honey » david dobrik au

thirty

"Hey," I smiled softly as I dropped my watermelon printed lunch box next to Alex at his empty cafeteria table. "Is it okay if I sit with you?"

"Uh... y-yeah. Yeah. Of course," he scooted his chair a little farther to give me room to sit.

I arrived at the library on January 28th just to see CLOSED FOR CLEANING printed on a sign on the door. I just couldn't return to the bathroom after spending almost two weeks out of it, so I didn't. I could've sat with Liza and Ben in the lunch room, but I never wanted to be that girl, who sat with her brother because she had no other friends, so I chose Alex.

"How's life going for you, Alex?" I smiled as I began to unpack my sandwich, chips, and banana. It wasn't much, but a quick glance at Alex's "pizza" on a whole wheat hamburger bun made me a little more thankful for it.

"It's alright for me. I got a forty nine on my English paper, so... not great."

"Oh, no! The one about The Awakening?"

"Yeah. I guess I'm not feminist enough," Alex laughed, then seemed to question his words. "Wait. Not that I'm not a feminist. I just—"

"Alex, it's fine," I laughed. "I know how Mrs. Selk can be. Plus, I didn't really understand The Awakening either. Are you liking The Kite Runner so far?"

And so I sat with Alex every day for the next week, despite the stares from people who saw him as weird, despite my brother begging me to sit with him instead. We talked about everything, from his parents getting divorced when he was eight, to our list of favorite movies, to my old dog Alice who died just before we moved to Vernon Hills.

It eventually came the time when he asked me about Ester.

"I don't want to pry," he cringed as he brought it up, like he wasn't confident that he should. "But what happened with you and Ester? Why do you sit with me now?"

"Um..." I sighed. There was no one I could really open up to. Alex was my best friend at this point. I could explain it to him. "You remember that boyfriend I told you about? The one I couldn't tell Ben about?"

"Yeah, of course."

"That boyfriend was David."

Alex nearly spit out his lunch of the day, a cheese sandwich that you get when you don't have any lunch money. He stared at me for a second to gauge whether or not I was lying, then questioned, "David Dobrik?"

"Yeah," I sighed and nodded, embarrassed. "So... you can see how that may have been bad... when Ester found out."

"What happened?"

"I mean, we just started hanging out. I think we both liked each other when we first met. Me and Ester kind of related to each other with the whole popular brother thing; we've both grown up in our siblings' shadows. We've both experienced people using us to get to our siblings," I tried to explain in a way that didn't make me sound like the shittiest friend in the world, but it was hard because I was. "I swear, it was never like that for me, ever. I knew it was bad, but... I don't know."

"It's different when you're actually in the situation," Alex told me. I was glad he understood. "You never know what you'll do until you do it."

"Yeah, I guess," I nodded. "I just feel so bad. I never meant to hurt her. She was my best friend, you know? You probably don't believe that, but none of this was intentional."

"I believe you, Honey," he smiled calmly at me. "You're the nicest person in this school, and probably in the entire world. I don't think you'd ever do something to intentionally hurt someone. You didn't want to move from a shaky table in the library because you thought you'd hurt its feelings."

"Well, I'm glad you believe me," I began picking at my wilted salad. "Ester doesn't. I don't think she ever will."

"Was Ben mad?"

"Oh," I raised my eyebrows. "He's still mad. He thinks David took advantage of me, which isn't even true. And he's mad that David went behind his back."

"Is that why you're not with David now?"

"Oh, kind of. There's really a plethora of reasons. Ben is mad, and I don't want to make Ester anymore mad, and David said some pretty bad stuff the day it all blew up."

"What kind of stuff?" Alex sat up in his seat, intrigued.

"The whole thing started because Ben started dating Liza, and that pissed David off, which is the first thing that made me upset. He told me he loved me, so why was he mad his ex-girlfriend got a new boyfriend? It made no sense. Ben started yelling about how David needed to stop being miserable and lonely, and David basically told him that he wasn't lonely because he was fucking Ben's little sister. And some other things. He just said it multiple times. I hate him for that. I feel like he made it look like it was just a sexual thing, which it wasn't for me. Or for him. At least, I hope not. That's what makes me so angry and sad; I seriously can't tell anymore."

"He treated you like shit, Honey. That's so sad," Alex was visibly upset at my words. "You hate him?"

"I don't know. Sometimes. I hate all of them a little bit, but then I know I shouldn't," I whined. "All I've ever wanted to do was spread love, but this whole situation is just really sad. I feel like I've done all of them wrong, but they've all done me wrong too, you know?"

"I know what you mean," he told me. "I'm sorry. I didn't know all of this was happening. Everyone thinks you had sex with Brandon Calvillo. At least, that's what I've heard."

"That's just disrespectful," I grinned at Alex, who smiled back at me. "I hope you never believed that about me. I'd have to defriend you if you did."

"Don't worry, Honey. I knew you would never. I've got your back."

And for once in the past month of my life, I felt weirdly at peace. Liza was the only person I could talk to about this stuff, and I couldn't tell her about how her role in this hurt me. It felt good to finally let it all out.

The craziest thing about life is how one word can change everything. All it took was hate, and within a matter of days, my life was turned upside down.

God only knew what was coming next.

The next chapter... is SOOOO GOOD like im saying it rn its so good

Vote and comment if u want it sooner ;)

Xoxoxo abby