“Napkin thief,” Wardo stated petulantly when Ivy ripped up her own and moved onto his. He watched as her thin fingers shredded the paper and couldn’t decide whether it was the showdown with the family of three next to them or him bombarding her with a string of unanswerable questions that was the cause of her sudden anxiety. He felt guilty if it was the latter and deliberately leaned back in his chair so he wasn’t crowding her so much.
He wanted to tell himself to calm down and take it slow but ever since stumbling across the journal entry, he’d been able to do anything but that.
Watching Ivy carefully as the remains of his napkin fluttered from her hands to the table top, he bit his lip. After pausing for a moment, he reached over the gap between his table and the condiments unit. Pulling a wad of napkins from the dispenser, he silently pushed them towards his best friend, a sheepish smile on his face. He didn’t want to rant to her like this, especially when she claimed to be as clueless as he was, but if he couldn’t talk to Ivy about something like this then who could he talk to?
He looked up in surprise when Ivy graced him with a speech he couldn’t really believe he was hearing. He didn’t doubt her words nor the sincerity of them, but it was so unlike Ivy to be so openly sentimental and, well, sappy. A dopey smile appeared on his face and he dropped his head to the side.
“Ives,” he giggled dumbly. He and Ivy knew how much they meant to each other. Ivy knew that Wardo would all but die for her – actually, the ‘but’ was unnecessary, particularly after his brawl with Grant, so it wasn’t completely absurd for Ivy to voice it aloud, but that was just it. Wardo and Ivy’s bond and their feelings for each other was usually unspoken, masked by teasing jibes and play fights that sometimes went too far and ended up with both of them receiving an uncharacteristic reprimand from Cecily.
“There she is,” he grinned when she sharply told him to ‘cut the crap’. He leaned forward, breaching the invisible barrier across the table. “I thought you were going soft on me there.”
He hoped that Ivy knew how much her words meant to him, even though he wasn’t sure they changed how he felt about the journal situation. He knew that his worth wasn’t based on what Louis Denver thought about him. It had taken Wardo a while to realise that other people didn’t determine whether or not he mattered, and he couldn’t let a boy he happened to be in love with dismantle all of that. But still…
“Not worth it, I just…” he trailed off and huffed in frustration. As soon as he felt Ivy’s foot nudge his, he hooked his own around her ankle, playfully knocking their shins together.
“I guess just finding out he doesn’t love me back. That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said. Then he paused and shook his head, deciding that wasn’t right. “No, no. I got over that before. I guess I just don’t want to think about there being someone else. I mean, he hasn’t mentioned anyone but there’s no real reason it might be me, so…”
He sunk his teeth into his bottom lip and reflected on his words. He knew he was probably being pathetic as hell, and if Ivy wanted to slug him or scold him for that he wouldn’t blame her – although he was sure that the pair of them had already caused enough of a scene in this particular Burger King.
“It’s just him, he’s just… home. I dunno. Oh God, I can’t believe I said that,” he whined, burying his face in his hands. He dragged his palms down his face and looked up at Ivy, noticing that she was scowling at him. Well, at least she was finally looking at him. Her stare was challenging and unfortunately for her, Wardo rarely backed down from a challenge. He stared defiantly at her, never once daring to blink or look away. He knew that this could last for hours given how stubborn both he and Ivy were, but that didn’t mean he was going to back down. If they stayed here until closing, staring at each other like fucking idiots, then so be it.
Ivy broke first, and with her defeat came the truth. As the words fell out of her mouth, Wardo’s eyebrows shot upwards, his jaw decidedly earthbound.
“It’s about me?” he burst, his heart hammering as his hopes rocketed out from the pit of despair he’d furiously buried them into. Louis’ journal entry was about him, which meant that Louis was in love with him in the way Wardo wished he would be for going on a year, and if that didn’t make a smile split Wardo’s face in half then he would be lying.
“What? Ivy, what? How did you know? Oh my God, did he tell you? Did he actually tell you?” he persisted, grinning like a madman, uncaring of how he was acting.
Fingers shredding away at the napkin before her, Ivy's eyes fluttered momentarily as she was pulled from her daze, staring down at the mess that she'd created on the table before her. Twisting her mouth awkwardly, she let out a sigh, only to look up and see Wardo nudging more napkins towards her.
