Connor: hey
Troye: hi. how was your day?
Connor: well could have been better, but it wasn't bad. dustin came back for the holidays.
Troye: he your brother?
Connor: yup. i hate texting can you FaceTime?
I pick at the strings of Kayla's bedsheets while I wait for FaceTime to connect, picking a hole in the million year old sheets. They're covered in white butterflies, the kind of sheets that were passed down to her from her sister, the ones that she wears because it's the only thing that that she has left of her.
"Hey," Connor says. "How's your trip gone so far?"
"It's been...interesting. Y-yeah. Interesting is a good word."
He frowns, giving me all of his attention, despite the fact that, from what I can see of the papers on his desk anyways, he has homework he seemed like he wanted to be doing. That's just how it is with us. Connor gives me his attention and his worry and his everlasting smile no matter what. Tyler gave me his pride and his laugh and his humour.
"Do you want to tell me about it?" I can hear the curiosity in his voice, but I can tell that he doesn't want to push it. He's scared for me. Scared of what this trip might have done to me.
"Well, we got here alright, everything went well. It was nice to see Kayla and her mom again. It's been forever."
He smiles. "Kayla's the one with the red hair, right?"
I laugh a bit. I had shown him pictures of all of my friends my Clarke Lake some time ago, not expecting him to remember any of them. "How do you even remember that?" He shrugs. "And no, the red haired one is Layla. Kayla has brown hair."
He nods, seeming to remember. "The one you said you met in the middle of a forest when you were six."
"Yup."
He smiles like Christmas had come early. "That's the most ridiculous best friend meeting story that I've ever heard."
"There's got to be something more ridiculous."
"Not where I'm from there isn't. All of us met in school. Anyways, keep going. You got to Kayla's house fine, and then...
"Kayla and I reminisced about all the great we'd had together and then dinner was about as awkward as I expected, but it was fine. I went over to the forest - the one where we met - and..." Split second decision. To tell him about the box or not to tell. "...I just sort of sat for awhile."
"Sounds relaxing."
"I guess. How was your day?"
He shrugs. "Not nearly as interesting as yours."
"I'm sure it was interesting!"
"Sure, if you call listening to Dustin talk all about college and how happy he is 'interesting' then yes, I suppose it was."
I let the words sink between us for a minute, and he looks away from the camera, out the window, towards the sky.
"You're going to figure something out, Con."
He sighs, eyes the color of the sea during a tsunami - strong and hard and cold and green and blue and white, with all the debris of the world mixed in. "I hope so."