#harleychelle

[parkerparts]

paper napkins

Harley breaks up with Peter. MJ really likes Harley. It gets complicated and stays complicated. They make it work.

Harley watches Peter and Ned leave the room with a glazed-over gaze. MJ watches him watch Peter, and something in her chest tightens. The boy turns to her with shining eyes. “How do you know it’s over?”

MJ thinks before answering. She remembers the string of boys she dated and broke up with in middle school and freshman year. She remembers the girl who broke her heart in sophomore year. “When you’re more in love with your memories than with the person standing in front of you.”

“Is this what it feels like to fall out of love?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” It tastes like watered-down coffee and sounds like a faraway siren. It looks like bitter resolution of Harley’s jawline.

He breaks up with Peter the next day. Ned texts MJ from the roof of his apartment, and she bikes to Riverside Park, where Harley runs on the line of benches, slick with melting ice. She takes a seat, ignoring where the water seeps through her jeans and her tights underneath. Harley almost jumps over, but she taps his ankle, and he slips to a stop, standing above her.

“I thought the fact that I don’t love him anymore would make it easy,” he tells her, sitting on the ground at her feet and resting his chin in her lap.

“There’s nothing easy about breaking someone’s heart.”

“Was he still in love with me?”

She thinks for a moment, using the lull in the conversation to bury her hands in Harley’s windswept curls. “I think he was.”

In a voice smaller than a snowflake, Harley asks, “Did I do the right thing?”

Selfishly, she tells him, “Yes.”

Keep Reading on AO3.