Fifteen (Troyler)

Chapter 7

Troye's POV

I'm pacing the floor anxiously the next day, having been avoiding the blatant awkwardness between me and Tyler from the moment I'd awoken this morning from a fitful two hours of sleep. As I was turning back around the pace back to the bed, my foot got caught on something and I fell forward, hands flailing uselessly in the vaguest attempt to catch myself. My head narrowly missed the bedframe as I landed with a thud muffled by the colorful rug Tyler had placed on the floor.

Grumbling to myself as I shifted off of the ground, my eyes fell on the object I'd tripped over- my carry on backpack from the flight over here. When I fell, it had tipped over and now most of it's contents piled onto the floor. Rolling my eyes at my clumsiness (it really was astounding sometimes), I leaned over and gathered it all back together and into the bag, until one, misshapenly folded piece of notebook paper lay between the fibers of the rug. I picked it up, unfolding it and finding my list from earlier on, the list of all the friends I wanted to see. An idea began to bud in the back of my head- with all this stuff going on with Tyler, why don't I see another person to help distract me? I scanned the list eagerly, until my eyes finally landed on the perfect individual to take my mind off Tyler.

I fumbled my hand around on the bed above me, too lazy to actually stand up and retrieve it, when my hand accidentally hit it and it bounced off of the bed and landed sharply on my head. Mumbling swears, I flicked through my phone until I reached her contact, not even hesitating to hit the call button.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Hey, Hannah? I need your help with something."

*********

Hannah and I made arrangements to meet at some indie festival going on not too far from Tyler's apartment. I procrastinated leaving the guest bedroom as much as I could, fixing my hair until it was almost perfect and taking extra long to select my clothes.

This is stupid, Troye. He's your best friend, my head nagged at me. I rolled my eyes at my own subconscious. My hands were shaking before I opened the door, afraid that I had pissed Tyler off, or, even worse, injured his feelings. I don't think I'd be able to stand it if I was the reason for him being sad.

My hands threaded through my hair as I stood warily in the hallway, glancing feebly back and forth as if prepared for Tyler to jump out and scare me. "Tyler?" I called out, my voice cracking painfully in the middle of his name.

No response came. I began to head towards the kitchen, my eyes drawn to a colorful pink Post-It note on the refrigerator. Troye, it read, went out for groceries. Be home soon. -Tilly :]. I felt my heart warm a little bit at the familiar nickname and the smiley face besides it, hopefully proving that we were still okay.

I found the pad of Post-It notes on the counter next to the fridge and wrote a note of my own, telling him that I was going to the festival with Hannah and that I'd probably be back within a few hours.

**********

I dodged my way through the mess of people, the pungent stench of beer and body odors filtering through the air. A few drunken forty year olds stumbled into me, crushing my toes in their haste to get to wherever their dismal lives were leading. Finally, right near the stage where some band was setting up their instruments, I spotted the unmistakable blonde head of Hannah Hart.

"Troye!" She called out, sweeping me into a giant hug. I hugged her back, very aware of the too-long space of time that had passed since we had last embraced. I grinned, although I could tell she was a little drunk.

Tyler still nagged at the back of my mind.

I took a seat on the blanket, Hannah's beer tipping dangerously before she caught it.

"So, Troyeboy, how are things going?" The smile in her voice was evident but I couldn't help but almost cringe at the nickname. Tyler always called me Troyeboy.

"Pretty good, I guess."

Her brow crinkled, seeing right through me. "Troye, what's wrong?" Catching the look in my eyes, she added, "Don't you dare give me any B.S, either."

I frowned, but the sincere look on her face eventually defeated me as I sighed. "Tyler and I got into a fight."

She laughed, and I furrowed my eyebrows, glancing at her in confusion. Seeing the look on my face, she shoved my shoulder playfully. "That's what has you so moody? Troye, have you and Tyler ever fought before?"

"Not like this."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay, well I thought you knew Tyler better than thinking that he would just leave you hanging. You know he loves you, you're best friends." The fact that she had paired those two statements together made that familiar bitter sting return to my heart, but I continued to listen to her. "There's no way in hell that you guys are going to continue fighting about it any longer. In fact, I bet he's just trying to figure out how many ways he can call himself an idiot when he tries to talk to you. I bet you're doing the same, too." I had nothing to say to this, so Hannah just bumped her beer along my shoulder and cheered, "Now lets listen to some good music!"

And that's exactly what we did.

We stayed well after the vibrant pastel oranges and faded reds drifted from the sky along with the sun, swapping instead for jewel tones of purple and twilight blue that almost reminded me of Tyler's eyes. We stayed well after Hannah had consumed a few beers (and after I had stolen enough discreet sips to be faintly buzzed). We stayed and we laughed and we listened to the band, which had a little too much drumming and not enough guitar, and we talked until people began to dismantle the entire festival for the night.

It was probably one of the best nights I'd had in LA, to be honest.

The only thing missing was Tyler.

...........................................

Hello, humans. It me. Elle.

Sorry for the absolutely INSANE delay for this chapter, I've just been having the crappiest week. I'm not stressed or anything, I'd actually like to believe that I'm balancing schoolwork and updates fairly well, it's just that I kind of feel like my friends are pushing me away and I got kind of panicky today at lunch and it was getting hard to breathe and I just kept running my hand through my hair and pulling it. I ended up having to seek refuge from a bathroom stall to calm myself down and then I didn't say anything for the rest of the period (or day, really). Ugh, you know that feeling where you just feel like shit and nothing can make you feel better about yourself and then you kind of just feel like you want to hibernate for a month without any human interaction because you feel so terrible? Me right now. So soz for the shitty chapter, just been a shitty week overall, but I still tried (it took me three days to motivate myself to write this).

Dubai, cuties

-Elle xxx

(P.S. Thank y'all so incredibly much for 1k like whaaat)

(P.P.S my favorite wattpad author has read/voted for this story and she was the first person I ever followed and the author of the first Troyler fanfic I ever read so when I saw her votes I literally screeched)

(P.P.P.S I love yooooooooouuuuuuuu)