A Piece of Me (Tracob)

To take care of each other

"What did we do for fun, Jacob?"

I glance up at Troye. I had previously thought he was sleeping, but I suppose he was just zoned out. He's laying on the living room floor with Nash, in a little nest of pillows and fleece throws. He discovered that, for whatever reason, he's comfortable like that. On the floor, usually laying on his back, tucked in a Troye-sized pile of cushions.

"Sorry, what?" I glance up from my laptop where I'm reading articles on amnesiac recovery stories and studies. I'm unhealthily obsessed with these sorts of things. I'm still not sure if they make me feel better or worse.

"For fun," Troye repeats. "Or just at all. What was it like? Before the accident, I mean."

"Oh."

My heart seems to sink at the same time as it rises. On one hand, he's showing consistent interest in knowing me and himself as he was before, which is good, but on the other hand, I try not to think too much about how things were before the crash, because quite frankly, it's awful to contemplate how much I've lost.

"Good," I say weakly. "They were good."

Troye's face changes and he flicks his large blue eyes away from me. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "I shouldn't have asked that, I didn't mean to...I don't want to upset you."

"No no no no," I shut my laptop and slide off the stool at the bar countertop, taking a seat on the floor beside him. If he wants to know, I'll tell him anything, no matter how much it hurts me. "Don't be sorry, it just, the question caught me off guard, that's all."

Troye gives a small smile and rolls flat on his back, so close that his head is almost sort of in my lap, but not quite. His white-blonde curls brush against my knee.

"We were really happy," I tell him after a moment. "We kind of had everything. The careers, the house, the perfect dog, each other, most importantly. We were probably the luckiest people in the world. We got to travel a lot, all the time. Too much, sometimes, between my job and yours. We followed each other around the world as much as we could, but there would be days and weeks when sometimes our individual ventures would take us to opposite ends of the globe, and that sucked, but you know, we still face timed every chance we got and called and sent letters and...postcards." I trail off with a chuckle. Troye doesn't know it anymore, but the word postcard has been a cosmic joke between us ever since the fiasco several years ago.

Troye's brow creases. "Postcards that were...funny?"

"No," I shake my head. "It's not that the postcards were funny, it's just..." I glance down at him. "You want to hear a story?"

The corners of Troye's mouth quirk up. "Yeah. Please."

"Hold on," I get to my feet and grab my phone off the counter, returning to my spot on the floor and clicking into Spotify. "I'm going to play a song for you, a song that you wrote."

"That I wrote?" Troye repeats, looking skeptical.

"Yeah, that you wrote. There's a bunch of them, actually, but we'll get to those in time. This story is only about one song. Just listen, okay?"

"Okay."

The soft piano intro begins and Troye's eyes flutter shut. He listens intently, he's that sort of person. You can see he's absorbing each note, each word.

It's a sad song, god it sounds like a heartbreaking song of unrequited love and caring about someone more than they could ever care for you

Kissed me and said 'I love you baby', you didn't give a fuck.