts loud - terrifyingly involuntary - but it’s only a moment before Harvey manages to hush the exhale into the careful silence between them. It didn’t have to mean too much, did it? They didn’t have to think about it all too loudly, right?  He didn’t think so, while they sat in the quiet. He didn’t think so, even as his eyes never left the side of Mackenzie’s face, and even as he practically watched the other work up the courage glance his way... and then suddenly, he did think so.  “Shut up, Walsh,” Harvey’s cheek pulled painfully as he fought off the pseudo-annoyed grin that wanted to cross his lips. He felt warm beneath the blush that was making it’s path from his chest to his cheeks, and - oh, fuck. 

He reached for Mac before the other boy had the chance to notice... at least Harvey hoped as his arms snaked their away around Mac’s middle; as his untorn cheek pressed against his chest. Harvey had to fight the urge to press his lips against the very spot before he let his eyes slip shut again. “Go back to sleep.”

What the hell were they doing? It was a thought that had been bouncing around Mackenzie’s mind for weeks. It was there whenever Harvey was, lingering in the background like bad elevator music only drowned out by the bassline of their heartbeats. Everything Mackenzie thought he knew about Harvey Hargrove was wrong and that left him to fill in the blanks. But how could he ever be sure of what the other boy was thinking when he was always so hot and cold? Holding Mac close in town square and then knocking him down a few pegs in front of their friends. Crying, apologizing, caring? and then flinching away like being near Mac burned. Was it him? Or was it something else entirely? And how could he ever know? 

“Exhausted,” he echos back, nodding his head. He watches Harvey carefully, eyeing the poorly placed bandages on his face. He would have done a better job, had the taller boy not been swatting at his hands the whole time, but then again- maybe he wouldn’t have. Not with the way his hands shook the whole night. 

“I found you last night in the woods, you were um- calling my name? And your face- I don’t know what happened, I guess maybe you fought with a branch or a small bear or something before I got there,” Mackenzie tears his gaze away, opting to look anywhere else rather than to imprint the image of Harvey’s expression into his memory, “I tried to patch you up as best as I could but I’m not- you’d think I’d be better at that sort of thing after the year we’ve had, but I’m not. So… um- I was on the floor, but I guess it was a couple of hours ago you were upset so I just- I mean, I figured the whole thing you did for me in the town square might work since it worked then. And then I didn’t want to move and wake you up and well, here we are.” He can feel himself rambling and he stops it with a sharp intake of breath, standing up from his spot on the bed. 

“Anyway, I can go and um- let you get some rest. I just didn’t want you to like, wander back into the woods or anything.” 

『 … ♘ … 』

Calling his name in the woods? Come on, Hargrove.

Harvey wanted to kick himself or something. He wished he could swallow down the absolute swell in the center of his chest, but it was like waves on the roughest night. He was destined to crash into the shore, leaving something like destruction in it’s wake. Harvey was just a structure made of sand, crumbling into smooth nothing under the weight of exactly how much he and Mackenzie Walsh were hiding. 

Before, it was just sex, wasn’t it? Angry, jealous, something to keep their minds off of just how fucked the world around them seemed to be - at least that’s how Harvey had coped with it. Now that it felt like more, it was even more scandalous. Being touched could be blamed on nearly any factor: adrenaline, drinking, curiosity - take your pick. Feeling things for each other couldn’t so easily be explained away so easily, not even to himself. 

Harvey had already been putting distance between them - distance was good, wasn’t it? - but when Mac stood, the swell in his chest became a tsunami and knocked him back toward the bed.  A few foot stumble - dizzying - that nearly swept him from standing yet again. He didn’t want him to go: the anxiety that was still pumping through his veins told him as much, but instead of ‘Stay,’ came: “You probably shouldn’t -” 

Harvey coughed. If he’d finished the sentence, he’d be right - Mac shouldn’t go wandering out his bedroom when they had no idea who was awake on the other side! But he shrugged instead of finishing that train of thought. 

