Long Way Down

The Second Day

Tyler’s POV

I walked out of my hotel room heading to the elevator to meet some of my friends downstairs to have breakfast before our day of convention, when I sighted Troye across the hallway, on his way to the elevator as well.

“Hey Troye!” I shouted and quickened my steps, since he was a few strides ahead of me. He turned around and stopped instantly, his eyes widening slightly. He seemed surprised, almost nervous to see me.

“Oh, hey Ty! Good morning,” he said casually with a calm grin and waited for me to catch up with him, relieving my preoccupation on what looked like a nervous expression on him.

“Morning,” I replied smiling as soon as I was next to him. “What happened last night, Troye?” I asked getting closer to him, resting my hand on his arm in the process. “Why did you take off like that? Is everything okay?”

“Oh yeah everything’s fine,” Troye replied with no hesitation and a confident tone in his voice, but looking away whenever my eyes found his. “I uhm, I just had to call Kayla because she texted me earlier saying that she needed to talk and I had completely forgotten.”

He is an amazing actor, but I can always tell when he is lying to me. I didn’t want to push him to tell me something he wasn’t comfortable with though, so I decided to just go with it. Besides, I couldn’t think of one good reason for him to hide something from me. Maybe I was just being paranoid for thinking about his freak out all night.

“Oh good. I thought that something might have happened to you since I came here after and you didn’t open the door or answer any of my texts…” I said looking straight into his eyes, making him stare back at me.

“Oh, did you come here? The cell reception in my hotel room sucks, so I went downstairs to call her, I think I wasn’t here when you knocked,” he said, looking away once again, now down at his feet and playing with his long dark green sleeves. “That’s probably why I didn’t get any of your texts either, sorry Tilly,” he added, raising his head up to look at me once he was done talking.

I took a second to answer, watching him carefully, his eyes staring at me, and a joyous but somehow anxious grin emerging on his lips.

“No, it’s fine, I mean as long as you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I’m good! A hundred percent, don’t worry,” he said smiling and grabbing my hand that was still resting on his arm, dragging me to the elevator. “Let’s go Ty, I’m starving!”

I giggled slightly and gladly followed him to the elevator, feeling relived that he was fine.  I spent so much time thinking about every possible reason for his sudden scoot out of my room, that it hadn’t even occured to me that it could be literally nothing. He seemed so happy dragging me around and telling me about how excited he was for the next day of ItaTube, that I totally forgot about any doubt that I might have had about he being fully honest with me about last night. I guess I was just overanalyzing every move he made and overreacting, although I could’ve sworn he was crying when he left the room… It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if there is more that he is not telling me, it’s totally up for him to tell me his issues, and I respect that. I’m just really glad he is okay now.

We made our way to the restaurant talking about the big day ahead of us, and soon sat down next to each other on the big table with the others, leaving our phones there to get our food. Once we got it, we came back to the table and sat in a comfortable silence enjoying our meal, eventually joining our friends in a small talk about our plans for the day.

“So…” Troye said clearing his throat after taking a big bite of his pancakes, smirking slightly and turning his head around to face me. “Chris, huh?”