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( CHAPTER NINE! )
( THEORIES AND FRIENDSHIPS )
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Out of all things he could've been, Colin Archer had become paranoid merely in a span of a month.
He was positive that Peter Parker was hiding something and he had narrowed his option down to two. The first option was based on the theory that, Peter was in love with his old best friend, Harry Osborn, who had been living abroad for the time being but was planning to return to the Queens. And for some reason, he didn't want Colin to find out about his crush or secret relationship. (Maybe he had thought Colin wouldn't be okay with his sexuality, if he only knew Colin realized that he only fancied boys for a while now.) This theory would explain why Peter always turned off his computer, hid stuff when Colin was in the room, looked extremely suspicious when he was asked why he looked sleepless. (He had used words like 'I was just chillin, you know the basics' and the word 'chillin' was cringe-worthy by itself.)
If he was talking to this boy called Harry, due to timetables he had to talk to him at night and maybe he was hiding pictures and messages away from Colin. However, that wouldn't explain the occasional bruises on his body, constant checking his behind as if they were being followed and being on alert all the time. Also, Gwen had confirmed that she and Harry had been something, exclusively, in the past and Peter had been okay with it.
(Yes, there was a story about how Gwen and Colin become close friends again, it was not an exaggeration to say that a lot had happened in this past month.)
It all started after the exam week when Colin realized that friendship was something delicate, it needed attention care and effort. Colin had been trying his best to not make friends at his old schools because his father tend to move around a lot and he couldn't bring himself to care enough to try.
After establishing that this method was impractical here since he had people from his past (and people he just couldn't help but befriend.) That being said, Colin was rusty on the friendship department. And it was a struggle to balance the relationship with his friends since not all of them got along.
Sure, Gwen sometimes hung out with Flash and Sam but it wasn't as often. He had to make time for her to have a chat properly and occasionally they had been picking up coffee at a small coffee shop. Their conversation had an easy flow and Colin had been smiling more and more while he was with her and it had been quite educational since she seemed to know almost everyone and had a lot of intel about what was going on.
However, like everything that had been happening around for the past few months, Gwen and Colin didn't become close until something with Peter came up.
It was after the exams and yes, Colin was trying his best to be a nice person. A genuinely nice person that laughs and doesn't fake his laughs just to fit in. A person who doesn't bring others down or lash out on them when he is scared or upset. It was a hard task because, for example, his first instinct when Flash started to bug him about the fact that he seemed to not sleep very well was to break Flash's heart. Colin didn't want to think about it, okay, he had been feeling tired since he moved to this town but he was also feeling more than alright, he was feeling good so he wanted to ignore that problem for the time being.
