The taxi ride was pretty silent. The driver wasn't very chatty, and Joe kept trying to converse with him- which didn't work. As much as I hated taking out my phone during an awkward moment, I just felt the need to. Since I hadn't really been online recently, I decided to go on Twitter and check some of the DM's that were flowing in. I followed so many of my viewers, so it was so difficult to get to everyone, although I did really try my best to answer. The taxi was conveniently extremely spacious, it was pretty much the size of a van. I was sitting on the left seat in the back, Troye was sitting on the right, Caspar and Tyler in the very back, and Joe in the front. I liked having my own space, although I wouldn't mind if I were squished next to Troye. Scrolling through my DM's, I found a question that really stood out to me. It asked about dealing with a long distance relationship, but I didn't really know how to respond to it, so I screenshotted it to remind myself to check back on it later and answer.
Once we arrived in Brighton, we looked around for Zoe, Alfie, Louis, Tanya, and Jim. Zoe just so happened to call Troye right as we started walking down the street. As Troye was talking to Zoe on the phone and explaining where we were, I noticed that Troye had a rectangular shaped object in his left and right jeans pockets. One of them was obviously his phone, but the other one could not be a camera. 'Troye never daily vlogs.' I thought.
It wasn't long until we met up with Zoe and the others. We got together at a really nice cupcake place and decided that instead of buying the cupcakes now, we would get them right as we were about to leave as a little treat. Also, it was super windy and eating them would be a disaster. My quiff was already ruined- I couldn't imagine how messed up my hair would get by the pier.
After walking around for a long time in a big group, Caspar, Joe, Alfie, Tanya, and Jim suggested that we go explore the festival with Zoe. Everyone that lived in the UK had already been to the Brighton Festival before, so they had already seen most of what Tyler, Troye, and I wanted to see. We decided to split up into two groups, so we could see what we hadn't, and they could see what they hadn't. I'm not gonna lie though, I liked it a lot better as a small group. Zoe was a great tour guide, and I was having a great time with her showing the three of us around.
We soon arrived at a store that Zoe directed us to and she said, "This store has a bunch of cool stuff that you can take back with you as a souvenir!" Of course, Tyler, Troye, and I agreed to go into the store and followed her. "WOW." Tyler said as we walked into the store. "Guys! Guys! Guys!" Zoe was yelling excitedly. The three of us turned to her. "Yeah?" We all said. "Look! A photo booth! This is new, they didn't have it last year in this shop!" All of us smiled. "Let's take pictures!" I said too excitedly, like it came out so excited it almost seemed fake. Perhaps just slightly sarcastic. I let everyone in the photo booth before me to be polite, so I was the one closest to the curtain, which was nice, because it was really hot in there. Troye was directly behind me, and I felt his chest on my back. "Okay so the pictures will be angry, sad, ugly, and then all cuddly together!" We all agreed. So we took the first picture, and the second, and the third, and then on the fourth, Troye hugged me really tightly from the back and I felt shivers all over my body. 'Just make a move Connor,' I thought again. Once the pictures were taken, the screen on the photo booth told us to print the pictures by inserting five pounds. Zoe said "Don't worry I can pay," and she quickly took out her money. Once the pictures printed, Zoe picked it up. "Aww guys this is so cute! Do any of you want it? Because if not I'll definitely take it. I want to hang it on my wall!" Zoe seemed genuinely happy, so I told her that she should keep it. "Okay, well, if I'm keeping the picture, you guys have to buy something here! Look around, I'm sure you'll find something you like." I nodded and began to walk around looking.
Zoe wasn't wrong, there was a lot of really nice stuff in this store, just nothing I could afford. I only brought twelve pounds with me, because I totally forgot my wallet. I was just fortunate enough to find some money in my pockets. I kept roaming the store, looking for something affordable, until I stumbled upon this beanie. It was actually the definition of perfect. The beanie was gray, and slightly rough so it wouldn't just slip off your hair. It was probably the most well made beanie I'd ever seen. I picked it up to check the price tag. "£20" I put it back down. 'Dammit,' I thought, 'I should've thought about money before I left Joe and Caspar's apartment.' I put it down and walked away, but little did I know, Troye was watching. I turned around to find that Troye was picking up the beanie and checking the price. He came over to me with it in his hands. "I can buy this beanie for you if you want it."
"No no no no no no, it's fine haha."
"You really seemed like you wanted it Con."
"Yeah, I did, but it's okay, I have a ton of beanies anyway."
"But this is a really nice one."
"Yeah." I sighed, but I couldn't just take money from Troye like that.
"Look, if you don't want me to buy it for you, we can split the price."
"Troye, you don't have t-"
"I want to." We stared at each other for a second.
"Con, I'll pay ten pounds, you pay ten pounds, and we can share it." The smile on his face was nothing short of convincing. "Every time we see each other while travelling, we'll switch off with the beanie." I was shocked at the words coming out of his mouth. "Okay." I responded. "Okay." He said back.
Troye told me to keep the beanie for as long as they were in the UK. "Next time I see you," Troye explained, "we switch off. It's a way to........let's say..........remember each other- no matter how far away." I smiled so big. "I like that idea." My face was red for the millionth time on this trip.
The rest of the day was amazing. We went to the pier, my hair got messed up- as predicted, and it was just one of the best days of my life. We met up with the rest of the group in the cupcake shop and Zoe bought us all the cupcakes of our choice.
We all left the festival feeling exhausted, and decided to go to Zoe's house in the taxi ride back to Caspar and Joe's apartment. "She said to come over and maybe watch a couple movies, and we can order a pizza and just hang out." Joe explained. "Sounds good." Tyler said, although he was about to pass out. I was okay with whatever, because I was wearing my new favorite article of clothing. My gray beanie. But wait, it wasn't my gray beanie, it was both Troye's and mine, so our gray beanie. I had our gray beanie. And as long as I was wearing it, I was happy.
