Cruel Summer | part i
high school!joe mazzello x reader
summary- they used to be best friends, but now that y/n has a boyfriend (that everyone hates), joe and y/n can’t seem to come to terms with their feelings, but it’s no secret to anyone how they truly feel.
warnings- cussing and fighting. SLOW BURN!!
word count: 2.1k
a/n: here she is! i’ve been working on this for so long!! i really hope you guys like it and ANY feed back is appreciated.
based off of cruel summer by taylor swift.
September
Clink.
You jolted awake, immediately sitting up. Eyes still groggy, you looked at your alarm clock. 1:12 AM. Your heartbeat still rapid from your sudden awakening, you quickly climbed out of bed, knowing exactly what was happening.
Warm air poured into your room as you pushed your window open. There he was. He had his arm up like he was about to throw another rock. You leaned out your window and smiled down at him. His red hair reflected the moonlight as he smiled right back up at you.
“I told you to stop throwing shit at my window, Joey. You're gonna wake up my entire family. You have a phone for a reason.” You whisper-yelled at him.
He shrugged. “I like doing it the old fashioned way.”
It was silent for a moment, crickets and locusts chirping while Joe admired your messy hair and pajamas. He cleared his throat when he realized he was staring, scratching the back of his head as he remembered the reason he came to your house. “Um, I was thinking about going on a walk. Wanted to see if you wanted to come with me.”
“It’s 1 in the morning.” You stated.
“And?”
You rolled your eyes. “Come on, Y/N! We haven’t hung out with just the two of us in forever. I know you miss me!” He teased.
“It’s been 4 days.” You sighed. He gave you another convincing smile. You sighed and shook your head at him. “Let me get my shoes.”
May
The rain smashing against the windshield of Ben’s car was lulling, especially since it was 7:42 on a Friday morning. Ben was a good friend. He listened to your problems and never complained. He gave you advice. Not always good advice, but he gave you advice. And he drove you to school whenever you got your car taken away by your parents, today being one of those days. He hadn’t asked you why you had got it taken away, he just assumed it was the same reason as always. Caught sneaking out or caught sneaking someone in. Which it was. And now, even though it was 7:42 on a Friday morning, he listened to you angrily rant about Joe.
“And like, it takes a lot of fucking balls to treat me like that, but Carter? When Carter didn’t do shit to deserve it? Like it’s unbelievable. Carter has been nothing but nice to Joe and to all of you guys, and-”
Ben scoffed.
You stopped and looked at him, an amused smile playing on his lips. “What?” you asked.
He shook his head.
“No, Ben, seriously, what?”
He took a deep breath, reaching to turn the radio down. You shrunk in your seat.
“Do you really think that Carter is nice to Joe?” He asked.
You looked at him in disbelief. “Yes? Carter is so nice to Joe!”
He pulled into his parking spot and put the car in park. “Really.” He said sarcastically.
“Yes, really.”
Ben shook his head and unbuckled his seatbelt. “So we’re gonna ignore all of the times Carter blatantly says he doesn’t think Joe is good for you? And the times Carter won’t let you hang out with Joe? And all of the times Joe has tried to reach out to Carter but Carter is too stuck up for it? No offense, Y/N, I can tolerate Carter, I can, but he’s kind of a dick to us. And to you, for that matter.”
“Okay, woah.” You said. “Sure Carter and Joe butt heads, but that’s not Carter’s fault. Don’t even try to pin this on him. Also, Carter is not a dick to me. You don’t know the first thing about the way Carter treats me.”
“Really? Does Carter know I drove you to school? Are you gonna tell him or are you scared he’ll get mad because you’re hanging out with someone else besides him and you think he’ll either start a fight with me at school today or he’ll give you the silent treatment for a week, and both of those things have happened before so you actually don’t know what he’ll do next. He’s a dick, Y/N, whether you choose to see that or not. And I don’t have a problem with you dating him but you can’t praise him like a Saint.”
No. No, you’re not gonna cry right now. That’s embarrassing. You could feel your heartbeat in your ears and your brain was hardly registering what Ben had said. You had never seen Ben act like this before. He would always support how you felt.
You grabbed your bookbag and opened the door. You expected him to try and say sorry as you were climbing out of his car, but he just watched you. You flinched from slamming the door so hard and stomped away from his car.
As the school day went on, you were able to calm down and think about what Ben had said to you.
He was right, you weren’t going to tell Carter that Ben had driven you to school that day. But that doesn’t mean anything. You liked Carter, truly. He was cute and popular and he played baseball and had a good family. You were more flattered that Carter had taken an interest in you anyway. And you wanted a boyfriend, so what did you have to lose?
Your friends, apparently.
You couldn’t pin point the exact moment you and Joe started hating eachother, but it was sometime afte you and Carter started dating. You didn’t want to hate Joe, you wanted your best friend back. But he doesn’t act like your best friend anymore.
