Originally published Oct. 20th, 2015.

Genre: Like serious hurt and ow my heart and why do I torture people like this I'm a terrible person but also it's kind of a very hopeful ish story and things get kind of better. I wrote the first 5k like eight months ago and just found it again too so the first bit isn't as up to par with what I've been writing lately but I like it so here, have a story.

Warning: Allusions to self-harm and mildly graphic (but not really) attempted suicide.

Word Count: 8.4k

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You're thirteen when the world snaps off its axis, twisting until it begins to revolve solely around him.

Tyler and I met in eighth grade. He was new to our school that year, having transferred from the private one on the other side of the river, and I guess I must have thought he could use a friend because the next thing I knew I was ditching the friends I already had to go sit with him at lunch.

He was grateful, I think, in that way thirteen year olds so often are but rarely show. I remember thinking he had a beautiful smile when I finally coaxed it out of him.

We became fast friends from there on, easily finding shared interests but keeping enough differences to feel like maybe we were learning something valuable from each other. The other kids didn't know what to make of Tyler with his dyed hair and lively personality, but that had never bothered me.

Besides, all of the kids I was actually friends with thought he was great and, really, their opinions were the only ones that mattered to me. My family pulled him in among our ranks pretty quickly too once I finally got around to inviting him over. It made me happy, knowing they approved of this boy I'd so quickly found myself considering a best friend.

It was so simple then, I think, to make new friends and fall easily into this routine we'd managed to form. It was simple to draw him into the friend group I already had like he'd been a part of it our whole lives. It was simple to call him my best friend and tell him I loved him and joke around and oh, God. I should have been smarter, more careful. I should have kept him at arms length or stayed away altogether.

I should have known not to call him my "best friend" because, really, I think that stupid label is the reason everything fell apart so easily.

You're fourteen when you realize his world didn't do the same.

It was our first year at high school and we were all way too excited over it. Kayla had even managed to convince me to let her dress me for the occasion, which actually wasn't as bad an idea as I'd felt at the time.

We waited for each other outside the school, the group of us huddled together and chattering excitedly about the upcoming year. Tyler was shivering in the fresh autumn air by the time most of us had finally arrived and I didn't even think twice before offering him my jacket. He accepted, of course, and I remember being vaguely confused by the fluttering in my chest before brushing it off as nerves. It made sense after all, considering this would be our first year attending high school and we no longer had the comfort of knowing for certain that we'd be in the same class.

We weren't. At least, not Tyler and I. Where I had nearly every class with both Kayla and Shane, I had absolutely none with the one person I was apparently desperate to keep by my side.

For a moment, I felt like I couldn't breathe. It took Shane telling me we had to find our English class soon or we'd be late to snap me out of the sudden haze I'd gone into, so focused on the very real possibility that I might lose Tyler as a best friend this year. After all, everybody knew people drifted apart when they weren't constantly together.

Eventually, I did manage to gather myself back together enough to snap out of it and head off with the two friends I wasn't so terrified of losing. I couldn't help glancing back at Tyler, though, and feeling this small sting when I realized he wasn't looking back, too caught up in a conversation with Grace.

That moment, I think, could probably sum up our entire first year of high school.

While I focused on keeping the friends I already had and maintaining my good grades, my relationship with my family as well as my secret passion for music, Tyler spent his time attending every possible party and drifting away from the tight-knit group of people who'd so kindly welcomed him into their ranks only the year before. He didn't seem to even see me anymore, too focused on climbing up the social ladder of the high school hierarchy to notice that his best friend wasn't even really his friend anymore.

I didn't cry over it, but I wanted to. I'd spent what seemed like so long building this friendship with him, making sure he was alright, caring about him, and it felt like a slap in the face to realize I didn't actually matter to him. I was upset and hurt and by the time Tyler seemed to notice that I hadn't spoken to him in months, I'd accepted the fact that we'd only been friends for a year and, really, I didn't have much of a right to be as upset over it as I was.

