16 year old Troye Sivan couldn't protect his best friend, James, from what happened when they were younger. Losing the one thing that brought him any happiness, Troye escapes into his art, the only thing capable of breaking his endless cycle of apa...
"Without losing a piece of me, how do I get to heaven?"
-Troye Sivan, Heaven
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Troye's POV
After a long, luxurious shower, Troye stared into his closet, trying to decide what to wear. A flash of scarlet caught his eyes, and he slid clothes hangers to the side to extract a red sweater he had bought but never worn. The tags were still on it. Studying the vibrant, rich color, he decided that was what he wanted today. He supposed he could do something with his hair too. Troye moved to stand in front of a mirror, frowning at his reflection. He had been cursed with very curly, unruly hair and his only real option was to either straighten it, or leave it loose. After a long moment of staring at himself, he decided to just leave it be, grabbing a comb and tidying the unrulier parts.
Putting the comb down, he studied himself critically. His hand went unthinking to the chain around his neck, the dog tags hanging from it. He pulled it out from underneath his shirt and pressed his palm against it, eyeing the sweater with some apprehension. It was very conspicuous, drew the eye immediately. He almost took it off, but was too beguiled by the color.
He prowled around the dorm like a caged animal, restless and with no place to spend his energy. He walked to the kitchen, before deciding that he didn't actually want to eat anything. He plopped himself in in front of the TV, remote in hand, and then decided that he wasn't really interested in watching anything. He was definitely in a strange mood. He wondered what Tyler was doing at that very moment, and then frowned at his wayward musing. The thought of Tyler, which he had crammed to the back of his mind, was not staying as far back as he wanted. Even when he managed not to think about him, an awareness of the thing he wasn't thinking about trickled along the back of his neck, staying focused on the object of his attention yet keeping his mind off every aspect of it.
He cast around for a distraction, picking up a sketchbook and doodling absentmindedly. After a while, he realized his hand was still and he was simply staring into space. He opened up to a blank page and began to doodle again. At first, he wasn't even conscious of what he was drawing, just a mess of shapes and random lines. But eventually he saw something round emerge within the twisted scribbles: the Ferris wheel. As he added layers of details and shading, the scene expanded to include an abstract sketch of the whole carnival.
He knew what he was doing. He was trying to recover the memory of last night. Perhaps he wanted to relive the night's anxieties, both to mask today's, and to remind himself that if his worst fears had suddenly been dispelled once he'd pushed himself, perhaps they might be as easily subdued if he pushed himself in other situations.
But he couldn't remember last night's anxieties. They were completely overshadowed by what had followed them and seemed to belong to an alcove of time to which he had no access at all. Everything about that night, save for the salient moments, had vanished. He remembered getting off the ride and having Tyler look at him deeply, his searching gaze seeming to say, was that okay? He remembered smiling slightly, like someone reserving judgement for later. But he hadn't been sincere. It was more than okay. He was more than okay. Everything about that moment, and the moments that followed it, thrilled him. Every subsequent glance that crossed his own came like a caress, or like an asking and answering that simply lingered in midair between him and the rest of the world; between him and Tyler. He had felt electrified – by the glances, by the distracted expression, by the smiles that seemed pleased he existed, by the buoyant air of the night that graced everything from the games around them, to the rolled-up sleeves of the ride's operator, down to Tyler himself- everything seemed to glow with luster at once wondrous and transformative. It had come to him like an undefined, amorphous feeling which touched every pore of his body, part stimulation, part yearning, part dizzying metaphor. But how long had they stayed? What rides had they gone on afterwards? How had each person said their goodbyes and gone their separate ways? He had no idea. Things that had seemed so real just the other day, were now impressions of fragments of memories struggling to make sense.