Great. Why did her best friend have to be the God damn fucking greatest person ever? There she was, anxiously tearing the tissue to pieces, and all because she was too afraid to tell Wardo the truth about all that she knew, all because Louis had made her promise that she wouldn't, and the asshole was sitting in front of her trying to put her at ease. The silent exchange caused Ivy to laugh a little, before offering Wardo a grateful smile. It might have seemed silly to most outsiders, and it wasn't exactly the greatest act portrayal of sentiments the world had ever seen, but she and Wardo had always had their own, personal way of communicating. They didn't need to voice aloud the love that they had for each other, and their friendship didn't require uncharacteristic outbursts of how much they meant to one another. Instead they just expressed it in their own ways, with their own subtle acts that most people would turn a blind eye to. Wardo didn't know why Ivy was suddenly so anxious, but he was still doing his best to put her at ease and help her relax.
After her outburst, she sunk low into her seat, her ears burning as she awaited the inevitable teasing that was sure to follow. She definitely had a proclivity for swearing and lovingly berating her friends, but with a life like the one she'd lead she always had a place in her heart for a little soppiness. Just, usually it didn't unleash itself in the middle of a fucking burger king while she littered the tables with torn up tissue.
“Whatever, nerd,” she groaned, before giving Wardo a gentle nudge with her foot under the table.
An embarrassed smile worked its way onto her face, though, and she rolled her eyes before laughing at her idiot best friend, who was now beaming at her. It was nice to see, though, considering the last fifteen minutes had been filled with him staring all mopily, like some sort of love-struck, doe-eyed kitten who'd been kicked in those movies that she sometimes watched with CJ. That being said, Wardo was no leading man material, that's for sure.
“Me? Soft?” she scoffed, shaking her head at Wardo before playfully flipping him off – yet again receiving a look of disdain from families all around her. “Like hell, Martinelli. I'm just... tired of you beating on yourself, you dumbass.”
Of course, her words hadn't been quite enough to deter him from the journal entry he'd read, and she slowly found her anxiety creeping back up inside her, the smile from before being wiped from her face. Clenching and unclenching her fists repeatedly, she tried to busy her hands in a way that might be a little less likely to catch his attention, but the more he rambled on and on about Louis, and the more he talked about the possibility of Louis not loving him back the more anxious she became.
Ivy sat there in silence, listening to Wardo's admissions, a sense of shame creeping up through her chest as he claimed that the other boy was his home. How could she not tell him after hearing something like that? She'd have to be some sort of monster to keep lying to her friend. While she felt as though she were betraying Louis by divulging the truth, her allegiance – so to speak – always lay with Wardo, and she only hoped that he would understand just why she was more inclined to have loose lips around her best friends, even when sworn to secrecy.
As Wardo stared at her, and stared, and stared, and stared, Ivy could feel herself sweating under the pressure. She wasn't an easy person to break, but neither was Wardo, and in the situation at hand he hadn't actually done anything wrong – a stark change, in all honesty – and so it was only natural that she eventually gave in.
In all honesty, she had thought that she'd feel better, what with that whole mantra about 'the truth will set you free', or whatever, but now she'd decided that it was total bullshit. She didn't feel better, not now that she was watching the hopeful look on Wardo's face, the grin that engulfed his features, and the glimmer in his eye that told her he was recounting every single interaction he'd had with the other boy in the past year alone.
“Well, I mean, not exactly,” she started, stammering the words out as she sunk lower and lower into her seat.
She felt dizzy, and for a moment she was pretty sure there were two Wardo's in front of her, but after shaking her head and blinking a couple of times, her best friend's face came swimming back into view, guilt eating at the pit of her stomach.
“Listen, we didn't talk shit about his journal, okay? I mean... I dunno, um... I guess, I just... we did talk. About you.” Shaking her head, Ivy let out a shaky breath as she tried to find the write words to explain what had happened. If she was really gonna land Louis in it like this, she'd better at least do a good job of explaining what had happened.
Running a hand over her face, Ivy let out a low whimper and stomped her feet to the ground. She was being childish, but she felt like a total idiot. She didn't wanna get Wardo's hopes up, even though any idiot could see that these two morons were in love, and she couldn't even think where to even begin.
“It's like... From the start, y'know? Like, that day, with... With, uh, with Grant,” she muttered, her voice breaking as she recalled the memory of what had happened to Wardo. Shaking her head and pushing forward, she stared at her best friend, offering him a raised eyebrow and a look that she could only hope read as 'are you really this stupid'? “I mean, he told me then, y'know? That he loves you. And then... that day that, uh... the day he left? We got talking, and he just... I mean, I kinda put my mouth in it a bit, but we were talking about you, and how much you guys mean to each other, and shit... He acted like his leaving was, like, fixing something, y'know? Like he was doing it to do everyone a favour...”
She knew that nothing she was saying was news to Wardo, and that she wasn't really getting to the point, but she found herself rambling and unable to stop herself, all too flustered at having been stupid enough to dig herself this hole to begin with.
areudirty
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