Funny- isn't it -how just when I gave up, he started to try. Of course, I'd moved on by the time he came around asking why I hadn't talked to him in forever. I'd formed a new friendship with a kid from my drama class, Caspar, and had started to forget me and Tyler had ever been as close as we were. It didn't take long for him to figure that out, I think.

Next thing I knew, I was being relentlessly pursued by the boy who was now at the top of the social ladder - despite his only being in ninth grade - and had become the target of an exuberant amount of impromptu late-night visits to my house as well. Thankfully, I'd only gotten my phone a few months ago and hadn't given Tyler the number, since we weren't talking by that point.

Eventually, I had to give him credit for trying so hard and at least let him into the house when he came by for the billionth time in the past two weeks. He seemed mildly shocked when I opened the door, but wiped it off quickly enough and barged inside without further hesitation.

We didn't so much as have a conversation that night. Rather, we closed ourselves into my room- him standing by the door, me sitting on the edge of my bed -and avoided each other's gaze until eventually a screaming match erupted out of the silence.

By the end of it, I think Tyler had realized he'd been kind of a terrible friend lately. And, me? Well, I'd realized that I couldn't expect him not to change and not to be himself. I couldn't hold him back from doing things he liked just because I didn't share those interests.

We came out all the better for it, obviously, but I still remember lying in bed that night and trying to fight back the tears that came with the realization that I would never matter to Tyler as much as he mattered to me.

When you're fifteen, you're crushed by the feeling lingering at the bottom of your heart that you've been holding at bay for so long.

Our second year of high school started off better than the last. Tyler and I had two of our four classes together, which was better than none at all even if it wasn't quite what I'd wanted. So I was happy and confident going into school in September, feeling like this year was going to be so much better than the last.

By December I'd realized that wasn't the case at all.

Marcus Butler wasn't news by any means, being that we often considered him the most talked about junior in the whole school. What was news, however, was that he'd recently brought his abundant sexual endeavors to an end. No one could tell you why, except maybe his best friend, Alfie Deyes.

Until I was informed by my own best friend of what exactly was going on, that is.

Well, less 'informed' and more I accidentally walked in on the two of them basically getting it on in Tyler's room when I went over to give him back the sweater he'd left at my house the night before. Needless to say, the second I opened the door and realized what was actually happening, I felt like I'd walked straight into an alternate reality where things like this didn't even make people blink. Marcus certainly didn't seem fazed, at least.

Tyler, on the other hand, immediately jerked away from the shirtless boy in his bed, scrambling to pull his t-shirt over his head while stumbling over a word as simple as my name. Eventually, Marcus let out a deep sigh and pulled his shirt back on, too, though much more reluctantly than Tyler had.

I felt like I couldn't breathe. Still, I managed to force a convincing enough smile when Tyler launched into an explanation that they'd been seeing each other for months, but had wanted to keep it secret because they didn't think people would react well to the school "slut" and the school "queen" being together. I told him it was fine, I wouldn't tell anyone, no I wasn't upset he hadn't even mentioned it to me, of course I didn't disapprove.

All except for the second of those statements were lies, but I must have been getting better at withholding the truth because Tyler sagged visibly in relief, not even doubting a single word that left my lips.

Later, after Marcus had gone home when he realized he wasn't going to be getting laid on that particular night, the two of us rested in silence on Tyler's bed and stared up at his ceiling. He was the first to break it, telling me he was really happy with Marcus and couldn't even imagine it ending any time soon. I was glad he was still staring straight up and couldn't see my face. I didn't think I could've forced a smile when I asked him if he loved him.

And, when he said he thought he might, I didn't think I could've even pretended that didn't feel like a blunt knife being twisted into my gut a thousand times over before promptly being ripped harshly out and leaving me there to bleed to death. And the moment I felt it, I knew.

I was in love with Tyler Oakley.

Realizing that was the most awful moment of my life.

When you're sixteen, you realize that feeling is never going to be returned. That doesn't mean it goes away.