His face stung. He couldn’t think straight, and his brain rattled when he shook his head, but he did it anyway. “You, um... You should just stick around.” Harvey shrugged. Did it seem nonchalant enough? Did it sound like he cared too much? He didn’t know - he just knew he probably needed to sit back down before he fell over. 

There was something calming about the loud bells and whistles of the arcade machines surrounding her. Or at least, Rocky decided there was. If they weren’t calming then they’d be maddening. And Rocky had plenty of things in her life more worthy of madness than PacMan. She liked the way they seemed to drown out everything else. Some part of her knew that she liked that it made it hard to think, but she tried not to give in to that. It was too close to something else.

Harvey at orientation was not all that surprising. But she still found herself a little shocked when any of her old friends approached her. Though the weekend at the Hargrove lakehouse probably bonded them enough to just call them friends again. Not that Rocky would be so bold. “ Hey, ” She greeted in return, tone friendly. Friendly for Rocky, at least. She shrugged in response to his question. Feeling the abrasiveness of healing scratch on her shoulder against the seam of her shirt. Some sort of symbol of her body trying to answer the question for her. Her head tilted slightly as he continued. The things that slipped tongue when you tried to fill awkward air. She wondered if he meant to say it. “ Oh yeah? ” She questioned, gentle but ever curious. “ What else is causing hellfire for you, Harv? ”

Rocky’s wound, at the very least, could be hidden beneath her shirt; Harvey’s wounds from the weekend were written over his face in more ways than one. Wounded pride was etched over every line in his skin, and the bandage that was taped over his actual wound was a constant reminder. He doubted everyone in the group didn’t already know about the complete blow-up between he, and casey, and elaine - Zahra. So, instead of getting into it - nobody wanted him to get into it - Harvey just shrugged his shoulders, and pointed toward his face a little. “Turns out that this face,” Bandage-and-all, “Doesn’t exactly help Dad’s win elections.” 

He waggled his eyebrows - canned laughter fell from his lips. A very clear, ‘let’s not get real about it, Rocky Zhou!’ 

It seemed a little silly to be tasked with a table full of aids for freshmen, given that he was one himself. He knew it was more about being the Dean’s family than it was about any earned knowledge, but it still felt strange to be handing maps out to his future classmates like he was some authority. The strangeness was only amplified by the constant discomfort he felt working so close to his step father.

Harvey standing by his table, striking up a conversation was, shockingly, a welcome distraction. Anything was better than answering the same question 3 times from parents and feeling Dean Hargrove’s presence constantly. “Yeah, I think we’re solidly doomed,” Zev responded, restacking his pile of maps so he at least looked like he cared. “I mean, I was never gonna be top dog on campus so it’s not a far fall for me, but I’m sure it’ll be rough for you. If you need any help enjoying life at the bottom, I’m your guy. I’ve gotten pretty good at it,” he joked.

“Not sure it’s a very far fall for me at this point either, man,” Harvey snorted a little, but the full belly laugh he wanted to give was hidden behind unsureness. Would he seem completely oblivious if he insisted he wasn’t nearly as high on the food chain as he used to be? Would he just seem like another asshole complaining about life on the top? The fact that he didn’t know the answer told him enough to just shut about it, at least. “But thanks for the offer. If my Dad keeps sticking me at his little ‘’’’’informational booths’‘‘‘ I’m gonna need it.” 

Harvey rolled his eyes, tapping his fingers against the table a few times as he thought over his next words. Did he really want to let them leave his lips? Did he want to risk his Dad overhearing? “It’s not like he’s gonna win that stupid election, anyway.”  It was the first time Harvey had said it out loud - the first time he had said anything even remotely unaligned to his father being the actual mayor of Cherry... But it was Zev. It’s not like he would tell anyone. “Makes the whole, ‘Public Presence,’ thing pretty useless, I think.”  

