Taking Hits

Chapter 21: What If You Hadn't?

Connor was edgy. He knew he was. He could sense his temper getting shorter and shorter by the day. And he loathed himself for it. This isn't me, he thought. What the fuck is wrong with me?

He'd had to walk away from three conversations already today because he could just tell that he was going to start screaming at any moment - and for no reason in particular, just out of sheer buildup of emotion.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. No texts, no calls, nothing. Just the old lock screen picture that seemed to have been there for ages: Troye wearing Connor's sweater and grinning idiotically with one hand raised to try to cover up his face.

Connor smiled at it for a second - a sad grin that screamed "I really want to just bawl my eyes out right now but I'm not going to give myself that satisfaction." Then he shoved his phone back in his pocket and left the coffee shop he'd been at without even telling his friends where he was going.

Troye had been calling or texting every day for the past two months. Except this week. Connor had sent a string of nagging, desperate messages: "you ok?" and "how you doing?" and "how's your day?" and "please just let me know you're ok when you get a chance?"

The single text Troye had sent in reply simply read: "I'm fine."

Obviously not fine, Connor had thought immediately. But what could he do about it if Troye wasn't answering any of his calls? And he'd promised not to go sending Troye's family out to check on him again. Not unless he really knew something was up.

Plus, Connor seemed to be the only one who had a chance of reaching Troye and calming him down if he was having a bad day, or an anxiety attack or something. Everyone else seemed to just make it worse, using stupid logic and advice and "experience" that you just give zero fucks about when you're that far already.

Troye knew Connor truly cared about him - not out of obligation or friendship or any of that crap, but out of genuine respect for him as a person, genuine love of his existence. And that's the only thing that can help in those kinds of moments when you no longer even love yourself.

All of this ran through Connor's head on repeat until he was sure he'd have a panic attack himself.

I have to talk to him, he thought. He walked home and opened his laptop, dialing up Skype. On his phone, he found Troye's number and called it with FaceTime. He continually hit "redial" on both his phone and his laptop, determined to keep this up until Troye answered - or until the end of time, whichever came first.

"Con, what the hell? I have 174 missed calls from you on FaceTime alone. Do I even want to check anything else?"

"Troye!" Connor exclaimed, bolting upright. "Are you ok? You look ok, you sound ok, are you sure you're ok? I've been calling and texting you and--"

"Con, breathe," Troye commanded in between his frantic outbursts.

Connor obeyed momentarily, trying to regain his composure, eyes still wide from actually seeing Troye. "What happened? It's been a week."

Troye looked away. "It was a rough week," he said.

"You didn't call... to talk... or anything..." Connor stammered.

"It's ok, I pulled myself through it." Troye was trying to sound strong, to prove that he could handle all this by himself.