Our third year of high school was worse than our second. Tyler and Marcus had broken up over the summer, the senior going back to his old ways the moment Tyler finally realized he didn't mean as much to Marcus as Marcus meant to him. Basically, walking down the halls we usually frequented and hanging out with our usual friend group had become an awkward thing with the two of them purposely ignoring each other.

The worst of it, however, came in the form of a party halfway through March. It was some senior girl's birthday, I guess, and she'd invited her entire grade as well as ours to her house while her parents were gone for the weekend. I knew it was a bad idea from the start, but Tyler had already forced me to promise I'd go to whatever party came up next after I refused to attend the last one. Parties weren't my thing, which Tyler knew very well, and that's probably why he ignored all of my protesting as he dragged me into the car and sped off across the town.

It didn't start off bad. I'd asked Tyler not to abandon me, considering he was the one who'd dragged me here when I didn't want to go in the first place, and he held true to that promise for the first hour or so, pulling me with him when he wanted to go mingle with people who's names I didn't even know.

I was just starting to realize that maybe it wasn't so bad and I was actually having some modicum of fun there with Tyler when he broke his word and disappeared into the crowd with a casual "I'm going to go dance," thrown back over his shoulder. I remember staring after the mass of bodies he'd vanished into and feeling my heart claw its way up into my throat. He'd left me, like I'd thought he would when he'd asked me to come in the first place, and somehow that just seemed to confirm my idea that I'd never be as important to Tyler as he was to me, a thought that had remained stuck in the back of my head since ninth grade.

At first, I just tried to brush it off and went to get a drink, downing it quickly before filling the cup up again and heading back out. It wasn't until I'd settled awkwardly into the quietest corner I could find that I finally saw Tyler again. He was dancing with some other guy, pressed close against him as their bodies ground into each other. They were kissing, too, if you could even call it that.

It's hard to say what happened next- maybe I stared for a while longer, maybe I collapsed back against the wall, maybe I just tucked tail and left right as soon as I saw it -but somehow I ended up in the considerably less populated backyard, curled in on myself as I clutched the drink in my hand like my life depended on it. I felt like I couldn't breathe and I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I shouldn't have been so affected by this, but that knowledge didn't really seem help. After watching him with Marcus for almost half a year and comforting him when they'd finally called it quits, I guess I must have thought he'd never do anything with anyone again. I'd hoped so, at least, even though I knew it was a ridiculous expectation to have.

At some point, I started to cry.

What must have been twenty minutes later, I found that I could no longer say I was alone. Grace, whom I hadn't known was even here, had taken up residence by my side, reaching over to pat at my back and wrap me in a hug. She didn't ask me what was wrong. Maybe that's why I told her.

"He's never going to love me back," I choked out through my tears, curling tighter in on myself. Grace tried to give me a weak smile, but it didn't take a genius to see that she couldn't disagree with my statement.

"It's going to be okay," she told me anyway, kissing the top of my head in a gesture that was so sisterly it made me feel homesick despite the fact that I was only a few blocks away from my house. I started crying harder. Grace pulled me up and moved me into her car, telling me she'd take me home in a way that made it sound like she was honestly scared to do so. I wasn't sure why, then, but now I think she was worried I'd only feel worse if she left me alone.

Still, I made it home eventually and ended up curled up in the middle of my bed, staring blankly at the grey walls of my room and trying to make myself stop crying. It was getting ridiculous, really, how easily I was hurt by everything Tyler Oakley related.

My mother came in at some point, which I would've thought odd since it was around one in the morning if I had thought anything at all, and came to sit on the edge of my bed, resting a hand on my shoulder in a comforting gesture. I didn't so much as turn to face her and eventually she sighed before leaning down to kiss the top of my head and pull me into her arms.

"Troye," she whispered softly, running her fingers through my hair like she'd done when I was little to try to coax me to sleep. "Can't you tell me what's wrong?"

No, I wanted to say. You can't fix it, anyway. You can't make him care about me.

"It hurts," was what I said instead. My mom let out a quiet breath, leaning down further like that would bridge this gap between us so she could see what was on my side of the chasm.

