It's now been almost a month since the whole thing with Scottie and Parker went down. I haven't really talked to either of them since then. I've seen Scottie at school, but we've only said a few words to each other in passing.

Parker, on the other hand, I haven't talked to at all. He got out of the hospital a week ago and has been focusing on his physical therapy and recovering, which is also why he hasn't been at school.

But I know Scottie is sending him his homework, so I guess that's a good thing. I've wanted to talk to the both of them, but I couldn't bring myself to.

Scottie said he was going to give me as much time as it took, and I'm grateful for that, but at the same time I want this whole situation to just disappear. I want it to be over as soon as possible, but I know this isn't something you can resolve in just a few days. Obviously I know that won't happen, but a girl can dream.

That's why after my talk with Scottie, I went and talked to my brother, Allen. He helped convince me that I also need to distance myself from the both of them. He said it might help my mind make a decision, or come to some sort of agreement.

*Flashback to 1 month ago*

"So, what should I do?" I asked him.

Allen sat at his desk typing something on his laptop. When he heard Scottie leave, he came in and asked me if I was okay, to which I obviously replied no. I decided to have a talk with him, because every other important decision I've made in my life has stemmed from help from my brother.

It was sort of a shot in the dark, but I'm optimistic.

"Tell me again what happened," he said, continuing to work on his laptop.

"Basically, Scottie came over to talk and he found out everything, from me and Parker. He said he was going to give me time to figure out what I want, which I'm grateful for, but I don't know what to do now. I mean, where do I go from here?"

"Well first off, I think you need to take a moment to just decompress and relax a little. Trying to figure something like this out when you're stressed is never going to work."

My brother was right. Making decisions when you're stressed or under pressure is never a good decision. I took a few deep breaths in and exhaled them slowly, trying to calm my nerves.

It barely helped.

"Can I tell you a story?" my brother asked, finally turning away from his laptop and facing me. I'm happy he did, because I was getting annoyed. Here I am trying to have a very important conversation with my brother and he was only half-listening.

"Sure," I shrugged my shoulders. Anything to distract my mind from Scottie and Parker.

"Do you remember when I called you and told you I had gotten my ex-girlfriend pregnant?" I nodded my head.

"Well, obviously I'm not a father and she's not a mother. We ended up getting an abortion, which you already knew of course. But what I didn't tell you was that it was one of the hardest decisions we've ever had to make, either of us."

"She and I both decided that we were not ready to be parents yet. And, sure, we could've given the kid up for adoption, but with the hundreds of thousands of kids already in the foster system and all the stories I've heard about it, neither one of us wanted our child to go through that."

"Then, we tried to come up with a way to raise the child ourselves, but in the end, we just weren't ready, financially or emotionally. It was a very heartbreaking decision for both of us, but in the end I think it was needed. Sometimes the toughest decisions cause us the most pain, but it doesn't mean they're wrong."

Allen walked over to me and wrapped me in his arms as I started to cry again.

God, I feel like such an idiot. How could I have done this to Scottie and Parker?

Two of the people I've gotten really close to this year, two of the people I'm the closest to, yet here I am standing in the middle of them. I don't deserve either one of them. They both deserve so much more than me.

"Allen?"

"Yeah?" he mumbled into my hair. I'm glad he's here, it feels nice to talk like this with him.

"Do you have any advice for when it comes time that I have to make a decision?"

He paused and thought for a moment before responding to me.

"If you truly loved the first person, would you really have fallen for the second?"

*Present day*

"Would you really have fallen for the second?"

Allen's words kept echoing in my mind as I walked through the halls of my school to leave. They were like a constant blaring alarm in my head, never letting me have a moment of peace. 

The bell had just rung and I was in no mood to hang around here for longer than necessary. Today had been a total shit fest, just like the last couple days, and I really, really, did not want to be bothered by anyone right now.

I was not in the mood. One wrong word and I'll explode.

On my rush out of the school, I bumped into someone and dropped my math textbook on the ground.

"If you would watch where you're going next time, this wouldn't-"

I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw who it was. I should've known. I should've known I would have to face him sooner or later, it was inevitable.

"Hey Parker," I mumbled, trying my best to look anywhere but his eyes. All the anger I felt dissipated the moment I looked in Parker's eyes. I turned away, because I was afraid if I looked at him for too long, he would know what I'm thinking. "What are you doing here right now?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "Oh, uhm, Scottie can't pick up my homework for me today and I figured since I'm going to be returning to school soon, I should come and pick it up myself to get used to walking around again."

