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Connor’s phone is in his hand in an instant like some sort of reflex he can’t explain – he looks at it, then at the Hotel TV screen once again, with narrowed eyes. He’s angry his ignorance has been disturbed – a perfect cultivated act Connor has kept up for months, impressive all considered - so many conversations halted the moment he enters rooms that he has become tired of feeling like the corpse that showed up to his own funeral. Now, in a hotel room in New York, a different type of ghost is staring back at him – the man he used to love. He rummages through the strewn duvet, until he locates the remote, not turning off the TV but muting it, leaving Troye’s earnestly furrowed brows to play out him front of him, a slight glimmer to his eyes.
After months and months of silence Connor feels he finally has something to say. He wants to call Troye, which makes even less sense, because you know, Saturday Night Live, Live being the operative word here. Troye sent Connor the song a few months ago, the subject field blank, and an awkward ramble about how he feels Connor should at least read the lyrics before it goes any further, to which he had responded curtly, ‘what do I care, do you what you want.’ Now, Connor scrunches his eyes up, waiting to feel the hot prickle of tears but nothing comes. Here is this public apology, for the world to hear, two years later and he doesn’t know what to do with it – make Troye feel guilty? He isn’t even sure what his number is anymore.
‘What's troyes no.?’ he messages Tyler, surprised to get an instant response with said number, followed by, ‘are you ok’.
‘No. myb. Idk,’ Connor replies, before he copies the number into his phone, saving it simply as ‘T’.
‘I don’t know what u want me to say,’ he sends.
Troye’s performance is over, he’ll probably check his phone straight away backstage, but then again, maybe not, maybe his mum is there or even his boyfriend, and they’ll hug and calm him down with aimless chatter. Except maybe he’ll check his phone, and not only reply to the twenty numbers he knows but also to the one that that simply shows a line of digits. Connor goes to have a shower.
‘Con?’ The reply stares back at him as he approaches the bed, his bottom half wrapped in a towel.
‘Yh.’
‘Hi’ comes through, then is quickly followed by, ‘you don't have to say anything.’
‘Ok’ he responds, fingers hovering, so much on the edge of his thoughts: ‘you were good’, ‘well done’, ‘hows your mum’ and ‘fuck you’. Somehow across New York, he can feel feel Troye’s hesitation too, so he puts his phone down and goes to put some sweats on - his phone buzzes moments later.
‘Can we talk? Tomorrow? Please,’ the message reads.
Connor of maybe even six months ago would have held hope this meant they were getting back together, or at least going to have one more night together – current day Connor, has tried his best to carve off that part of his heart. He really has. Maybe he owed it to himself to prove that.
‘Ok’
‘Kl, what time is it in LA?’
‘Not in LA. NY, same time as you’
‘Oh. Well do you want to meet in person?’ Troye responds, then after ‘sorry, is that too presumptuous? Phone is fine.’
‘No, no, in person is good. I can only really do first thing, sure u’ll be up for it?’
‘Of course. Con, I really wanna see u’
They come up with some rough timings a location, then Connor falls asleep half naked, already emotionally exhausted by the whole thing.
-
Troye’s hair is blonde, washed out and peroxided, but somehow still glossy. Connor knew this already and still, it stops him for a second – thinking how it separates him so clearly from the Troye who used to be part of his life. Troye still hasn’t seen him up until this point, he could totally turn, and run and just never face this but curiosity gets the best of him, and some invisible force moves his legs towards the tucked away table.
“Hi,” he blurts out, swaying awkwardly.
“Hey,” Troye replies, holding back an open grin as if he isn’t sure it’s allowed – he sits up in his chair, as if he’s about to push up and embrace Connor, then second guesses it, and awkwardly nods his head as if to signal for Connor to sit.
It’s awkward, of course it is, they mindlessly comment about where they’d flown from, about how much they love New York, but how it’s so intense and loud. They haven’t even mentioned the reason either of them are here, at this table, in this moment. Connor feels fed up, if Troye wants to say some meaningful thing, he should – he isn’t here to have pleasantries, then walk away with the same stubborn pain, the same aching want for answers.
“Troye,” Connor says, cutting him off on some inane ramble about the table decorations, or the subway, he isn’t sure.
Troye looks at him, started, and suddenly about seventeen years old.
“I’m sorry,” Troye says.
Connor holds back the instinct to scoff at that.
“About?” He simply says, raising an eyebrow.
“Uh? The song. About bringing all this back into your life, I know I asked, but maybe I should have warned you it was going to be on SNL.”
Connor did not know what he expected, an apology for their break up? For falling for someone else? For not calling? For being young?
“It felt like… for so long, I didn’t think I even registered on your radar, and I know that sounds like a judgement on your character but..” Connor explains.
“That’s – you’re entitled to make them,” Troye mutters towards to the table.
He waits for Connor to continue but he’s lost his original drive.
“I do miss you,” Troye says, filling the silence.
“Yeah, well, you left. It looks good on you too, it’s probably good for me too,” Connor responds in a matter of fact way.
“I know. But I don’t think I knew I was?”
“Leaving?” Connor provides.
“Yeah. I think I needed space, and that –“ Troye looks up at him but Connor is no longer facing him, though he registers the movement out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe this is irrelevant to say or you don’t want to hear this,” Troye continues, seemingly veering off whatever path he had dared to walk down.
Connor moves the hand previously covering his mouth and lets out a shaky breath, willing his voice not to break before he talks.
“I didn’t really believe you were leaving either. Not completely, at least,” Connor says to the wall.
“Once, I met – I just knew I couldn’t call you or see you, especially with how you found out. But I wanted to call you, or write to you, so much if only to explain.”
“Explain what?” Connor asks, eyebrow raised as he turns to face Troye once again.
“That it wasn’t on purpose, that it wasn’t a thing when we were thing, never, there was never anyone else. That it didn’t mean I didn’t love you, I think I even loved you for the first few months I was with him but it became more and more abstract, and eventually he was all I could think about.”
Connor is surprised how little that feels like a knife through a chest, hearing it so plainly, it’s so reminiscent of how he use to feel about Troye – but its all back to front now, Troye was this strange appearance in his life, just there, a friend of course, but it never felt more than that and it never felt possible it could be, until Troye was all he could think about.
“Sounds like us. How we used to be,” Connor says, earnestly.
Troye smiles at that, seemingly caught off guard.
“Yeah. Yeah,” there’s a stretching silence, then Troye says, “I miss my best friend.”
“Me too,” Connor says, the space between them feels malleable, possible.
Troye feels less like the bitter taste in Connor’s mouth in this moment, and more like a sweet memory, just out of reach - each passing by on their own separate roads, and it feels okay.