You and Me in the Old Jeep - TROYLER AU

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Song of the Chapter: Twin Size Mattress  by the Front Bottoms (my current favourite song)

37

I saw him on the fiftieth day we'd spent apart.

Troye was in his car and I was walking down the street. He seemed a little thinner, maybe even a little sadder, his windows rolled up and his hands still on the wheel, none of the insistent energy that I remembered. He was still enough to knock the air out of me - I jerked to a halt, my eyes finding his through the window. Our gazes locked like targets and I wasn't even sure I was breathing anymore, my vision finally exploding into technicolor again as he looked at me.

His fingers went limp, his eyes widening and filling with some emotion I couldn't identify. I felt my coffee fall from my hand - just like the first time we'd met, but then the lights went green and the car behind him beeped and I saw him press the back of his hand to his mouth and shake his head hard, and then he drove away. 

I was completely, utterly spent, left trembling and exhausted from the encounter. Things and people and noises slid seamlessly in and out of place around me, but I didn't react, my chest heaving with loss, the pain made fresh and brutal all over again.

 Nearly four million people in LA, and we kept getting thrown together like it was a game. I was tired of games and I was tired of missing people, so I went home and I got in my car and I went to Korey's house.

I rang the bell over and over, almost to the point of hysteria, until he finally opened the door. When he did, the fake smile he'd crafted slipped off his face immediately and he tried to close it, but I put my foot into the hallway.

"Korey, wait, please," I tried, and he scowled, eyes darkening alarmingly.

"I don't have anything to say to you."

I couldn't lose him too, I couldn't, I wasn't - this wasn't working. I wasn't working, my breath was quickening. "Korey, please, please, I c-c-c-c- "

~timeskip~

I came back to reality on Korey's sofa with his arms around me and was suddenly aware that I was shaking like I was crashing from a high. When he realised that my tremors were slowing, Korey pulled back, his face set and hard now that the danger was gone.

"I wish you didn't get panic attacks." he sighed, and I grabbed his wrists, desperate to make him listen.

"Korey, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I -"

"That you what, Tyler?" he near-shouted, and then sighed as I went quiet. Korey got to his feet, pinching the bridge of his nose, and turned away from me, squeezing his eyes shut. I waited uneasily, unsure of just what was going through his head, but when he turned around the lights illuminated the tear tracks on his face.

"I miss you," Korey stumbled over the words, biting his lips. "And I don't miss him nearly as much because - because lately  - we weren't doing too good, I just..."

I knew what he was saying without a word leaving his mouth, from the look on his face - the same one Troye had when I asked about his ring, when he cried in the bathroom, when he confessed in the car outside the studio - so I just stood up and hugged Korey to me. "I'm sorry," I said, but I don't think either of us knew what I was apologizing for. 

"It's okay." Korey said softly. "You're still a dickhead though, Ty." Suddenly he pulled back and frowned at me. "You hurt me, sure, and I'm still pissed at you, but you hurt Troye a lot more."

I had to shut my eyes against his name, block the agony out before it consumed me. "I know," I replied, and my voice cracked painfully against the roof of my mouth. "I know." I tried again, and this time it came out a little clearer, a little colder.

"And?"

"And what?"

"And what are you gonna do to fix it?"

so there we go did we like it

guys please check out my phanfiction 'of eden' which i've put up as coming soon - i've posted the blurb thing so maybe just have a look and see if you'd be interested? i'll love you forever 

thanks for reading and please vote comment and add this to your reading lists if you enjoyed it!

Bbbbbbye *wink*