That makes sense. I wanted to slap myself on the forehead for asking a question with such an obvious answer.

"I didn't know you would be returning so soon. How's the physical therapy going?" He gave me a half-hearted smile.

"It's going. I mean I can't say it's my favorite thing ever, but it's also not the worst. It's helping my recovery, so that's obviously a plus. I can't swim or play football for a couple months though, so that sucks. Anyways, what have you been up to? Anything interesting happen at school while I was gone? Any developments between you and Scottie?" he rambled on.

God, I will go to church every Sunday and volunteer at a homeless shelter every weekend if you somehow can guarantee Parker knows absolutely nothing about what's been happening in the last month.

"Nothing much. We've both been p-pretty busy, so we've haven't seen much of each other."

"I guess that makes sense. Anyways, I should probably get going."

We said our goodbyes and parted ways. As soon as I got to my car, I released the breath I was holding. I'm so glad Parker didn't say anything. I mean, I can't actually know if he knows anything about what went down between Scottie and me.

On my way home, I decided to stop by the gas station near my house and fill up my tank since it was getting low. While the tank was filling up, I decided to go inside the gas station and get a snack.

I walked inside and immediately made a beeline for the chip aisle. I was in the mood for something salty, so I picked up a bag of sea salt and vinegar Lays chips before heading over to look at the drinks.

In the middle of me choosing between the fruit punch Arizona or a bottle of Dr. Pepper, I heard a familiar voice coming from the next aisle over.

"Yeah, but I don't know what to do. He's been acting really weird lately and every time I try to bring it up with him, he changes the subject. I can tell somethings bothering him, but he won't talk to me about it."

There was no response for a couple minutes, so I'm assuming the person is on the phone with someone. I leaned a little closer to try and hear better. Some muffling sounds came from the phone before the person finally responded.

"Yeah, I know. I should give him time and not pressure him, but this is getting ridiculous. It's been almost a month and he still hasn't told me. At some point, I'm going to have to confront him about it."

Peering around the corner, I saw that it was Parker. I couldn't tell who he was on the phone with, but it must've been one of his friends.

I wonder if he's talking about Scottie. He must be.

I inched forward a little bit more to try and hear who he was talking to better.

I shouldn't have done that.

In the process of trying to hear better, my jacket pocket somehow got hooked on a a shelf full of chips, and when I moved forward, it all came tumbling down. I landed with a loud bang on the ground, and I'm pretty sure I crushed half the chips, including my own.

"SHIT! I'll call you back, something just happened."

I tried to get up on my own, but tripped on another bag of chips. If it weren't for Parker, I would've face planted onto the floor again.

"Thanks for that, I guess."

"Are you okay?" he asked me. I could see the worry in his eyes. Oh lord, someone please stop me from looking at him. I know he's worrying about me right now, but the way his eyebrows crease together and his eyes get a little darker when he's worried is so ador-

No, stop it Blaze! I mentally slapped myself. (Okay, I may have also actually slapped my forehead in embarrassment). I winced in pain, but then turned my attention up to Parker. I needed to focus here and stop getting distracted by someone who isn't my boyfriend.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I was just trying to go check out and I accidentally tripped. Sorry for causing all this trouble," I mumbled. He held out his hand and led me over to a chair that was near the entrance.

"Are you hurting anywhere?"

I shook my head. "I might have a couple bruises on my hip, but I should be fine. You can go now." He looked like he wanted to say something else, but decided against it.

Just as he was turning to leave, I jumped up to stop him. "What is it Anders?" he looked at me with a small smile on his face.

I ignored the butterflies I got when he called me by my old nickname. He hadn't called me that in a while, and it felt nice to hear it again. With everything that's gone on in the last couple weeks, it was nice to have some sense of normalcy, even if it was a small thing like a nickname.

"Who were you talking to on the phone? Sorry, that might've been rude, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it just happened. But whatever you were talking about sounded kind of serious and I was wondering if I could help. Sorry, you don't have to answer me, I'll just go now."

"Blaze, wait!" I started walking to my car, but Parker stopped me. "You weren't being rude, I was actually planning on coming and talking to you in the next couple days."

"Oh?" I tried to stay calm.

"Yeah, I've been noticing something wrong with Scottie this last month and I was wondering if you knew anything. I mean, you are his girlfriend." His voice got a little quiet on the last part.

Oh geez, this boy is breaking my heart.

"Let's talk at my house."

He followed me back to my car, and we got in and headed to my house. We arrived in less than 5 minutes, since I only live a mile from the gas station.

