may shatter on impact (tronnor)

8. Phone Calls & Forests

"There's no shame in crying," is the first thing that Dad says to me when he comes home from work. I just blink and stare at him until his elaborates. "I heard about what happened in school today. And Troye, there's no shame in crying and doing what you do after what's happened."

"I'm not ashamed," I whisper.

No, I'm fucking scared.

He just wraps his arm around my shoulder as if he know what I'm feeling better than I do and we walk towards the couch. He puts the football game on, which I'm not really paying attention to, and we just let the noise of whistles and collisions that I wince at fill the room. I think he notices, but it's better this way - forcing myself to listen to it maybe makes it a little easier when it comes at random times.

"Troye?" Tyde calls. "Your phone is vibrating." He holds the black iPhone in his left hand, waving to get my attention with his other. "It's Mia."

I take the phone from him and start to walk to my room before beginning to answer.

"Hey," I tell her, almost at a normal volume. It's okay with Mia, it's normal, it's comfortable, it's safe. She knows that we have to stay quiet to stay alive. "How are you?"

"I'm okay," she says. "How are you?"

I shrug, before remembering that she can't see me. "I've been better."

"Yeah. How's the new school?"

"Loud, but otherwise not bad, I guess."

"Well nothing really compares to S.P. Ferdinand High School," she mutters bitterly. "No place safer, no better education, no smarter teachers, no kinder children."

"Mia, please, don't."

"Sorry, I just... It's hard to not be angry, you know?"

"I dunno," I say, flopping down on my bed, facing the ceiling and beginning to count the scratches like I've done a hundred times before in the middle of the night when the dark is terrifying and dreaming is worse. "I find myself more scared than angry."

She sighs, all the way in California, a million miles away at home, wishing she could turn back time so neither of us were either mad or scared or sad or lonely. "Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Anyways, would you like to hear all the juicy gossip from the second day of school?" She doesn't even pause for an answer. "Kayla and Jason are back together, finally. And Mr. Robinson quit for some reason that none of us can quite figure out."

"What? Mr. Robinson? Like the music teacher Mr. Robinson? My favorite teacher ever, Mr. Robinson? That Mr. Robinson?"

She chuckles a bit at my response. "Yup. He just left one day. Kayla thinks because of stress. Jason says it was...it was the thing."

I don't say anything to that. Of course, of course, everything leads back to him, to that, to the day in the shadows, to the tears and the pain and the fear and the screaming and oh God, quiet, quiet, don't speak.

"Either that, or it's just Jackie finally getting to him," Mia continues, hurriedly changing the topic, trying to get away from it, away, get away, run, run, RUN TROYE.

"Troye? You alright?" Mia asks nervously.

"Y-yeah. I-I'm...alr-right."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not y-your fault."

Safe, I'm safe. Everything's okay.

I close my eyes and imagine I'm in a forest. The light shines through the trees, glittering and reflecting the golden sky onto a clear pool of water. The shadows turn the gray rocks into black boulders, the sky becoming a fiery gold as the sun sinks.

Beautiful, peaceful, safe.

Safe.

"Mia, it's not your fault," I say again, clearer this time. "It's not any of our faults."

"Yeah. I know, but I just...Yeah . It's not any of our faults."

No one's fault.

But somewhere in the back of my mind all of the things I could've done differently hang around and haunt me.