Under Summer Sky • Zarry

21. Trying

I was so fucking stressed out and I had only been at uni for a month.

But luckily I had football because that was probably the best place to channel all of my pent up frustration that was only ever increasing due to a number of things:

balancing all of my schoolwork, studying for classes, attempting to maintain some sort of basic social life, trying to keep in touch with Zayn and hold on to it, and then there was that one pesky itch on my back.

My sexual frustration.

All I did was ignore it, ignore it and replace it with a million different nonsexual distractions until I got a few free minutes to tend to myself, to find some sort of satisfaction alone; but I couldn't get any satisfaction alone.

I knew that Zayn was just as overwhelmed as I was with everything in life, especially because he hardly had enough time to talk to me these days, or at least not for very long. I received mainly sporadic calls and texts from him here and there, yet most of the time it was just us playing phone tag with each other.

When I was in class Zayn had a pocket full of free time and when I was available he was constantly busy. And Zayn and I had resorted to many, many late nights that always ended with Zayn in his Paris College of Art's residence hall bathroom helping each other come as we masturbated on the phone.

I mean, I gave us a lot of credit for trying but it just wasn't the same.

But on the bright side, I was enjoying myself in other ways. For one thing, I liked living with Nick and especially Tyler. Tyler was probably the most chill dude I had ever met. He hardly ever seemed stressed out about anything and he had the absolute most carefree attitude about life. And I wished that I had the capability of being like that, of not over thinking and just being so easy and laid back.

Plus, he was in school for music recording, played guitar and even wrote his own music, so we settled into that mirrored interest nicely, and we were even planning on maybe writing some music together in the future.

Despite the differences between me, Tyler, and Nick, us as room mates had become quite the trio. We all just clicked, somehow. There were a lot of pizza and beer nights together hanging out in the flat, just laying back and engaging in the most random conversations, which were often about Nick's sexual conquests.

And the thing I loved most about Nick was that no matter how many times he got shut down by guys on a regular basis, he somehow always managed to find someone to bring home at the end of the night.

Then there was Silas.

He hadn't ever actually come right out and express to me that he was interested specifically, but I just kind of had the subtle, knowing feeling. It was like this quiet, unacknowledged elephant in the room that I didn't want to talk about. We weren't hanging out or anything, but sometimes we ran into each other on campus and I'd see him pretty often. Silas was always so attentive and interested in having conversations with me about literally anything, but he wasn't pushy or forward.

Silas didn't make any advances towards me or come on to me strong like Nick would with anyone he fancied. Instead Silas was cool, a nice guy, the gentleman kind, the type of guy who sort of tried without trying at all. But even though we weren't exactly hanging out as friends, he still came to my first two football games and cheered for me, just being supportive, being there.

I did my best to friend zone him right away, which was probably why he put forth hardly any effort into flirting with me and I wanted it to stay that way, for me to just act completely oblivious to the very likely possibility that he was into me, to keep all of my temptations at bay by locking them in a metal cage and dumping it in the deep part of the ocean where I couldn't access them.