The dismissal feeling is obvious as they pack into the van. Their bags are zipped up to breakage, full of seashells and novelties and memories. They checked their keys in, slipped on their shoes full of sand, and washed out the ocean water that stuck to the split ends of their hair for the final time.
Joe and Caspar are in the front seat, looking at Caspar's phone and discussing something of maps and hours, Jacob doesn't pay attention to that. He looks out the window, and sees Tyler's head tucked into smoothie boy's neck. He gags, "there is no way they're straight."
Troye groans beside of him, scooting from the middle seat to the far right one and hitting his head against the window.
"I promise we can meet up again sometime. I'll call you!"
Tyler jumps into the van with an 'unf,' quickly shutting the van door and turning to blow a kiss to smoothie shop boy.
Jacob's lips curl into a type of disgusted frown.
"Everyone ready?" Joe asks, looking in the rear-view window with raised eyebrows.
He takes the silence of the van as a 'yes,' and puts the vehicle into the right gear. Tyler is pressing his lips to the glass of the van, kissing it dramatically and getting blushes and fucking giggles from smoothie shop boy. Jacob is disgusted.
Not surprisingly, it's silent. The radio is still on from when they drove over, but this time, none of them are singing along. Tyler has his headphones in, lying down in the middle row of seats. Caspar's head lies against the glass of the passenger window, watching the ocean go by; the beach town scratching its nails over the van as Joe pushes harder on the gas pedal.
Jacob bites his lip, glancing over to see Troye looking out of his own window. He pouts, walking his fingers across the carpet of the seat to Troye's hand, entangling their fingers and squeezing his hand. Troye smiles softly, rolling his eyes.
Jacob doesn't like this feeling; the feeling that he is sure he has left something behind when he hasn't. So many moments with Troye that he wants to bottle up, stick them in the creases of his favourite books and press them there for later, when the smell of the ocean sweated tears are distant in his mind and Troye's lips no longer taste like salt water.
He gradually watches blue turn to green, the ocean hiding behind the swift edges of trees and rocks. The warm sky slowly turns grey, and Jacob will always fall under the belief that the universe tries to match your mood, even in the subtlest of ways; almost in the way you try to match it to a song, suddenly so fond of hearing that one sad tune again after breaking. The busy road turns into a winding one, houses getting further apart from each other as they lay down more inches to the thinning road.
Jacob wonders what colour the feeling he is feeling is. This drippingly-sick feeling. One that is like walking through town and picking up a scent of someone who use to mean the world to you, and you refuse to let the nostalgia fill your heart, so instead you let it fill your stomach as you clutch it and look for a place to empty what you're feeling.
Jacob isn't sure what smell is filling his nose, or who it is he is missing, or if he is missing anyone at all. He just knows that he keeps thinking of lilacs, because the week before his dad left for good, he gave his mum a bundle of lilacs and told her he loved her.
And maybe, right now, he is feeling a twisted, fearful nostalgia for the future. He just wants to douse himself in the emotions Troye made him feel over their short holiday. It was all as if he was falling in love all over again. He is scared he won't feel that feeling anymore. That he'll love Troye, sure he will, but he won't keep falling for him. Then one day he'll be giving him a bundle of lilacs too, telling him he loves him, and then walking out the next.