There was a strange sense of deja vu to this situation - door half closed and a boy on the front steps asking to talk to her. Last time it had been Casey. That’s what really stopped her from shutting the door. Deja vu. Casey. Casey, who was the only one who she thought she needed to talk with, if only because she promised she would. If only so she could cut to the chase and give him the opportunity to break things off. That would open up a whole new menu of coping mechanism, at least. An impulsive, unadvised hook up sounded great right now, actually. Maybe Libby? That seemed like a satisfyingly bad decision, especially with Harvey right in front of her.

Zahra’s grip on the door tightened as Harvey mentioned the other two, narrowing her eyes. It was like waves - the instinctual protectiveness of two people she couldn’t help caring for, followed by the anger and pain of everything that had happened with them, then the remnants of the visceral rage she’d felt when watching Harvey’s back disappear into the forest.

“What, you wanna punch me this time?” she countered sharply, with a bold amount of disapproval for someone who’d pushed Cristiano into the lake that same night.

She couldn’t bring herself to open the door any further. It would feel too much like giving in - just letting him inside felt like a risk. Because, seriously, what more could he possibly want to say? What more could he want to say that she wanted to hear? The part of her that would never forget the sound of Elaine saying ‘you’re just as dead to me as she is’ refused to open the door further. And the part that saw Harvey and couldn’t help thinking of him as safe and steady and trustworthy refused to close it. So here she was, stuck in the middle.

 “Think I got the gist last time we talked, thanks.”

“You know that’s not funny, Zahr.” Harvey barely remembered punching Casey now, but the feeling of face against fist was still somewhere, engraved in the wrinkles on his brain. He could tell from the way his hand ached at the mention of it all; the way his chest tightened like it always did when he felt the rage trying to claw it’s way out. At least he and Casey had both made it out of the night with sore faces, though, right? Maybe the bandage hiding that mysterious slash that stretched across his cheek was a clear sign of karmic existence: he hit Casey, and the universe hit him right back.

“The last time we talked I was on a shitload of the Candy Girl’s drugs, and - ” Harvey cleared his throat through the hesitation, but somehow he managed to mutter, "And Elaine makes me feel like a little fucking kid, okay? I don’t know what she’s got over me, but she’s got it.” Even to the untrained ear, his words would have sounded wholly defeated, but for someone who was there to see just how badly he had his heart broken? He hoped at least, she might understand how much pain cut through his heart when it came to matters of the girl he had loved since kindergarten. 

“Safe to say we didn’t exactly get a fair shot, right?” Harvey breathed out, like that was a question too. “Come on, Z. Just a couple minutes.”

properprincess: then let me pay it back, harvey.

properprincess: let me show you how much i care about you.

properprincess: let me love you the way you always deserved.

NUMBER03: is typing...

Mackenzie hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He’d spent more than half the night on the floor next to the bed, peeking over the mattress to see if Harvey’s chest was still rising and falling. When he wasn’t on the floor he was pacing, trying to piece together what the hell Harvey had taken. The incident at Noah’s birthday party the year before had kept him from touching anything that would send him out of his head, just the thought of how he’d watched the walls of the Pit twist themselves into different patterns enough to make his stomach lurch. 

His worry hadn’t been the only thing keeping him awake. Thoughts of the past two days swam around his head, from their game of truth or dare to the kiss in the car to Harvey clinging to him in the middle of the woods. He doesn’t want to assume anything, not when Harvey could barely stand on his own, but it was Mackenzie that he wanted there to comfort him. It was Mackenzie that he’d wanted to protect him from whatever the hell he was seeing. It was Mackenzie who he’d reached for in the twilight hours. Which is how they wound up like this. It’s a groggy memory already, Harvey’s hands reaching for him and begging him to make it all stop. Mac’s own alternating between carding fingers through his hair and rubbing slow circles on his back until he’d fallen back asleep. He must have fallen asleep too, the other boy’s warmth and proximity calming enough for him to drift off. 

He’d only been asleep for an hour or so before Harvey nearly jumped out of his own skin, sending a shockwave of surprise through Mackenzie that was strong enough to push him the other way without having to touch him at all. He’d been closer to the edge than Harvey, which left him tumbling right off. Go figure. 

