The last strands (#Tronnor)

Chapter 17: The snow

Humans are truly worth of pity.

Ever greedy, wanting what they can't have. Searching for more even when they already have enough. Desiring, knowing that it's for ill motives. Even the most noble of causes requires someone else to lose, so that you may win. Even the most innocent of wishes proves that, yet again, we are the bringers of our own demise.

But then, who is it that shares their pity, if such a concept was brought upon by men themselves? Pity is the gift of the sorry man to the weak man. It is a ruse, a lie that we give one another when there is nothing else to give. A truly disgusting gift, inventing for the sole purpose of hiding a man's shame.

Troye didn't want anyone's pity. He played with fire knowing he would get burnt, and now he had paid the price. But he wouldn't cry it to anyone. He refused to admit his shame, and he resolved to maintain the iron temperance he had so far. Even if it meant not being able to smile ever again.

He would walk upon the world with his broken heart, and he would wear it proudly, with Connor's name craved on it, written red with blood. Everyone would know and Troye wouldn't flinch. He didn't want their pity. He didn't want anything at all.

He had missed the color grey that only the skies of England knew how to paint.

He had missed it, because it had proven to be perfectly oblivious to everything around it. It didn't promise sun or dark, all it did was bear winds and cold. Unlike Los Angeles, the city of sun, this would have been the polar opposite. London, the city of grey. Troye never thought darkness as the opposite of the sun. Darkness would be, sun or no sun, still the same. Grey, on the other hand, blocked the sun with might and ease. What better enemy could the sun ask for?

Troye's eyes wandered to the skies and noticed the small droplets raging against the car window. He was wearing his headphones and listening to music, but he was entirely unsure of what he was actually listening to. He couldn't possibly care. That's a thing about people with broken hearts; they can no longer care for a thing in the world, and that takes a lot more than just time to heal.

-"... Troye, we're here."

Troye removed his headphones and switched his position, now facing towards his left on the back seat of the taxi car, where Zoe sat facing her window. The car stopped, and Troye noticed she was right. They were at the train station.

Zoe looked back at Troye with a sad smile.

-"We should go... the train to Brighton is about to leave."

Troye nodded, and the two of them left the taxi. The kind man who had driven them from the airport helped them with their bags, and in no time they were already buying their tickets and boarding the train. Zoe of course did all the transactions for tickets and such, always with a warm smile on her face, despite being a tad heartbroken herself. Unlike most of the other times Troye had been there prior, the people that came up and down the halls of the station didn't seem as many. There was a good lot, like usual, but this time they seemed to be... less.

Troye and Zoey took their seats across each other by the middle section of the train, with a nice wooden table to rest their arms on as they carried on their journey. It wasn't exactly private, as many people were around them at all times, but in places as such everybody minded their own business. Troye was entertaining himself watching the people walking on the other side of the glass. A man walking with his tiny daughter clutched to his hand, or perhaps his granddaughter. A lonely lady with a red umbrella, who seemed to be a tourist, trying to guide herself with a paper map. And further away, by the benches, a young couple. The girl had the prettiest red hair, and the guy was dashing. They were kissing, and Troye stared like a frozen statue, void of any reaction. With sly eyes, he looked at Zoe, who was also staring at the window. Unlike him, she seemed far more moved by the kiss. She was sighing, and a tear was running through her rosy cheeks. Troye cursed Alfie in silence, for hurting his poor friend like so.