"What does?" she prodded gently. I didn't answer, but I think she already knew that I wasn't talking about a physical injury. She also must have known I wasn't going to say anything because she tried again after another beat of nothing. "Where does it hurt?"

I let out a choked sob and sank further into her arms, wishing they could just get rid of the rest of the world so I wouldn't have to keep feeling like this. "Everywhere," I sobbed weakly, wrapping my own arms around her as I continued to cry. I didn't stop for hours. She didn't say anything else.

That was the night it struck me that Tyler would never love me back. I'd be spending the rest of my life watching him break my heart without a care in the world.

That was also the night I thought about leaving for the first time.

You're seventeen and you know you need to do something with yourself to distract your heart from the knives that are constantly being wedged into it.

The idea came from a night spent coasting through light-hearted YouTube videos in an effort to make myself feel less like I was falling apart. At first, it was just half of a formed thought poking at the edges of my mind, but as the days dragged on and it grew into a fully-fledged idea, I realized that I really could do it.

It was summer by now, which meant I had far too much free time on my hands and far too little excuses to see my friends. I was bored and lonely and I needed a distraction from the thoughts that I could no longer push out of my mind as easily as I did in ninth grade.

So, on August 26th of 2012, I uploaded my first video to YouTube.

It was short and simple, just a quick introduction to get me started in this whole vlogging community I'd found myself so enthralled by. Things kind of just took off from there and soon enough I was uploading a new video every week, calling on some of my closer friends to do tags with me and somehow finding my way into that very community I'd taken to like a fish to water. I didn't tell Tyler, of course, because I wanted at least this one little part of my life to remain untouched by him.

Predictably, that didn't last long.

It was February and I had 28 videos and half a million subscribers when Tyler came rushing towards me at school, looking equal parts pissed off and excited, with just a dash of upset. I was mildly terrified of what was going on with him, but I'd managed to convince myself within the first thirty seconds of seeing him that he must have had a fight with his current boyfriend or something. That wasn't the case at all, as I discovered mere moments later.

"Troye," he snapped, grabbing my arm and dragging me away from the swarming rush of students. It was lunch time, which meant everyone was out in the halls milling about and filling the air with the pungent smell of aftershave and perfume. "How could you not tell me?"

I was confused, of course, and had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I said as much, to which he only responded with a hard punch to my arm and, "The videos, you dumb-ass."

I'd frozen the second the words reached my ears, my heart dropping into my stomach and the blood draining away from my face. I opened my mouth to respond, but closed it again when nothing came out. It took me doing this three times for Tyler to realize I was freaking out.

"Hey," he said, confused as he furrowed his brows. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's just-" I cleared my throat, looking away. "It's just that I didn't know you'd seen them."

"Oh right, well, maybe that's because you didn't tell me," Tyler shot back rapidly, his tone quickly shifting from confused worry to angry and upset. I swallowed harshly.

"I, uh, didn't think you'd care."

Tyler looked completely taken aback by my statement, which wasn't actually the main reason I hadn't told him but that I'd realized was also true the second I said it. Still, Tyler was shocked. "Why would you think that?"

I shrugged non-committaly, shuffling my feet and wishing I could be anywhere but there. Tyler opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but ended up getting cut off by his boyfriend interrupting our conversation to drag him away for a lunch date. I watched them go with a hollow feeling in my chest, suddenly remembering what I'd been trying to distract myself from all this time.

Still, I felt like maybe the whole YouTube thing was helping in a way. It gave me something else to focus on, something else to invest myself in and not have it all just thrown back in my face at every possible chance.

It made me feel less trapped, which was a good thing considering how close I'd been to removing myself from the equation that summer. I'd had to start taking anti-depressants then, too, which was something no one outside of my family knew about.