I parked my car on the street and we walked inside my house and into the kitchen. Luckily, there was no one else home. It would be kind of hard to talk about what we have to talk about if my parent's or brother were here.

"So,"

"So," we both started.

"You go first."

"You go first."

"No, you go."

"No, you go."

We both broke out in a fit of laughter.

"But seriously though, you can go first," I said.

Parker finally managed to stop laughing and collected himself before responding to me. "I'm assuming you've noticed Scottie acting weird. Unless he's just been acting weird around me, in which case this conversation is basically pointless."

Here we go. I guess there's no avoiding the truth now. Someway or another the truth is going to come out, and I feel it's better for Parker to hear it from me rather than someone else.

"Yeah, I've noticed it too. We haven't exactly been talking to each other these last couple weeks."

His eyes widened in surprise. "Really? Did you guys have a fight or something?" I shook my head no.

"It wasn't exactly a fight. It was more of a 'me telling Scottie something that could determine  the future of our relationship' type of thing." Parker looked at me confused.

"So, basically I recently discovered something about me that I wasn't expecting to happen. And when I told Scottie about it, he said he would give me some time to figure it out. And that's why we have been talking to each other that much."

"Oh, god. Are you dying? Please tell me you're not dying." I couldn't help the giggle that broke out. Parker looked so worried and it was honestly really cute.

"No, god no. It's nothing like that. It has something to do with my feelings. I recently discovered that," Okay, here goes nothing. I can do this. All I have to do is tell Parker I like him and then we can get on with our lives.

"That I-"

"Parker, man, what are you doing here?" I could kill him right now. Of course my brother had to get home right as I was about to reveal the elephant in the room. I tried to discreetly tell him to leave the house with just my eyes, but he clearly didn't get the hint because he walked over to Parker and gave him a pat on the back.

"Hey man, I'm glad you're okay. I was worried when I heard you were in the hospital."

"Thanks. It was hard, but I'm getting better. Only 2 more months of physical therapy and I'll be okay." They continued to talk for a bit before they were interrupted by "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen.

Parker's faced turned bright red and he fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket and answer it. "What mom?" he hissed into the phone.

I heard her shouting at him in Japanese from all the way across the room. He said something back to her in Japanese before hanging up the phone and facing back to us.

"Sorry about that guys, but I got to go. My mom needs me to come home and help with my younger siblings."

He rushes out the door before I have any time to stop him. "What was that all about?" my brother butt in. I balled my fist at my sides to contain my anger right now.

I was this close to getting to tell Parker the truth and lifting the weight off my shoulders, but no, now I can't thanks to my idiot of a brother.

"Hey, look at that! Parker left his wallet behind. I should go give it to him." Glancing at the kitchen counter, I saw a brown leather wallet sitting on the edge, abandoned by it's owner.

"Wait!" I shout.

I stopped my brother before he could walk out the door. "I'll give it to Scottie when I see him at school tomorrow. I'm sure his mom needs him to get home as soon as possible, and we don't want to make him late," I rushed out.

I grabbed the wallet from my brother and ran upstairs to my room, slamming the door behind me. "Oh god," I mumbled to myself. "What did I just do?" I whispered.

Weirded out by myself, I threw his wallet on my bed and tried to calm myself down. Only, the wallet didn't make it that far. I misjudged my aim and it hit the end of my bed and fell to the ground.

"Great," I muttered. Then, I noticed a small slip of paper that fell out from the wallet. Deciding I had nothing to lose, I took it in my hands and carefully opened it up. The moment my eyes landed on the chicken scratch on the paper, I knew it was my hand writing.

This was the list I made for Parker about what I liked in a guy, except this one was marked up, like someone was taking notes.

Next to everything I listed, there was a red check mark with the words "I do that" in Parker's chicken scratch scribbled off to the side. I chuckled a little, because I could imagine him smirking as he wrote that. Then, my eyes landed on the last one. It took me the most off guard.

"Number 5," I mumbled to no one. "They have to love me as much as I love them."

"I already do, although she doesn't love me," my voice quieted to a whisper and I could feel the tears forming in my eyes as I read the last part. The words blurred and I quickly wiped my eyes so I wouldn't get tears on the paper.

What my brother told me a month ago suddenly flashed through my mind. "If you truly loved the first person, would you really have fallen for the second?"

It was like I had an epiphany.

I know what I need to do now.

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Sorry this chapter is longer than normal, but I think you guys won't mind. Especially with all the new developments between Parker, Blaze, and Scottie.

Anyways, don't forget to vote and comment!