Seventeen more days.

Mabel missed Dipper. Like really missed him. Sure, he was only a phone call away or a text or a video chat but having him right next to her, him being there to comfort her and make her feel like she was protected from the awful ways of the world – that meant the world to her. And he was gone.

"He's going to be back in less than three weeks," said Grenda over the phone, her deep voice a resonance which grounded Mabel and reminded her that she wasn't always in Mabeland, hadn't been there for years now, and that she was living in the real world, where people could touch you and see you and smell you and where was Dipper in this reality? With his bushy eyebrows and solid jawline and his stupid comfortable flannels (she was even wearing one right now, unbuttoned and falling off her limbs like an oversized gown)? At college. It made her want to pout eternally until he returned.

"Three weeks is still way too long to be waiting," she said indignantly. Dipper had to go off and get a scholarship and make his college dreams come true while she was stuck here! (Waddles made things a little better, but still!)

"You guys are coming back to Gravity Falls this summer?" asked Candy.

"I hope! Dipper's already over in Oregon right now, much closer to you guys than I am. I just wish he would hurry back home."

"It'll be over before you know it," said Grenda.

"Dipper has been calling you and texting, right?" asked Candy.

"Yeah, of course."

"He never answers any of my texts," said Candy.

Mabel's brows furrowed in aggravation. Did she have to bring this up right now? "Candy, he's not into you anymore."

"What's that supposed to mean? You think he doesn't want me?"

"I know he doesn't want you, he's not going to go back to you when we go to Gravity Falls," she said.

"And how do you know that?"

"I just know, okay? He does not want to have a relationship right now."

"How do you know he doesn't have a girlfriend over there?"

Because we watch Ducktective all the time. Because he falls asleep on the phone with me. Because he's much too awkward to lie to me about romantical stuff.

"I think he's got a new boo over there at OSU," said Candy.

"I think you're crazy," said Mabel.

"He's a good-looking guy. Me and him –"

"We know, Candy," said Grenda, trying to change the subject. "Mabel was just saying how much she misses Dipper."

"I do, too!" said Candy. "He gave me heart problems. He led me on!"

"Dipper didn't lead you on, Candy, he told you that he was done with your little stunts and wanted to just be friends again."

"That's what you call them – 'little stunts'?"

"You were literally sneaking around the Mystery Shack and doing The Nasty wherever you could, of course I'mma call them little stunts."

Mabel could feel her chest start to heave with weight, like Waddles was sitting on her chest and taking away all the air out of her lungs. Her face got so hot she thought about opening up a sauna. She absolutely despised talking about this junk to Candy, especially when she got defensive about her brother's insistence on keeping that portion of his past alone. Like didn't she understand that Dipper didn't like her anymore?

"Guys please, can we stop argu–" started Grenda, but Candy cut her off, her tone like that of a snappy turtle.

"You're just mad that he didn't do it with you," she said.

Mabel was stunned, unable to speak for a few moments. Candy's statement proved to be an inescapable bombshell, the shrapnel severing her bright, shining innocence in half and revealing the darkness which laid underneath, where her subconscious crawled around on its belly like a reptilian, its tongue flicking out every now and then to take a taste of the forbidden.

"I saw the way you looked at him, like you were trying to convince him to stop without speaking," Candy went on.

"I did that because I didn't want a vixen like you messing with his head," said Mabel.

"Bullshit," said Candy.

"You're gross, Candy, for even suggesting that," said Mabel defensively. "He's my brother! He's a dork, a nerd, a paranormal freak, I would never be into him like that." She felt like puking, but held down the food which threatened to make a reappearance.

"You're lying. Grenda, tell her what we were talking about the other day. She has to know."

"Candy, I don't want to tell her that. That conversation was private."

"Who cares? I don't! Grenda and I were talking about how close you guys are and how weird it was."

"Weird? Grenda, what is she talking about?"

"Look, I said I didn't want to talk about it, okay?"

"When Dipper hugs you, it's completely different from when he hugs me," said Candy.

"You just never had an awkward sibling to have an awkward sibling hug with," countered Mabel.

"Wrong," said Candy. "It's like he melts into you. Like he won't want to let go unless you ask him to. Like he's going to go sick if he doesn't wrap his arms around you."

"That's not true," said Mabel in a small voice, but she couldn't argue with that because she remembered how Dipper Hugs felt – like a wave of comfort washed over her and kept her safe from the qualms of the outside world, one that was always threatening to take away her shield, her knight in shining armor. He would envelope her in his lean, toned arms and she would nuzzle her face into the soft fabric of his crappy graphic t-shirts featuring math equations and ghouls and even Mothman, smell his inherent Dipper Smell (if she could capture it in a little jar, she wouldn't sell it, she would keep it all to herself and let no one else have it, well maybe one person, then she would hide it away, so far deep in the Gravity Falls forest that no one would ever guess it was there or find it), and sometimes he would run the small of her back, his massaging fingers doing a drum-like paradiddle that sent a dancing rhythm up her spine, and she could feel his lips trying not to touch her skin but failing completely, and who cares if it made her feel a little hot in her stomach? Who cares if she didn't want him to end the hug? Dipper Hugs were some of the best parts of her day when she had him by her side but now. . . .

"You know it's true, Mabel, and don't you try to lie to us," said Candy. "That's not the way you hug your sibling."

"Okay, so maybe he hugs me a little different, there's nothing wrong with that!" exclaimed Mabel. Then her voice got smaller, much more quiet: "Nothing wrong with it. . . ."

"He hugs you like you are his girlfriend," said Candy, her emphasis deliberate and earth-shattering.

Mabel didn't hesitate. She slammed her thumb into the end call button. She had to take a walk. Something, anything to take her mind off of the accusations. The allegations were the worst she'd ever heard. She scurried around the house, looking for Waddles, her face burning up. Her hands shook and the words kept replaying in her head, like a dismal record scratched for eternity, scarred with exclamations horrible in conception. She felt the buzz of the vibrating phone, the thrum against her thigh, and she shook her head, vowing on Bill Cipher and his monstrous entourage that she would block Candy if she showed up on her home screen. Messages of a frantic manner glowed on her face as she wrenched the weight of the anvil from her pocket, Grenda urging Mabel to get back on the phone, for them to talk it out, you know that Candy meant nothing bad by it, she's just emotional and unstable and you know how hysterical she can be but it wasn't okay, what she said was seriously fluffed up, like why would she ever think she liked Dipper like that?

Just thinking about it was gross.

(Or was it?

Shutupshutupshutup.)

Mabel kept pacing around the house, finally finding Waddles huddled in the corner of the kitchen, halfway through an unsliced loaf of bread. Mabel's father loved to bake (she got some of her skills from him and most of the other ones she got from the Internet) so Waddles often had snacks to munch on whenever he messed up a particular batch. She rushed over to the pig with tears running down her eyes. Dipper's soft-looking face and gentle smile touched her memory with a deft hand, but it left its presence known, the flannel she wore hanging off her limbs a reminder of his kindness and her affection. If only this flannel could be his arms, wrapped around her shoulders, keeping her warm. . . . She missed being warm. Instead of Dipper, she settled for Waddles, crammed in the corner with salt and tears painting her face in a sheen.

She felt an overwhelming urge to text Dipper and let him know what happened, ramble into the speaker until her throat went hoarse and Dipper replied with his own equally long rant, but with a sudden shock to her nervous system, she realized that if she did that, she would prove Candy's point.

She hugged Waddles tighter.

I'm not his girlfriend. So stop acting like it.