may shatter on impact (tronnor)

25. Hands & Fingers

Connor drives. He's not a bad driver exactly, but the car.

"It went through two of my other siblings' before it got to me - Dustin crashed it, Nicola's ex-boyfriend somehow drove it into a fire while drunk, and no one ever fixed it. So it's kind of a mess," he explained, voice trailing off as steam covered up the window behind us.

There's no way this is safe.

He laughs at my expression, my hands gripping the frayed seatbelt.

"Troye, I swear it's safe. I've had all of our friends in this car and none of them are dead yet." I nodded, but didn't loosen my grip until we got to the ice cream place and I follow him inside.

The walls are painted bright pink, white and blue signs displaying hundreds of types of ice cream flavors, smoothies, frappes, and frozen yogurt. "This is my favorite place to go," Connor tells me. "Okay, what flavor do you want?"

I frown. You don't have to pay, I have my own money.

Connor rolls his eyes. "I'm paying, Troye."

Connor -

"It's not a big deal, I have money, and it's not that expensive. Besides," he winks, "this is practically a date anyways."

I blush at that, and let him hand three green dollar bills over the counter and hand me my ice cream.

Connor likes to walk while he eats, which I find incredibly weird, but I go along with it, figuring he's the kind of person who absolutely has to multitask while doing anything. "The movie theater is only a few blocks from here," Connor tells me, "so we can just walk over there while we eat, if that's okay?"

I nod, trying to take as many bites of the pink and white ice cream before it fell off the cone, which it was dangerously poised to do. "This is good."

He smiles. "I'm glad you like it. What flavor did you get again?"

I shrug and hold out the cone for him, and he takes a bite, licking his lips and savouring the flavor. "Oohh it's good."

He's all laughs and smiles, face alight, green eyes on fire, the wind and even the slight rain carried with it not enough to dampen his spirits. I feel our heartbeats beating time to the steady pace at which we walk, the blood rushing to our faces when our fingers tangle together and our hands brush, nervous sweat and rain mixing like blue and red becoming purple.

The cool air of the movie theater hits our faces like falling in the snow, Connor shivering, his hand trembling for a second in mine. I chuckle at that, just sinking farther into my loose t-shirt. We throw away sticky napkins and the paper that was wrapped around the cones and then separate while Connor goes to buy tickets while I go to the bathroom.

"Troye? Troye Mellet?" someone's voice echoes across the white tiles of the bathroom a few minutes later.

I spin around, throwing away a paper towel and looking towards the boy with dark hair and a blue hoodie a size too small.

"Oh my God, it is you, what the fuck? Of all people I thought I might run into because of my parents' stupid high school reunion, I didn't expect to see you. Oh, is this where you moved to, then?" He waits expectantly.

I just nod at him, utterly bewildered by Julian Baker and why is here oh my god what the fuck this town is in the middle of nowhere why -

"Who's this?" Connor asks from behind Julian.

"Julian Baker - boy from my school," I try to sign in choppy sign language.

"Are - are you speaking in sign language?" Julian asks curiously, seeming on the verge of laughter.

Connor nods and steps between us. "Connor," he says, shaking Julian's hand. "Um, nice to meet you."

"Julian, and likewise. But, Troye, why didn't you tell anyone you were coming here of all places?"

I look at Connor, silently asking him to translate my barely understandable sign language. He nods.

"It's in the middle of nowhere, so none of you would find him," Connor says. "Why are you here?"

"Parents' high school reunion, I said that. They went to Oak Hill Boarding School. You know it?"

Connor eyes widened a bit. "Yeah, we go there now. And...there's no reunion happening this week, those are, for some reason, always advertised around the school."

Julian's eyes dart around the suddenly too small bathroom. "I - uh, maybe they just didn't advertise it this time?"

"I've been going there six years, and they've never once forgotten. They don't forget anything."

He sighs. "Okay, fine. Troye, I'm sorry, I just, I had to find you, I had to say sorry and tell you how sorry I am for everything I ever did to you and - "

With barely a glance from me, Connor tells him to shut up. I grab the tickets from Connor and shove past Julian. Connor hurries after me, reaching for my shoulder.

"Troye - " I just shake my head, and he seems to sigh and accept it. "We're in theater two."

Connor and I walk in silence, letting the dimmed lights of the hallway cast our shadows away from each other and our hands focus on the popcorn Connor holds.

The lights fade and the screen widens to being advertisements for movies that I won't go see and warnings that I should probably care about, but I'm not going to ruin the moment by reading about all of the ways that things could go wrong.

"Troye," Connor whispers to me, passing the popcorn closer to me. "I'm sorry about Julian."

I just shrug and he seems to understand that I'm giving my everything to not let him ruin it and I'm trying to stop my heart from pounding so fast and I'm trying to calm my thoughts and let's pretend it never happened, like my family seems to be doing about it.

So I just take another bite of popcorn and the movie begins with Connor playing with my fingers until they don't grip the chair so strongly and the world doesn't seem as scary a place.

An hour or so later, the movie ends with my head on Connor's shoulder and my heart flipping over and my stomach in butterflies and my hands aren't as scared of his touch and each thought of the boy used to do the same thing is hidden by my somehow still beating heart.