may shatter on impact (tronnor)

12. Apologize & Speak

We sit in the practice room for the rest of first period and the first half of the next one. I wouldn't have been able to concentrate in Spanish anyways, and Connor just didn't mention it when the bell rang, only held my hand as I shook silently.

It's halfway through second period, when no one has music and no one is speaking, it's just Connor, Connor and I and we're just sitting in the dark practice room listening to ourselves breathe.

"I - I'm sorry..." is the first thing that I whisper to him once I've calmed down a bit. "I shouldn't have - "

"Troye, you had a panic attack, I think, and no one is blaming you for that, least of all me," he says quietly. "Are you feeling better now?"

I nod. "I still - " I sigh. "I s-should...tell y-you why..."

"Only if you want to." He's still holding my hand, both of us leaning against the wall and staring ahead at the posters of unknown piano artists in neon color that hurts my eyes. "You don't owe me anything, if that's what you're thinking."

"I - I kind of d-do."

He glanced at me, eyes soft. "No you don't."

"C-Connor, y-you just - "

"I know what I did, Troye, and it's not a big deal. I did what any friend would do."

All the silence just seems too much now. I usually revel in the silence, crave it, need it, require it. But now that I have this silence between me and Connor, the distance between us almost nothing, the time between us seemingly an eternity, me stuck in last year's horrors, him just helping out a friend in the present.

A friend.

I have friends now.

And it's the silence between the world and I that I crave.

The silence between friends is always terrifying.

I need to -

I need sound, for the first time in a year, I need to speak.

Speak.

Speak, Troye.