A Piece of Me (Tracob)

Good for me, good for you

A week later, Troye gets the cast on his leg off. He celebrates by dancing around the living room and promptly taking a nap afterwards. I'm careful to make sure he doesn't overdo it again. The week after that is our first consistently really good week. We start watching a new TV show together, which gives us something to bond over again. He spends all of Wednesday flipping through old scrapbooks from our first couple of years together, and subsequently peppers me with questions about trips we took and things we did. I feel for once like he's making tangible progress. Really, things are finally looking up, I should be happy, and I am...but the one small thing holding me back is his attitude.

It's not that he's not happy, quite the contrary, he's the happiest I've seen him in months, it's the fact that, I feel like...I don't know how to say it. I feel like he doesn't love me, not how I love him. I mean, he'll lean his head on my shoulder, or hug me or ruffle my hair or something, but it's no different than how he would have treated one of our friends.The feelings just aren't there. I'm a friend to him, just one of the guys.

I don't want to be one of the guys. In fact there's no worse feeling than being one of the guys, because the truth is, I can't live the rest of my life with him as friends, no matter how selfish that makes me sound. I don't want to fistbump him and grab a beer, I mean I don't fistbump anyone and grab a beer, I'm fucking gay as shit and he's my boyfriend, it's just not right. We're supposed to be all domestic and cute and in love, not two bros chilling.

I want to fall asleep with my head on his shoulder, I want to wake up and kiss him, I want to spend all day next to him, to lift him onto the counter while we make dinner, cup his face and kiss him slowly because there's no one around and nowhere to be, just us.

And I don't know what to do if he never feels that way again, because walking away from him after everything seems like the worst thing in the world, but staying with him when there's no love feels impossible too. I think either option would break me.

There's no way to win here.

---

Alright, maybe I'm avoiding Troye a little bit. It's not really on purpose...it's emotional self defense, that's all.

A prime example of 'I don't know how to handle this problem at all, so I'm going to ignore it'. Also known as 'an extremely healthy coping mechanism'. And it's not so bad, until he starts to notice me being distance, and I start feeling guilty about that, and now I have two problems and no idea how to fix either one.

On Sunday he comes into the kitchen while I make coffee, hopping up on one of the barstools, as he always does now, simply because he can physically manage it.

"Are you mad at me?"

I set down my empty mug, caught off guard. "Why would I be mad at you?"

"You're not talking to me."

"I'm talking to you now," I point out.

"You're not initiating talking to me," he amends, which...is fair. "How hard is it to start a conversation?" Troye plucks a piece of fuzz off his sweater and tosses it at me. "Best friends, remember, Jake?"

And see, that, right there, that's what gets me. He has the privilege of being all cute and sweet and friendly without having any idea how much it hurts me. Yeah, of course we were best friends when we were together but that's not all we were.

"Yeah, I know," I shrug my shoulders. "Coffee?" I offer, sliding the newly filled mug towards him. He takes it, rolling his eyes and sliding off the stool. "Still ignoring me, just subtly now. Have it your way."