𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 • 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲

chapter four

tuesday, 4:30 pm.
vance had just gotten back to his dorm — he had decided he wanted to be away from home a little more this year, as griffin was at camp — from hanging out with robin and finney. he made his way over to his bed, sitting down on it. he'd planned on hanging out with them to get his mind off of bruce, but that turned out to be a failure. he grabbed his phone off of his nightstand, he hadn't brought it with — he was really bad about remembering to bring it with him. its not like it mattered anyway, he didn't really come back to many messages. which is why he wasn't surprised when the only notification he had was from someone liking his post on instagram.
he sighed, starting to shut his phone off, before he realized who liked his photo. holy shit. his eyes ran over the message repeatedly. 'baseballboybruce' liked your photo. maybe there was another bruce that played baseball. he swallowed thickly, clicking on the notification. yeah, sure, there was definitely other bruces that happened to play baseball. but they didn't all look like that bruce. his bruce. he looked at the photo, it was the first photo on his account. was bruce instagram stalking him? weirdly enough, the thought made him smile to himself. wait, what the fuck? okay, that was a way too weird. even for vance. he cleared his throat. he somehow found himself looking through bruce's account. what? if bruce could do it, then surely he could do. plus, he wouldn't like any photos. bruce would never know.
he scrolled for a while. bruce looked so happy in all his photos. he didn't realize just how far he'd scrolled until he found a photo with him in it. multiple photos. there was a couple from the night they'd snuck out. when he scrolled further he came across when they'd gone to the roller skating rink. vance smiled to himself, but it didn't take long before that tears pricked at his eyes. he desperately wished he could relive those memories over and over again. the memories of when he was the happiest. he set his phone down, shutting it off. this was all so stupid. why was he upset? he had no right to be, he was the one who cut things off. it was his fault. the words ran through his mind. he really had just wanted to protect the other. he took a deep breath. things were better this way. right?
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wednesday, 1:30 pm.
      vance hadn't gotten much sleep that night. actually, he hadn't gotten any sleep that night. he drug himself through his classes. the day was starting to seem as if it was never gonna end and he felt like he was losing his mind. maybe it was lack of sleep. or maybe it was how head over heels he still was for bruce. maybe it was a combination of all those things. robin and finney obviously noticed how out of it the older boy had been. it worried them, especially the fact that it had only been three days and he was already losing his mind over this boy. they decided he needed a distraction, and luckily, they had just that.
     "vance!" finney said as he sat beside vance, who jumped. "yes?" he brought his gaze away from bruce and to finney. "theres a party this friday, you should totally come!" robin said before finney got the chance to. "ah- you guys know parties are not my thing." he shook his head, but the other two boys weren't budging on the subject. "come on, vance! this is exactly what you need. a break." finney says. "please! robin and i are going, you have to come." vance raises a brow. "uh-uh. why do i have to come?" robin groaned. "come on! please? you never go to parties with us, it can just be a onetime thing." vance sighed. "alright, fine, whatever." he reluctantly agreed. maybe a distraction would be good for him. he wanted to get bruce off his mind.
     "plus, maybe you can meet someone." robin said with a wink. vance rolled his eyes. "yeah, maybe." he didn't want to meet someone else. he wanted to be able to be around bruce again. that's all that he wanted. why did he have to fuck things up?
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word count: 763