may shatter on impact (tronnor)

30. Coming Out & Divorces

The cold bites into my fingers as I hold the ringing phone in my hands. To answer, or not answer.

Tyler's picture, bright eyed and blue haired and smiling teeth and blushing cheeks, stares out at me from the screen as if it had heard all of the conversation with Julian.

I swipe right and answer the call. "Hi."

"Hey, Troye," Tyler says, his voice crackling over the phone and into my ear pleasantly. "Come over?"

"Heading over to yours now," I told him. I had been looking forward to getting home and letting go of all of my responsibilities until Sunday night, but apparently not anymore. "Is the back door unlocked?"

"Yeah."

I frowned. Normally he would be chattering away to me as I walked over there, knowing that I always liked to have some sort of distraction while I walked anywhere, music or an audiobook or, preferably, him talking about anything. "Are you okay?"

"C-can you just hurry up and come over?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be there in five minutes."

I opened the back door to my best friend's house only to hear silence. Including all his step-siblings, half-siblings, and whatever else - I had never really understood his family tree - Tyler had six brothers and six sisters and a house that was never quiet. All of his family that I knew of, which were the four sisters and three brothers who were always around, were loud and confident and older than us, and couldn't stand a quiet house.

I took the familiar path through the kitchen and up creaky old stairs to Tyler's room, where I could hear music playing softly.

"Ty? Can I come in?"

"Yeah," he chokes out, the music pausing mid-word.

I open the door, dropping my bag just inside and slipping my shoes off to sit beside him on the bed, where he had his head buried in the pillow and his blanket covering himself.

"Tyler? What happened?" He rolled over with the pillow still on his face, but his head facing upwards as if the light of the brightly colored room hurt his eyes, or like he just couldn't bear to see the world.

"It's my fault," he groaned into the pillow as I managed to lie down next to him, hands crossed over my stomach and eyes concentrated on the ceiling. "I shouldn't - They're getting divorced, Troye."

"Your parents?"

He made some sort of affirmative noise into the pillow. "I shouldn't have told them that - "

"That?"

He flipped over to stare at the wall, hand under the pillow, his blue hair a bright contrast against the white case. "That I'm gay," he whispered.

"Tyler - "

"If you're going to say anything about how it's wrong or whatever, then you can leave."

"Tyler, it's not wrong, it's perfectly normal."

The corners of his lips turned up a bit.

"I'm just sorry about your parents."

He shrugged, curling into himself under the blanket and wrapping his arms around the pillow. "Just Dad."

"I'm sorry, Ty. And I'll always be here for you no matter what, you know that, right?"

"Thanks, Tro."

I lean towards the wall, feeling his back press up against my chest into we're a single comma instead of a period and a slash. Until there's no room between us and our hearts beat in tune and Tyler is asleep and the world is spinning to the pace of our hearts like we're finally on top of the world like we always used to pretend to be.

"Love you, Tro."

"Love you too, Ty."