So it helped and soon enough I found myself with all these opportunities I'd never even dreamed of being able to have before. Like VidCon only a few months after I made my first video, where I met the most incredible people and came out with new friends who were much more positive and supportive than the people I was surrounded by back home. Plus, they didn't know Tyler, which was a good thing in my books. It meant I could pretend he didn't exist when I was with them and that he wasn't tearing me apart piece by piece without even knowing it.

On June 5th, my eighteenth birthday, I even signed a record deal and started on the path towards becoming the person I'd always wanted to be but had never thought I could. I didn't tell anyone from my town who wasn't a family member, not even Tyler or Grace, but I think it was probably the thing that kept me going the most. I was happy and I was okay for the first time in years.

My life no longer revolved solely around this boy who kept ripping my heart to shreds and throwing the pieces back in my face.

You're eighteen and you're doing both a thousand times better and a million times worse, but at least now you have more things to live for.

It made sense, this idea of moving to L.A. that I couldn't shake no matter how much I told myself it would never happen. I was done with high school and had reached a point in this whole YouTube career where I could easily support myself anywhere I went. Plus, LA seemed to be the place where the community was centered around, so it made even more sense for me to make my life there.

I knew I had to go somewhere. I had to get away from everything that followed me around like a dark cloud blocking out everything good that could come. I had to get away from Tyler and his stupid new college boyfriend who thought the fact that I held an obvious torch for my best friend was hilarious and therefore should be used against me at any given moment. I had to escape, get out, go somewhere where I felt like I could actually breathe for once. So I left.

It was January when I made the move and I remember sitting in the airport on the phone with Grace and Mamrie, who were women I both admired greatly and shared the YouTube thing with, since they'd picked it up only months after I had. I was shaking and sweating and so nervous I could barely see straight, but there was this strange tingling feeling in my chest like this was what I'd been waiting for my whole life.

There was a sinking feeling in my stomach too, though, and I couldn't shake it no matter how many times I reminded myself that this was the best thing I could ever do for myself. I knew where it came from, too, and it only made it so much worse.

I hadn't told Tyler I was leaving. He was off in Michigan with his boyfriend then, trying to decide if the college life was what he wanted and, if it was, if this special friend of his was someone he could live with while he went to school. I was hurt by the fact that he'd neglected to mention even having a boyfriend until the day he had me drive him to the airport and maybe that was where this was coming from, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

If Tyler didn't want to fill me in on the major things in his life, why should I do that for him?

Still, I kept glancing nervously around the airport like he was going to jump out any second and scream at me for not telling him I was moving halfway across the world. I tried to tell myself I wasn't hoping that would happen, that he would show up and beg me not to go, but it didn't work. I knew, deep down, that I would always be wishing he'd chase after me like I'd chased after him for the past four years.

Grace, her voice gentle and sweet and so understanding it hurt, told me it would be easier once I was too far away to see him every day and let him hurt me with everything he did. I smiled tightly even though she couldn't see me and told her I was sure that'd be the case.

I knew it wouldn't. It felt like I was never going to get over Tyler, like I was always going to be trailing after him, wishing he would turn around and just look at me for once. I just wanted him to see me, to see how much he was tearing me apart and trampling all over me like I was just a footstool for him to reach the people who were actually worth his time.

I didn't tell Grace any of that, but I think she knew anyway. She always knew.

When my flight was called, I almost didn't get on it. My throat closed up and my hands started to shake even more and suddenly I was so painfully aware of the fact that I was leaving everything I'd ever known and I hadn't even told my best friend.

My best friend, whom I'd suddenly realized wasn't that at all. In fact, he was barely even a friend anymore. We'd drifted so far apart in those years he'd spent ripping my heart to shreds and tossing it back in my face without even knowing it that I realized he probably barely knew a thing about me anymore. And almost everything I knew about him were notions that were common knowledge to the whole town, considering Tyler had never bothered much with privacy. We didn't have any shared secrets, didn't know every little detail about each other.

And, apparently, we didn't even tell each other about the major decisions we made in our lives anymore.