It didn’t help that you and Joe had the same class schedules, either. At the beginning of the year, it was heaven. You got to spend the entire day with your best friend. But now, it was excruciating. It was a mess of snarky comments and finger brushing as you passed each other and glances that last a second too long. Even in your class with your entire friend group, English 12, you two would always manage to pick fights.
“We should do something tomorrow.” Gwilym suggested. “I feel like we haven’t hung out, just the 6 of us, in so long.”
“Yeah Carter’s kind of a buzzkill, isn’t he?” Joe said, his voice drenched in smugness.
You shook your head. “I’m not even gonna respond.” You said, not even looking up from your laptop.
“It’s ok, you don’t have to, we all know how we feel.” He smirked. You shot him a look. He shot you one straight back.
One of the perks of being a Senior meant you got to pick who your locker was by at the beginning of the year. Well, you didn’t have the same best friend at the beginning of this year as you did now. The order of the lockers went Gwil, Rami, Lucy, You, Joe, and Ben. That makes things especially awkward on days like today, when Joe had to just stand there as Carter came up behind you and tickled your waist and played with your hair and the whole group had to wait around for you to be done talking to him. Joe tries to ignore it, but your soft laughs make his heart ache, and watching Carter be the cause of them made his heart ache more.
He hated Carter. At first because he wasn’t him, but now because Carter is a dick who doesn’t care about your feelings. He hated Carter and he wanted you to break up and he wanted you to know that.
You were in the middle lying to Carter about who drove you to school, so Joe thought it was the perfect chance to say “Oh, Y/N, Ben wanted me to give this to you. He said you left it in his car this morning.” He held out your water bottle to you.
Everyone froze. Ben's eyes widened and Rami even laughed. You knew Joe had waited to give it to you because Ben is right there, he would’ve given it to you himself.
Carter grabbed it from Joe before you could even think about it.
He looked at it in his hand then scoffed. “Ben’s car?”
You shot Joe a look that said I’m gonna fucking murder you. He smirked right back at you.
You turned to Carter calmly and slowly took the water bottle from his hand. “Ben took me to school today.”
He laughed and shook his head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Carter-”
“If you liked Ben so much, you could’ve just told me.” He said, then turned to walk away.
You looked at the water bottle in your hand and then Joe, who was still looking at you with raised eyebrows.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“What, you’re mad that I gave you a water bottle? He basically accused you of cheating because you got a ride to school, Y/N. He’s a fucking idiot.”
“You knew exactly what you were doing, Joe.”
“Y/N, you’re fucking blind.”
“Yeah, and you’re a piece of shit.” You began walking out of the school, him following close on your tail.
“I don’t know why you can’t just go back to the way things used to be and stop being so selfish.”
You ignored him.
“I’m done caring about you. If you wanna keep getting fucked over by him then fine. Go ahead. But just so you know I’m not gonna be there for you to cry to at 1 in the morning next time.”
Tears welled in your eyes.
“Fuck you, Joe” you snapped, turning to around and stopping him in his tracks. A few tears fell down your cheeks and Joe quickly realized how serious this was.
“Ok that's enough.” Gwilym said. “Joe, lets go.”
Joe gave you a glance, silently begging you to come back to him. To be you again.
You glared at him, eyes softening a bit at the way he looked like he was hurting. “I hope you’re happy.” You said softly. He took one more second to look at you then turned and went with Gwilym.
You rubbed your eyes with the heels of your hands and stood in the middle of the hallway for a few seconds. Lucy came up behind you and rubbed your back. “You ok?”
You took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“You wanna come home with me? We can stop and get some food and you can spend the night if you want. It’s been a while. I think you could use a girls night.”
You nodded with a light “Ok.”
You didn’t end up spending the night at Lucy’s that night. You went to her house for a while, relieved to just relax with your friend. You watched a few movies and laid together in her bed, but Carter ended up calling you, asking if you could talk. Without a second thought you left Lucy’s house, climbing into Carter’s car. You were the one who ended up apologizing.
Joe saw Carter’s car in your driveway that night. It hurt him. He knew about the way Carter treated you (who didn’t?) and he just wanted you to be happy. He missed climbing into your backyard at night and running out of things to throw at your window. He missed your texts asking him to take you on a drive, he missed making you laugh, he missed seeing you smile, but most importantly, he missed his best friend. He heard Carter pull away from your house around 2. He knew his attempt to break you up had failed. His heart got the best of him and he picked up his phone, doing what he had quite literally just promised you he wouldn’t.
Joey: Hey.
The text coming across your screen made your heart skip. You were so mad at him, but the familiarity of him texting you at 2am made you weak, so you opened the message.
Y/N: Hi
Joey: So you made up then?
You realized that Joe, who was your neighbor, had most likely seen Carter’s car.
Y/N: Yeah.
Joey: I don’t want you to hate me, y/n/n. I just care about you, that’s all.
You could’ve punched him in the fucking face.
Y/N: A little too late for that.
That stung. Joe sighed, typing and retyping his message over and over again until he just gave up.
You waited for Joe to reply for an hour. You tried to go to sleep, but you kept thinking you heard Joe throwing rocks at your window. But he wasn’t. You checked.