Valentine (troyler AU)

Chapter Seventeen

Tyler’s pov

I slumped out of school with my head bowed, afraid of running into Troye. The last few days he’s had incredibly mood swings, which only added to the sorrow I was feeling. Not only did our kiss apparently mean nothing to him, he also seemed angry at me about it. If he hadn’t wanted to kiss then he could’ve just pulled away once I’d started kissing him. And I know it felt slightly weird kissing him at first, kind of different, but I could definitely grow used to that feeling. It would be much easier to get over my hurt feelings if Troye weren’t constantly reminding me of them with his weird behavior.

First he’d been mad. His feet were constantly stomping against the floor where he walked, and a glare had become a permanent fixture on his face. He only managed to speak in grumbles, most of the time just outright ignoring me. I’d pretended like I didn’t notice the way he was acting, trying to push through it and start being normal again. Although it was pretty hard to be in a normal friendship when an active participant of said friendship was absent in the “normal” department. Whenever I tried to initiate any sort of conversation or plans to hang out he’d shrugged me off, saying that he had homework of work. Troye doesn’t have a job.

Finally when he’d stopped being angry, I thought we could start hanging out again. But it didn’t take me very long to figure out that he wasn’t just no longer angry, no, he had replaced the anger with sadness. He’d moped around even more than I had, and I only stopped moping because I was trying to make our friendship work. He was my best friend, the best friend I’d ever had, and I couldn’t let something as stupid as a kiss ruin that for us. I knew that we were best for each other, even if we would only work out as friends. I’d rather have Troye as a best friend than not have him at all. Sadly it was too hard to be best friends with someone who refused to do anything other than slouch in their chair and chew on their lip instead of speaking. Sharing a conversation with him was very one sided, the only input from him being nods and mumbles.

After that he’d tried to act normal. He was extra chipper and I could tell that he was really working to be in a good mood. I thought that this was his way of showing me that he was ready to shove the awkwardness between us away, but I thought wrong. Apparently Troye only wanted everything to seem like it was back to normal. He didn’t actually want things to be normal again. Or maybe he did, but if that was the case then he wasn’t trying hard enough. I’d worked my butt off trying to regain a sense of normality to our friendship, and he’d brushed me off one too many times for me to push for it any longer. 

Now Troye was mainly switching through the three attitudes. Sometimes he was mad, other times he was sad. I think I hated it the most when he was his fake happy self, because I knew that he wasn’t actually happy. I knew that he wasn’t going to ask me to hang out after school or to pick him up the next morning. I knew it was all an act, more for his benefit than anyone else’s. I was pretty sure that he’d convinced himself that everything was normal, and that this is how we’d always acted. Well it wasn’t. And I couldn’t help the fact that I was really missing Troye. It’d been almost two weeks since we’d hung out regularly. Two weeks since I’d had his lips on mine.

Ever since Troye stopped hanging out with me, and acting like a basic human with the ability to function around me or even feel compassion, I’d been hanging out with Dan and Phil more. They hung out almost every single day after school, and I had a feeling that they were as close as Troye and I. As close as we were, I reminded myself.

Even though I realized that they hung out most days, I didn’t bother asking them to invite me along. I didn’t think they’d even realized that I knew that they hung out so often. And it’s not like I could expect them to so willingly invite me into their everyday lives. Surely they had some sort of routine, and me being here wasn’t going to help that routine. No, I was grateful enough that they ever invited me to hang out with them. Mainly I think they’d just noticed how lonely I was without Troye, slumping through each day alone and sorrowful. They’d been kind enough to reach out to me when I was feeling most alone, and there was no way that I would repay that favor by asking for more. I only wished that Troye had realized how sad I was without him instead of Dan and Phil. Sure I loved them a lot, but I missed Troye more. It wasn’t the same when I couldn’t just hang out with him whenever I felt like it. It was horrible not even being able to talk to him when I wanted. I was surrounded by friends and yet I’d never felt more alone.