A Touch of Courage (Troyler AU)

Chapter 45: Myself Through you

"Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final"
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Troye's POV

He didn't remember the exact date, but he'd been around eight or nine years old, staying at his aunt's house. His grandmother couldn't look after him anymore and his dad, who had travelled for work, thought it'd be best to dump him there while he was gone. It had been Christmas Eve. His aunt came and asked her kids to go downstairs. She'd told him to stay where he was, because this was "our family time". Meaning the family did not include him.

He was left alone in the empty room upstairs, staring at the unlit fireplace in front of him. He could hear his cousins' laughter pouring through the walls as they opened presents. They'd sounded so happy as they shouted to one another.

And all he'd been able to think was Why can't I have that?

That wasn't the presents, or the food, or the clothes.

That was the love. The warmth. The connection. The feeling of relevance, worth and importance...the feeling of actually belonging somewhere.

At the time, he hadn't been able to label his feelings with those words. The only word he could put to what he was missing, what he was yearning for, was that.

He hadn't said anything, to anyone. There was no one to talk to. And he already knew what they would say, even if he'd tried. Even if he'd been able to articulate the hurt he felt. He'd been told it so many times already.

By that age, he'd already known what it felt like to be wounded and told that he'd caused the wound to himself by choosing to be where the harm landed.

He'd already known what it felt like to talk and know that people heard, but pretended not to listen.

He'd already known what it felt like to believe that he was a mistake and that feeling pain was a sign that he had no control over his emotions.

What was the point in fighting anyone on these points? What was the point of fighting a battle with no possible pain inflicted upon anyone but himself?

And the things was. He hadn't blamed his aunt or his cousins or his father.

When something like that happened, who did you blame?

He blamed himself.

H blamed himself for wanting that. He blamed himself for being unable to do without that.

Ever since he could remember, he'd been on a hopeless journey to find that.

That was home.

And home to him had never been a physical place. It was a place where you felt like you could belong, where you could be yourself without apology. Home was a place where you didn't have to work yourself to the bone just to be loved.

Had he ever had that? Why? Why couldn't he have that?

Every time he'd been left behind, he'd carried his home with him. In his paintings. In his art. That was the place he went when someone bullied him at school or dismissed his existence without thought. That was the place he went when he felt the devastating ache for that.

After the last time he'd seen his grandmother, he'd been so sad and angry he'd destroyed every piece of art he had in his room. What was he point of expressing himself if no one heard it? She'd been the only person who'd ever tried to see him, and he'd lost her a long time ago.