So I boarded that plane and I didn't look back until I'd settled comfortably into my new home in LA and the sound of my buzzer going off woke me up one morning. I was confused, having no idea as to who it could have been, until I went down to open the door for them and saw an all too familiar head of subtly-dyed mint hair. That was when I forgot how to breathe again and the suffocating feeling that had followed me around back in our hometown returned at full force.

Tyler, angered by me not letting him in right away, stepped closer to the glass door of my apartment building and knocked loudly, shooting me a thoroughly pissed off look. I almost just turned back around and left him there, not wanting to have to deal with this when everything had been going so well in the two weeks I'd spent here already. Instead, I hesitantly swung the door open and let him inside before moving up the stairs without a word and heading towards my apartment on the third floor.

I was barely even aware of him following behind me until I'd unlocked the door and stepped inside, having to wait to close it behind him. I leaned back against it when I had, swallowing hard and keeping my eyes on anything that wasn't him. Tyler must have noticed my discomfort because he cut his examination of my home off short to turn back towards me.

"Why didn't you tell me you were moving halfway across the country?"

It was an accusation in the way everything Tyler ever said to me was. I could tell in the firm set of his pursed lips and the angry fire burning behind his eyes, not to mention the tight tone of his voice that clearly suggested barely-contained rage. I didn't know what to tell him, since obviously the greater of the truths was off the table.

In the end, I settled for, "Why would I?"

Tyler didn't look particularly happy with that answer, if the hot breath out and darkening scowl were anything to go by. He didn't move from his position standing firmly in the middle of my apartment, arms folded harshly across his chest and short figure towering over me in presence. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he demanded, like it really wasn't obvious.

I wanted to laugh because God, could he be any more blind? I didn't, though, because I was Troye and he was Tyler and when was the last time I did anything I actually wanted to when I was with him?

"Come on, Tyler," I suggested disbelievingly. There was no way he actually thought we were okay, we were best friends, we still shared things with each other like we had that first year we'd met back in eighth grade. Or maybe I just wanted to believe he at least paid enough attention to me to have noticed how I'd been distancing myself from him for a while now. "You can't honestly think we still tell each other anything."

I watched his expression shift from anger to complete and absolute disbelief, clearly taken aback by the simple statement. My own expression was a sad, humorous smile and imploring eyes that clearly said it should have been obvious.

"What-" he started, but cut himself off just as fast. His brows furrowed into an uncertain frown, his mouth opening and closing as his eyes flitted wildly across my features like the secrets of the universe were written in the wrinkles above my cheeks.

He swallowed hard, turning away as he appeared to try to make sense of it, before suddenly his figure went rigid and all the breath left him in one great gush. He froze, gaze locked on something across the room and near my bed, my own eyes following his after a moment where neither of us moved.

Oh, I thought, locking in on the four half-empty bottles of medication sitting on my bedside table. Two different kinds of anti-depressants, one anti-anxiety and a nearly finished bottle of liquid melatonin to help me sleep.

"You..." Tyler tried, trailing off as his voice started to shake.

I wanted to laugh again because I didn't understand why he was so affected by the sight of such incriminating evidence as to my state of being. It wasn't like any of it was new, I'd been taking everything but the anxiety meds since I was barely seventeen, and it wasn't like it hadn't been obvious I'd needed them long before then.

If Tyler had ever actually taken just one fucking look at me, he would have already known.

"I think you should go," I found myself telling him, stepping back from the door I'd been leaning against to pull it open for him. Tyler spun around with wide eyes at my suggestion, something desperate flitting into them as he raised a hand like he was going to reach for me. He didn't and the hand dropped back to his side just as he stepped out into the hall.

"I..." he tried for the third time, turning around right when I started to close the door behind him. "I'm sorry."

This time, I did laugh. I laughed until the door slammed shut right in his face and then I started to cry.

You're nineteen and you hate him, you hate him more than you've ever hated anything, but really you still love him and you know you always will.

Tyler decided college wasn't for him, after all, and apparently neither was the boyfriend he'd had there. He also decided that apparently L.A. was, in fact, for him and moved into the same complex as me a rough six months after I'd settled in.

