Dipper Pines had always hated goodbyes.
Some of the most painful goodbyes he'd experienced happened to be involved with his current place of living, a small town not too far from Portland named Gravity Falls. Currently his third year visiting the Falls, the fifteen-year-old had spent a lot of time in the backwoods and in his great uncle Stanford's laboratory.
He gave a sad look towards his stuffed duffel bag and back to the silver sedan that was his ticket home. His father sat, tapping his hands in the front seat, a sad smile sewn onto his face. Gable Pines Sr. knew what hard goodbyes were like, Dipper guessed.
He gave a sigh, looking up to the woman across from him. The eighteen-year old had a melancholic look on her face as well, but unlike three years ago, she did not have to kneel to give the boy a heartfelt little spiel.
Dipper took a big breath, looking at the redhead. "Wendy... it's been a real nice three years with you."
The lumberjill gave him a sad nod, rubbing the back of her head at her loss for words. "Um, yeah. It has, dude. I mean, a lot of it was spent antagonizing you, but that's not the main point of that."
Dipper chuckled, once again amazed at her sense of humor in such a somber time as this. "Yeah, probably not."
An awkward silence fell between them. The young scientist could make the faintest glimpse of a tear appear on the corner of the hardened redhead's eye. Her upper lip quivered as she struggled to keep her eyes off of him.
It all happened so fast.
Suddenly her arms were around him, and for the first time in Gable Pines Junior's life, he heard Gwendolyn Blerble Corduroy weep.
"I'm gonna miss you so much, dude..." She hiccuped in between bursts of sobs. The surprised boy on the other end stood in shock for a second before finally squeezing the redhead back. He didn't ever want to let go.
"Same here, Wendy." He grumbled in her shoulder, trying his hardest to not let a single tear fall. He noticed his shoulder was getting absolutely drenched in her tears. It wasn't long until her stuttered words became an incomprehensible slew of weeping cries, the events of the past three years with the most amazing guy she'd ever been around compiling like a montage in her head.
He clutched her tighter. "Wendy, I... It's been a great three years. I can't imagine spending that time with anyone else."
She quieted down, turning her head a bit to hear him better through her own tears.
The young man stuttered a bit. "And... a-and you've been really nice to me the entire time. I wouldn't by lying if I said you have been the best friend I've ever had..."
"Hey!" Interjected a hurt Soos, who was quickly hushed by two older men.
Wendy returned her attention to the boy pouring his heart out to him. "I... I know, dude."
"No, you don't," Dipper countered, voice breaking, "because you don't know how many times I've looked to you when i was in trouble or hurting because I knew you'd be there. You're always the chillest and awesome around your friends, and you can be that around me like all the time, but when you need to you transform into this... almost sisterly person that I really need."
"Dipper..."
"And I know this is gonna sound weird, considering my feelings towards you for a long time I'm sure you still know about, but..." He stopped for a second, his breath hitching as he debated saying this out loud.
He decide within seconds. "Screw it. I love you, Wendy. Nothing's changed since that first summer. You've been such a great friend—no, family member—for this entire time, and I was happy to spend this time with you before you head off to college."
He turned to his friend reluctantly. He'd been hiding his harbored feelings for the girl since the back half of the first summer, even after he'd confessed to her for the first time. Of course, he'd tried to kill the stupid crush multiple times, including with the aid of Soos and Mabel, sometimes even Wendy herself. But for some reason it just wouldn't go away.
He wouldn't stop feeling nervous around her. He wouldn't stop getting butterflies every time she laughed with him or her friends.
He wouldn't stop loving her.
His eyes couldn't meet hers. He was ashamed. Tears began flowing freely from him now as the sudden realization of the cowardly move it was confessing to her before she'd never see him again hit him like a two-by-four.
"A-and it's been great knowing you." He turned quickly, releasing himself from her. "I wish the best for you for college, and... and I'm gonna miss you so much—"
A strong embrace caged him from the back. He almost tripped, his stuttering forward motion suddenly halted in a lumberjack's grip. A few stray tears hit he gravel and his boot.
A chin planted itself in between his shoulder blades. The back of his neck felt wet as pressure from the lumberjill's forehead pressed against him.
She was... laughing?
"No, silly..." She sniffed outwardly, planting her face in his back. "I... I still knew. But that doesn't matter because..."
He was turned, finding himself staring back at the puffy red eyes of his three-year crush. She held the largest smile he'd ever seen on his sister-like friend.
"Because... I love you, too, Dipper."
There was silence for a few seconds. Dipper couldn't register what had just been said to him for a second.
Wendy... loves... me?
Twelve boyfriends. Three summers. Approximately thirty-seven days spent comforting her over things happening to her with said boyfriends—nine of them regularly abusive. He'd gone over every day she called him, spending hours, sometimes days by her side. Grunkle Stan and Soos didn't blame him, and neither did Mabel.
He'd go over, see the wretch of sobbing mess that was Wendy, and sit with her for a while, doing nothing but holding her and talking to her. For hours.
He hated seeing her like that.
Wendy had apparently loved every second of it. She was a thoughtful girl. Something along the way probably tore at her heartstrings a lot, and here she was somewhat confessing to a fifteen-year-old as she was about to head off to college.
Huh. Weird.
He looked into her eyes, tears forming in his own, trying to figure out what the emotion was that she was portraying through facial expressions and words.
She laughed after a while. "Is Dipper Pines speechless for the first time ever? Here, dork, lemme fix that for ya..."
Before he even knew it, her lips were on his. Everything stopped. The birds froze, the people around him grayed, and the crickets stopped singing. There was no college—there was no goodbye, there was no confession. There was no father waiting in the car just ten feet from him.
There was Dipper and Wendy.
And that was all that mattered.
"Goodbye, Dipper."
"Goodbye, Wendy."
