CLEAR CACHE | PARKER
“Okay, yeah. I’ll call you soon, it’s nice hearing your voice.”
Parker tossed the phone onto his bed as he hung up, then flopped down beside it, covering his face with his hands.
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It was a short call. Normally he and Amber would video call, but the connection was bad and Parker wasn’t exactly in the mood to look like he wasn’t stressed. He could tell that she was smiling though, from her voice. When he hinted that she should be expecting a package soon, she ocellated between telling him to tell her what it was and telling him not to so that it would be a surprise. He compromised by telling her that it was a book, but didn’t tell her which one. A lot of their interactions involved him compromising between two extremes that she couldn’t seem to choose between, which made him feel as though he was a sensible, stabilizing influence in some way. He was grateful for it.
Parker longed to be the stabilizing force in his own life, but it seemed that the foundation he’d set was long cracked and growing weaker, eroding due to time and harsh weather. Repairs were in order, but at one point it was hard to stop the dissolution, impossible almost, and all one could do was slow it down for as long as possible. Entropy was inevitable– something that his brother liked to say.
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There was one case which Parker could recall where things didn’t dissolve and spiral out of control for him, and that was actually his one with the person who knew what Murphy’s Law was; Kieran. That relationship moved in reverse, in which Parker’s mannerisms and attitude was not what slowly soured how his brother felt about him, but was instead looked at with a sort of warmth.
They had begun at a low point, at a brick wall which Parker longed to be on the other side of. Instead of tearing it down, brick by brick, as he thought the solution would be, he ended up instead building stairs to meet his brother at the top. He was Parker’s best friend, naturally and by far, and their relationship was like no other he’d had. He enjoyed having the company without the emotional exhaustion that generally came with it. Kieran was the perfect combination in Parker’s mind; he was simultaneously the most pretentious and the most genuine person that he’d ever met, and the two had grown so used to living with each other that it felt like they had their own language at some points. There was a fondness that grew out of familiarity, a love of the routine.
Parker passed Kieran in the living room with a small nod and stood in the kitchen as he decided what to make for lunch. He poked his head out of the refrigerator to frown at brother’s amused face, suddenly interested in what Parker was going to eat. A brick of Colby jack cheese sat at the top shelf, on display next to the orange juice. He sighed and decided he’d opt for a piece of fruit.
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He wasn’t sure if he should text Jack or give him space. The night before had ended less than ideally, with tears and uncertainty. Parker opened up his texts and hovered his thumb over the screen before typing out a short message.
Hey, how are you today? 🙂
He deleted the message and rewrote it.
Hey, you feeling alright? 🙂
He deleted the message and rewrote it.
Hey 🙂
Parker deleted the message again and closed his phone, sighing to himself. He walked back into his room and sat at his desk. It hurt to think about Jack. It was worse to think about how much Jack liked him. It dawned on Parker that it was somewhat poetic that the only thing holding them back was fear. He hated poetry. It made as much sense as astrology.
He’d never before had fantasies about holding someone’s hand. Parker wanted Jack to press his hands into his chest to warm them and then decide to never leave. He wanted to hold him when he shook instead of standing there afraid of making things worse. He wanted to lie to him and himself and say that he didn’t care about being afraid and that he’d try to push through it and touch him anyway and whatever he felt he wouldn’t associate with him as a result. He wanted to kiss him when he squeaked and play Twister with him without having to worry about his gloves being latex free. He wanted what they’d had after that night, even if could only be for another brief moment.
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Parker picked up the phone again and opened up his texts. He stared at his contact list before tapping one and typing out a message.
Are you doing anything tonight?
His thumb hovered over the button for a moment before he sent the message, turned his phone over, and frowned to himself. He had never considered himself a very sexual person, but something about their teasing and back-and-forth was entertaining to Parker. He’d slipped into a routine without realizing it, and it was a good way to relieve stress that he’d built up over the week (and in the few minutes he had to deal with Alec before they slept together). He still didn’t like them, but there was a familiarity with them at this point, where both had grown comfortable enough to ask for ridiculous things and typically receive. It was a level of intimacy that only came with time and lack of shame.
Nope !!
Pencil me in?
You betcha!!!
Alec was by far the touchiest person that Parker knew, and while he would never say that he liked that trait, he’d begrudgingly come to accept it. There was something about nonsexual, nonromantic physical contact that he’d grown to miss, and he wasn’t sure if it was sad that he was only really getting it from someone he didn’t even like.
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Parker feared that whatever had happened with Nicola had driven a wedge between him and his other sister, who he’d always been so close to. He and Malia began to drift apart five years ago, and he still didn’t know if it was because of his crime against nature and the fact that she was a very touchy person with him or if it was the drugs, which had started around the same time. Part of him– a very small, shameful part– was almost relieved when he’d found out that she’d been using cocaine, because it meant that maybe he wasn’t to blame for driving her away. There was a strain on their relationship that he blamed on Jesse, on drugs, on her hanging out with the wrong people, but part of him knew that it was because he couldn’t look at her the same way as before, and he couldn’t even tell her why.
He loved his sister more than anything, and something about that turned his stomach, still to this day, even though he knew he could and would never have a relationship with her that was anything but platonic. He hated his mother for not claiming Nicola the moment she got to camp, not claiming her when he asked her out, not claiming her before their first kiss. He was just entertainment for her, a funny little tragic hero who didn’t end up clawing his eyes out or becoming a constellation. He was screwed by fate and by Aphrodite and he couldn’t even go to his biggest emotional support system to deal with it in fear of her hating him for his disgusting accident. Parker opened up his computer and ordered a weighted blanket.
Even with the tiny, self-loathing part of himself, Malia was still more than she could ever imagine to Parker. He couldn’t imagine a life without her– though he’d woken up to many dreams in which he had. He was glad that they were growing closer again, glad that she was trying, glad that they were able to laugh with each other again. It felt as though a pressure he didn’t know was there was taken off his chest and he could breathe fully again.
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Blue was unlike any other friend that Parker had, mostly in terms of personality. She was fiery and funny and had a mean streak, but she was as much of a bad influence on him as he was a good influence on her, which was to say that neither really influenced the other at all. They simply enjoyed each other, amused each other, didn’t talk about anything serious, but still supported each other.
She was the opposite of a fair weather friend. She was there to shake things up in times of calm and make his life more interesting. She was there to give him a reality check and tell him when he was being a stick in the mud or an asshole. She was not there right now because he was being an asshole. He missed her.
While Parker hadn’t been outright ignoring her when Jack wasn’t around, he also didn’t go out of his way to try to hang out with her, which he would blame on him being busy but which she would (correctly) call him out for just being a coward. He’d been avoiding Blue, avoiding the conversation, trying to avoid his feelings, and it blew up in his face. He hadn’t had a full conversation with her since the hot tubs, when he’d walked out on her, and then he fully ignored her during their game night. He turned a blind eye to his friend so that he could hang out with the guy that he liked who she’d attacked because he’d accidentally maimed her brother and... he was wrapped up in another tragedy.
Again and again the lines of Fate acted on Parker like he was a puppet. The one person he had feelings for was the one person that he couldn’t touch. He was (poetically, ironically, tragically) always just out of reach. Parker wished that the gods had chosen some kinder fate, like turning him into a flower or being struck by a rotting plank of wood. He wanted them to stop throwing telenovela plots into his life and let him just scoop ice cream and bake bread.
He opened up his messages to Blue.
Hi, are you free today to talk?
He deleted the message and tried again.
Hey, can we talk tomorrow?
He stared at the message and pressed send, then threw his phone on the bed so he wouldn’t have to see the response.
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