It's three am and Troye can't sleep. It's fucking killing him, he can't get the words out of his head. Jacob needs to know, it's not a matter of Troye wanting him to, he needs to know. The words sit quietly on the tip of the boys tongue, the ones he was too afraid to speak before. The ones he's still afraid of, the ones he'll never tell to anyone but Jacob and the nice girl from the hotline.
His foot drums fastly, too fast to go unnoticed, his lover doesn't question it, only runs his fingers up and down Troye's back. He presses the softest of kisses to his lips, practically blowing the boy away.
Troye feels dirty, he feels like he's holding secrets that aren't meant to be kept but are too heavy to place in anyone's heart. And he knows, he really does, but he dosen't want to, he dosen't want to. He dosen't want to be that boy who occupies someone's mind for all the wrong reasons, he's the kind of boy who feels so uncomfortable talking about himself he'd rather take the bruises.
Troye's a mess really, he has unbrushed curls every Tuesday morning and untied laces when he leaves the movie theatre on summer nights. He falls asleep with his head burrowed into a pillow, rubbing his cheek into the soft silk that needed to be washed yesterday. He falls asleep to the sound of the fan clicking every time the the third spindle runs on it's fourth rotation. He's a series of numbers, 3's and 4's, Wednesday's and Thursday's. It's odd actually, his favorite number is two and the best day of the week to him is Tuesday.
He thinks blue is pretty and dosen't like orange. His favorite place to take naps is on the old leather couch he hasn't seen since the fifth grade but he'll never forget how soft it was. He's a mess of emotions and numbers and memories and hazel eyes and a boy with a pretty smile. And before he can stop himself the word vomit is back and he regrets it a millisecond too late.
"My mom hits me."
And Jacob is surprised, he really is. He'd always an inkling that something was wrong with his boy. He didn't know how bad it was and he didn't know how frequent it was either. The two sit in an uneasy silence, it's a shame really, two boys who love each-other more than rainy Tuesday afternoons and ice-cold filtered water that cost 1.25 a gallon on July 4th.
And it's sad because the silence isn't soft. It's not like the girl named Kate with pretty brown hair that watched anime when she should've been studying until five am. Here's the thing about her, she'd always been exceptionally kind to Jacob, even when he didn't deserve it. They all sat together at a lunch table, her smile and laugh always outshining everyone's while she had her head laid down in the lap of a soft boy who held her hand while she brushed her hand's soothingly along his arms.
It's not like the lovesick Friday mornings where it's sunny, (Troye hates the sun,) and Jacob is three minutes late to pick up the effervescent boy for one last day of school before spring break. It doesn't smell like Kate's spring laugh, (cocoa butter and lavender Pinesol.) It doesn't smell like sunny Friday mornings either, (the color purple and an old paperback book.)
(1947, fine print.)
It's hard like a piano played too harshly and a flute turned inside out trying to play a high F. It smells like a chunk of snow turned to slosh after being ran over by the oil semi. It's rough like bricks built with uneven stucco and cement poured four minutes too early. It's like an Elton John performance without the chords of Daniel or a bright smile from the man.
It's a mess, but not a pretty one. It doesn't look the graffiti alongside train cars as they chug up a hill. The words aren't twisted, they're raw, too raw for someone's ears who loves you, but he had to tell them. He had to. It isn't messy like the day in tenth grade where Troye found himself tangled in-between the sheets of Jacob Bixenman, the feeling of his soft skin as he was granted Troye's innocence. That day was a mess, a sweaty mess of tangled hair and ruffled sheets. It was quick and it didn't last long but that didn't matter to them, it was a pretty mess.
This is an entirely different mess, one that could leave both of them broken. One that Troye was afraid to admit to because he's so embarrassed. Troye is fine, he's fine, he's okay. He always is. This mess wasn't something as simple as uneven snow-angels, they couldn't just cover it up and start over as if nothing happened. It was a mess and Jacob hate's messes because he's a clean freak who washes his hand's all the time. But that isn't relevant at the given moment because he's dating a mess and he loves him to pieces and will pick up any piles left behind. Because that's what you do, you love someone for all of them, mess and all.
Their love is incoherent to anyone else watching, how could you fall in love with someone so quickly? The words are so hard for some to even mumble quietly, but it just happened. They didn't mean for it to happen but it did and there's no going back now because it's impossible to erase the past. No one believed them, no one really. Maybe some started starting believing them when the three am panic attacks came and all they did was ask for the other person. Some people believed them and some didn't. The anger sparked from within was great, their love was not on the table for anyone to discuss. It just wasn't.
"She can't help it though," the blue-eyed boy mumbled quietly, fearing that even if his voice was too loud the mirror would finish cracking and everything would shatter. (An even bigger mess.)
"How so?" Jacob whispered back, running his fingers nonchalantly through the boys soft curls. (They were a little damp though, the boys previously were showering together. They'd gotten better since the tenth grade mess.)
Troye's scared. He doesn't want to answer because he's afraid Jacob will leave him out of fear of him being like his Mother. He doesn't know if he'd be able to handle losing him. It's a risk, he knows it so bad and he's afraid of it too. But risks are always taken, it was like the risk Jacob took when he called the fragile one babyboy. It's like the risk he took when he ditched school just to feed a sick Jacob soup instead.
Jacob hates being sick so much, it scares the seemingly fearless boy so much. Troye on the other-hand was well with illness and loved being able to take care of the more dominate one, he took pride in making sure his boyfriend was okay. Jacob had eaten the soup wearily as Troye laid a lukewarm washcloth on his forehead. He was okay, Jacob was okay.
So this was another risk, and sometimes they had to be taken.
"She's, well she's, she is.." the words are hard to form, they rest on his tongue uneasily and were hard to say, "she's kinda crazy."
And it hits Jacob like a freight train against fifty mile per hour winds, it really does. Troye takes in a deep breath, waiting for Jacob to pick up and leave him behind. Why wouldn't he? It would be so easy and it would be so much easier, but he dosen't at all. He just runs his fingers through Troye's curls and kisses his forehead.
"I love you."
And the two don't talk about it again, because they're okay. Jacob makes Troye safe. They're safe.
The risk didn't hurt them.