“It’s okay!” he assures as he pulls himself back up onto the bed, now sitting half on and half off the edge, unsure of where exactly he should go. “Sorry I- I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” 

“How are you feeling?” 

『 … ♘ … 』

If Harvey’s head hadn’t felt like it was full of cement, and if he hadn’t been trying to fight off the dregs of drug addled haze that were still rummaging around in his brain, he would have caught Mackenzie before he fell. He’s not sure what his excuse will be tomorrow when Mac looks at him for a little too long and he hardly flinches, or when they let their hands linger after a tryst that was supposed to mean nothing: falling, and falling, oh how similar they can be... But for now? Harvey’s blaming his lack of reaching out firmly on the nightmare they had both suffered through the night before. 

It’s not like Harvey can remember much of it. For the life of him, he can’t seem to wrap his head around how he had ended up with a bandage taped over his face, or where he had wandered off to after the whole Zahra thing... ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep,’ tells him enough about what Mac can recall from the course of the night, though. Harvey might not know everything about Mackenzie Walsh, but he thinks he’s at least learned enough to know that when Mac is freaked out, Mac doesn’t sleep. Fuck. 

“Feeling like I ran face first into a brick wall,” Harvey answers, but not before letting the silence linger in between them for a moment - enough time to wonder if he should lie or not. His hands are already antsy against the sheets beneath him: his whole body says get up and bolt - get out of here so that you might be able to both pretend you weren’t wrapped up in each other all night! “Fuckin’ exhausted.” 

Harvey tries to fight the urge to put distance between them, but like it’s a reflex to intimacy, he stands, and he has to ignore the way that his head WOOSHES in dull technicolor before it topples him over. He puts a hand out to steady himself - leans back against the wall like a spine. It hardly helps, but it’s enough. 

“How -” 

properprincess: you think you have it all figured out? that you have me all figured out?

properprincess: you. don't. know. anything.

properprincess: you never did. you only ever saw who you wanted to see- the perfect fucking future cherry housewife of your dreams. because maybe if you would have paid attention to /me/ for two minutes you would have realized that i was killing myself trying to be perfect for /you/.

properprincess: all those years together and you never even gave me the chance to explain myself. you never even let me try to fix it.

properprincess: to fix us.

properprincess: so if you want to throw yourself a pity party and keep thinking that i never gave a fuck about you, be my guest. you've obviously already made your mind up.

NUMBER03: you're always telling me i didn't know you, but maybe it's you who didn't let me know you. because i saw everything you let me see. you were my best friend our whole lives. i saw you. i loved you. i needed you. i begged for more and you gave it to casey.

NUMBER03: i'm not going to let you make me think i did anything but love every part of you that you let me have.

NUMBER03: there's no fixing what you broke.

properprincess: do you think i don't know how bad i fucked up? do you think i don't regret it?

properprincess: do you think it's fun for me hanging out with everyone and wondering if it's going to be the day you tell them all what you saw?

properprincess: hurting you is the worst thing i've ever done. i'm sorry that i can't take it back, okay? i'm sorry that i can't make you stop hurting.

properprincess: and if you think they haven't taken sides, you're wrong. just ask noah.

NUMBER03: i think you regret losing me as friend. i'm not sure you regret doing any of it.

NUMBER03: and the fact that you're more concerned that i'd tell people about your hook-up with Lux than everything else just proves it. how'd you orchestrate that one, by the way? because the timing? impeccable. good job, elaine, you won the break up - slept with two of my best friends, and now my step-brother too! God. don't you want people to know?

NUMBER03: i'm not sure you give a fuck about me and my feelings, elaine. you give a fuck about your life going exactly how you need it to.

NUMBER03: i'm sorry you can't take it back either. i have spent so many hours of my life wishing that you could, or you would - because, honestly? i would have given you the whole world. i did, our entire lives, because it was supposed to be you and me. that promise meant something to me.

NUMBER03: making me realize that it never meant anything to you? THAT'S probably the worst thing you ever did.

[...]

NUMBER03: i don't want to talk anymore. i'm done.