watchful eyes (tronnor)

twenty nine; everything that sits in the heart and soul of the fool

okay you guys are so nice i cannot believe this like i don't respond to most comments (sorry) but i read and reread every single one and every time one of you compliments my writing or references something else or comments literally anything i get so happy you have no idea this isn't the end of the book or anything (we're almost there, though) but i just really wanted to say that

words can burn down buildings and start wars and set a hundred ships sailing and a thousand men dying. words can wave flags and can rip open skin and soak into blood and eyelids. when all that matters has gone, words will remain. a person can forgive and forget but words can never be unsaid. they will hang in the air on individual nooses and they will never move on, not in the way that "sorry" can drift and float and leave and drown.

tyler says, "i'm gay."

connor refuses to say anything. is he ignoring this fact? (yes, yes, yes.) he does not know. he wishes he was not. he thinks he should be. together, the two cancel out into not quite being sure.

"i'm still the same person that you have been best friends with for years," tyler says. he takes connor's hand and does not mind the sweat and pretends to not notice the tremble. connor stares at their fingers; short and long and warm and cold and human. "you have always known me. now you just know this other fact. like learning a person's favorite color. they are still the same person, even if they like a color that would never have occurred to you to be nice."

connor tries to say, "i know," but the words do not leave his throat.

"the world is not a horrible place once you learn that it spins right and not left. i am not a horrible person now that you know i like boys and not girls."

this time, the words slip off of his tongue.

"i know." tyler looks down. he and connor still hold hands, and connor is not pulling away. "i'm sorry."

the words he had always learned will not be undone with sorry.

they cannot be unsaid, in the same way that a car cannot unhit a child.

but "i'm sorry" can start a new thread of words, sometimes, and connor will say "i'm sorry" until he has a tapestry of apologies and a life unlived.

tyler whispers when he speaks this time. "you can love troye, if you want to. it is not wrong. you can love troye and you can love boys and you can love boys and girls."

connor does not speak. he stares at their hands, intertwined.

"troye and i - it's not - i." he does not know anymore. everything has been rewritten on this tapestry, the one made of truth and "i'm sorry". (is there a gun hidden in this tapestry? connor cannot find one, but his mother's shadow still cools his back.)

tyler says, "you and troye know every bit of each other. you and him have been circling each other since this started."

connor whimpers, and it is a broken sound. it is defeat. it is fear, terror. something that represents that consequences of the dark. it is not acceptance, not yet.

(he is realizing that he has been breaking troye since the very beginning.)

"i asked him for a pencil," connor whispers. "when we first met. he gave me one and he told me his name and i gave him mine. then we just kept going. we kept talking and - " kept wishing and yearning and circling and touching and hurting. like a song that must be sung, like a rhyme that must be completed, like a guitar string. like a war dying to be fought.

tyler says, "troye has been your everything since he gave you that pencil."

(he is also realizing that he has been breaking himself from the very beginning.)

the minutes pass and the moon spins around the earth and the earth spins around the sun. in that moment, they are shadows, weightless and thoughtless and hopeless.

(his reflection is still there even when he has closed his eyes. he needs to learn to open his eyes.)

then there is something.

(he could break troye's heart again and again.)

then there is a skeleton rising from the ashes, there is a war both won and lost, there is a flag of surrender, and there is acceptance.

(or he could begin to repair something broken. he could begin to douse the flames and take a chance and dive into the ocean. he could take back what he has thrown away, because it is a part of him and he needs it like he needs air.)

connor asks, "am i his everything?"

tyler does not respond and in that silence there is another question and there is a painting and there is a song and there is an answer.