The last strands (#Tronnor)

Chapter 10: The photo shoot

It has been almost a week since Connor had last heard from Troye. Well, actually it had been four days, eight hours and fifty five minutes, but who’s counting? Ok, maybe Connor was. But he didn’t let it get to the top of his head; he was going about his daily routine like nothing had changed.

He woke up rather early like he used to. He didn’t think about how Troye loved sleeping in and complained every time he had to be woken before half past noon. He would go to jog out in the morning, like he always did. By no means did he keep thinking about how Troye hated to run and how funny he looked when he did. He filmed his video for the next Monday like nothing was different. He didn’t stop to think about how Troye was late with his video posting schedule. Again.

Speaking truthfully, Connor couldn’t understand why he wasn’t able to get Troye out of his head. He used to think about him all the time before already; that’s usually how a crush works. But now Troye would pop in his head out of the blue at the most random of places, and Connor didn’t understand why, but it was getting to him.

Connor didn’t understand he felt guilty for bailing on Troye the way he did.

And not because he liked Troye, or because of the idea of bailing someone in itself. He had bailed on many friends several times in the past and it had never particularly gotten to him quite this much. But deep down, he felt like he was running away. He was running away from having to face his crush and his truth. He was running from Kian and Jc’s suspicions, as from everyone else’s. He didn’t admit it to the mirror like he did everything else; he was too ashamed. In his mind, Tyler accused him of cowardice yet again, and he hated that. He also hated that in order to deceive his friends he had to make out with a random girl, and that he had to be dead drunk to go with it. Because he didn’t like it one bit, and he wasn’t at all into her, but he was scared to the bone of having his image changing to his friends.

It got to the point that, in order to get his mind off things (or attempting to) he had decided the best thing would be to occupy himself. He filmed the same video at least eight times, trying to get the perfect angles in each different take. He wanted to make one of the “artsy” videos that lately he had been enjoying a little bit too much. The chore had him occupied, but it still proved pointless.

Troye would like to film this.

Troye would understand what kind of frame he wanted to take.

Troye would like that song, too.

-“Shit…”—Connor said to himself when he was done filming the next frame (for the eleventh time)—“Why am I such a hopeless idiot…?”

He laid down on his couch and wondered if this was ever going to meet some sort of end. He wondered if Troye hated him now. He had certainly not made any attempts to call him or to make any plans, and they hadn’t skyped, texted or talked through Twitter. All of those things being everyday activities for the two of them.

-“… He definitely hates me now…”

Suddenly, Connor’s phone rang.

Jolted up with the energy of a lightning bolt, Connor rose from the couch and leaped towards his living room table, where he had left the phone, didn’t even checked the ID, and answered.

-“Troye!?”—he said into the phone, mentally slapping himself in the process for being so stupid.

-“What? Troye? No, pal, sorry to disappoint you.”

Connor sighed, gave himself a face palm and then proceeded to drop himself onto the couch once again. He was not only not thinking straight, he was also acting on impulses now. He just kept screwing himself up.