watchful eyes (tronnor)

thirty three; the cursed and the damned

four more chapters!

connor has typed up fourteen texts but in the end they just feel like letters mashed together into syllables and they do not mean anything. he has not taken a real breath since he left troye's house. somehow, his heart is beating without oxygen (and without troye).

his mother watches him enter the house as if she knows everything. he can still feel the touch of troye's lips against his and he can feel troye's fingers brushing across the back of his neck and every bit of him is gold and pink and red and he hopes that she can not see any of it.

she smiles at him and asks how his day was. he tries not to seem too happy when he tells her that it was fine. something inside of him is a watery blue guilt. (is simply not telling her still lying?)

she tells him that's great and she continues her work and connor disappears to his room.

(he's not going to heaven anyways. he may as well add to his sins.)

(and maybe he does not want heaven anymore.)

he wonders if troye is in his room. he wonders if troye can still remember the taste of his lips and the color of his hope.

(little does he know, troye could never forget.)

sometimes thoughts run away like unbroken stallions, and sometimes they stay and they hurt and they prod at your mind until there is blood running down the back of your neck. sometimes thoughts get away. they have not disappeared, but they are not under control. they are a rushing river and they do not stop for a crumbling brick wall and they break branches and they drown the trees.

when connor reaches school the next day, memories and hopes and thoughts of the day before are rushing through both troye and connor's minds as if they were a landslide of dreams. (landslides do not stop for emotions.)

lucas and jesse and nicholas sit at their own table at lunch. (tyler and connor and troye pretend not to notice.)

but then there is the thought (hurtling down a mountain and tearing over hopeless desire) that that means troye broke up with nicholas.

the thought is the color of maybe.

tyler watches troye and connor carefully, and when connor works this out, he knows. he knows and troye does not. tyler watches connor's hand (on his leg, careful, not touching troye) and he knows that they are not okay. smiles are masks of made up feelings and tyler will not ignore this one.

(they need to talk, but the two never talk. they want and need and wish and dream but they never act.)

talk to him, tyler's eyes are saying (with specks of tired and flashes of green and a dot of come on, connor).

connor looks away (that is what he does when things are hard; he hides away and closes his eyes and ignores the trees falling in the forest).

talk to him, tyler's fingers are saying, tapping on troye's thigh.

troye stands up, to throw his lunch away, and he catches his breath. he is watching connor from the corner of his eye and he is beautiful and he is haunting and he is lonely, like a hundred notes of silence and a single half note.

there has always been connor and now there is no longer nicholas but there is still hesitation because does he really want this and there is was it all a joke or a dream and, mixed in, there is also the truth of connor's lips on his.

troye cannot forget connor's breath on his and his hands on troye's collarbone and his eyes the shine of the stars. (but there is also connor's, "can you please leave?" and there is connor's mother and her, "i know best," and there is lana and there is fear.)

talk to him, tyler is trying to say. you need each other.

but he does not have the words and connor does not have the courage to ask a second question and troye does not have an answer.