Downside Up

Chapter Fifteen (Firework - Katy Perry)

In the days before I left LA to fly to Perth, I was relatively calm and it remained like that during the whole flight. All my worries were gone and I was looking forward to being reunited with one of my best friends.

Tyler spend the journey asleep in the seat next to me and I tried to edit some videos, but ended up listening to music and watching a few movies, because I was too excited and couldn't focus on my work.

We arrived the day before Tyde's birthday and did nothing else than checking into our hotel and dropping into our beds. I had already eaten during the flight and Tyler ordered some room service, but soon the lights were turned off and we went to sleep.

The next day (because it wasn't quite morning when we woke up) the two of us were beyond excited to say that at least. We ate some lunch and headed off to the Mellet household afterwards, with everything we would need for that night. When we exited the car in front of Troye's house we could already spot some teenagers playing soccer in the garden nearby the pool and soon Troye was skipping towards us, his face filled with excitement.

That's when I realized that nothing was okay.

I tried to stay calm and as much as I enjoyed our group hug my thoughts were drifting off towards the Australian boy next to me. I knew that my feelings were stronger than ever before and I also knew that I wouldn't be able to deny them.

I, Connor Franta, had a crush on my best friend, Troye Sivan, and I was neither ready to come out to him nor to be in a relationship with him – if he would ever want to be my boyfriend.

The only option left was a distraction and I gratefully found it in a girl they called Oli (which is definitely not a girl's name if you ask me), who stayed with the Mellets for a year to experience school in Australia.

When I first met her she was with Troye's sister Sage and I wondered how this two girls could get along because they couldn't be more opposite. Sage was all girly, wearing a cute white summer dress and light high heels, her hair flowing elegantly over her back. Meanwhile, Oli seemed like a total tomboy. She wore her hair in a braid, a shirt which read 'Mermaid off duty', skinny jeans and flats. As Sage started talking to Tyler, she seemed a little bit lost, so I tried to be nice and introduced myself. Soon we were talking about anything and everything but all of the sudden she left. Cinderella style, though I wouldn't need a shoe to find her.

"What do you think of her?", Troye asked me after she had entered the living room and was out of our sight.

"She is definitely a nice person, a little bit shy and ..."

"... weird?", he questioned.

"Exactly. How old is she?" Maybe she wasn't that weird but just confused about what was appropriate to say and what wasn't.

"17. You're not planning to ask her out, are you?" Troye looked at me with worry in his eyes, even though he was laughing at me.

Jokingly I wiggled my eyebrows but didn't mean it. "Well, the night is young and I've got no one to dance with, so maybe I will." I wasn't planning to flirt with her or anything – she was six years younger than I and of course, people always say that age doesn't matter when it comes to love but I felt like a pervert only thinking about her in a "maybe girlfriend" way. Despite the fact that I wasn't looking for a girlfriend anymore.

I joined his laughter and soon Tyler came back to us and we kept talking about different things before we went inside to have dinner.

Right when we went inside, I spotted Olivia and sat down next to her. Troye and Tyler followed behind, but I tried to ignore them unobtrusively and completely focused on the girl sitting next to me. We had a nice talk and after dinner, when Troye and Sage had gone upstairs to change, she suddenly leaned towards me.