may shatter on impact (tronnor)

17. Softly Singing & Moving On

I miss it.

There's only the sound of someone singing softly when I get home, only the absence of sound other than Lana del Rey lyrics echoing through closed doors. The silence of my house is terrifying, after the home-sounds and the happiness of Zoe's home. It's funny how noise can terrify me one minute and the next, it's all I want. The feeling of being haunted by this silence makes me feel almost normal, like nothing bad has ever happened or ever will, like the world wasn't a mess and my boyfriend hadn't brought a gun to school and killed fifty-one people. Like there weren't fifty-one families out there who hated my guts and wished I had died instead of their daughter or son. Like life is good.

My footsteps echo across the wood floor, and whoever was singing suddenly stops. "I'm home," I call out softly.

"Hey, Troye," Tyde calls back, sticking his head out of the door and motioning for me to come in. "Mum and Dad are grocery shopping." It was him singing then, him who was scared of what might happen if the house wasn't silent while I was home, him scared of me. "How was it at...Zoe's?"

I smile, sitting down on his bed. "It was great."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I really missed having friends."

He chuckles a bit at that. "You've always had friends, Troye."

"Yeah, well, that number's gotten increasingly smaller throughout the years."

He shrugs. "Well, I'm glad that you have Zoe and her friends now."

I smile, laying back and staring at the ceiling. "They were kind of loud," I admit, choosing my words carefully. He immediately sits up straight, mouth open, about to ask a million questions about whether or not I was okay. "I liked it though. And Tyde... I almost forgot that you're actually not a bad singer." I stand up then, walking into my room and shutting the door behind me.

After a few seconds of silence, Tyde starts singing again.