F L O W E R S | TRONNOR A.U.

E I G H T

"I talked to your sister," Connor whispers after they have settled down for the night. He doesn't really know why he always waits for a mood to ruin, but it seems easier to bring these things up when everything else in the world is calm. It's balancing.

"Oh? What about?" Troye wonders, completely oblivious. He runs his fingers through Connor's hair, whose head is laid on his chest with the sheets pulled up to their waists. It's warmer tonight; the showers outside have finally been turned off, and the moonlight seems brighter than usual. The atmosphere is so content, and suddenly it doesn't seem so easy to speak.

"She—uh, j-just nothing, really. We were just catching up." Connor swallows hard, playing with Troye's fingers to try and find some tranquility in it. He doesn't like to feel like he's the one lying this time. It's—it doesn't settle right. It's not right. They have always been honest with each other, or so he thought.

Little bits of him and Sage's actual conversation flash through his mind, things like it started the summer before his junior year, and you should've known sooner, and sent him to an institution, passed out behind the wheel, parents didn't handle it, moved to America as fast as he could, please watch out for him. Didn't eat, doesn't eat, won't eat.

"How is everyone back home?"

"Good. Everything's good."

The clouds outside become opaque and start to cry again, drawing the shades on the moon. No light, no hope shines through. Troye thinks for a minute that he feels a smirk from the darkest corner of the room, but he shrugs it off because he can't think of anything that's wrong right now.

Connor could list more than a couple things.

---

Troye passes the hospital on his way to class. Different scenarios roll through his mind, each a separate version of what would happen if he just walked in and asked for help from the first employee he saw. What would he say? How would they react? What would happen? In more than half the scenarios, they don't even help him. They tell him, "That sucks, but I don't know how to help. I hope for the best," because it's what everyone else has said to him his whole life.

He's only ever had one person try to help him. A camp counselor, beginning of 12th grade. He told them everything and agreed to keep contact but then never reached out to them again. In fact, he went specifically out of his way to avoid any help offered by the worried adult. Thinking back on it, he'd say that it was because he was scared, but he knows it's not. He didn't want to get better; he wanted someone to talk to. It was then that he realized that most people find things like anorexia at least mildly concerning, and most people will make an effort to help him.

Maybe his parents just aren't most people.

In reality, Troye does not wander into the hospital and finally draw the line. He continues on his walk to class, trying to soothe the uncomfortable feeling of not having eaten for who knows how long. Ana snickers at his loyal submission as he sips his steaming tea, holding the paper cup delicately in his frozen fingertips. It may be April, but the air is still chilled from the late winter that hardly arrived because of the geographical location. Troye reckons that if he lived in a place like Maine or New York, he would freeze to death, no doubt.

Australia was warm. Warm and nice, and even when he was a grand total of 80lbs, the waves of heat from the unforgiving sun would bake his bones and keep him cozy. The only times Australia seemed cold were when his Dad would shoot icy glares during an otherwise heated argument, or when he would run freezing showers to boost his metabolism. (It was something he read on a website. Everything was.)