I didn't know what to do. He showed up at my door more nights than he didn't, barging into my apartment and throwing himself down on the nearest piece of furniture like it was his home, too, rather than his actual home a couple doors down from mine. He didn't mention the medication or the last words I'd said to him before he made the move, more content to pretend the entire thing had never happened.

I hated having him there, especially when he moved onto one of the baristas at the coffee shop down the street and decided I needed to hear all about it. I hated constantly being in the presence of the one person I'd been trying so hard to get away from for the past two years, hated watching him smile and laugh and joke and pretend he wasn't digging blunt nails into every shred of my skin with each word he said. I hated feeling like I had to at least try to smile back, laugh with him, joke along, when those were all representations of the happiness he'd been robbing me of for years.

I couldn't say anything, though, not when it still made my heart ache to hear his ridiculous cackle. I could tell he was trying to share everything about his life with me like he had when we were twelve, trying hard to bridge the gap I'd been content to let lie between us. I don't think he even noticed that I wasn't doing the same.

I threw myself more into my music, spending so much time at the studio I sometimes forgot I even had an apartment, let alone that Tyler would probably be knocking at my door wondering why I wasn't answering. I still hadn't told him about the record label or the music, though by now everybody else I spoke to knew.

All of my friends knew, but I didn't really consider Tyler a friend anymore.

I'd reached over three million subscribers on YouTube at this point and fallen so far into the crazy community I sometimes forgot there was a world outside of it. I traveled more and more, especially with the music stuff going on and having so many things to focus on, and eventually I stopped worrying about how to tell Tyler to leave me alone like I needed him to. He couldn't follow me where I was going, couldn't be a constant thought in the back of my head when I was filled with so many lyrics or new names and faces.

I was doing better, I thought. I could go home and find Tyler outside my door and not feel like I was suffocating every time I looked at him. It was good, it was more than it ever had been, and the scars down my arms from past attempts at solving the problem didn't even look like solutions at all anymore. It didn't really feel like there was much of a problem, even if it still hurt to hear Tyler boast about his latest conquest like it was some great accomplishment or something. Even that was bearable now that I had so much else to focus on.

And then Tyler joined YouTube.

He told me the minute he uploaded his first video, rushing into my apartment and gushing all about it and how he was going to actually be a part of my world now. He was happy and excited and acting like it was the best thing in the world and all I could do was stand frozen by the door, praying this was some awful nightmare I'd wake up from soon enough.

It wasn't. It was just fate playing some cruel, twisted joke on me like it always did.

"Oh," was all I managed to say. "That's great."

I couldn't even force a smile to go along with the obvious lie. Tyler didn't notice, but that was nothing new.

Twenty years is a long time. You're beginning to think more and more that it could be enough every time he looks right past at you and tramples all over your insides in muddy steel-toed boots.

I had a plan. It wasn't a perfect plan, they never are, but it was a plan.

My first EP had taken off bigger than I'd ever hoped, despite Tyler's sinking expression the moment I announced it and sudden silence every time we were in the same room, and I was happy, I was, but even watching it fly off shelves and straight to number one in so many countries couldn't keep me from feeling like I was falling apart again. This time not even the meds were helping, no matter how many extras I forced down in a day when the normal dosage didn't do a thing.

I tried, I tried so hard. I wrote new songs and planned both a new EP and a new full album and I flew all around the world to meet fans and make videos and spend time with friends who actually knew who I was. I smiled in videos and made jokes and called my family five times a week, did interviews with magazines to discuss my music and my future and I tried, I really did.

I tried until I ran out of room on my arms and then my legs and then my stomach.

Then, I made the plan.

It was simple, really. I bought the booze from the liquor store down the street from the coffee shop Tyler's ex worked at and stashed it under my sink until I was ready, where I knew none of my friends would find it when they inevitably went looking for it on one of the nights we hung out together. I scrubbed the bathtub clean so it wouldn't be gross for whoever had to do the same after I'd gone through with it. I finished a lot of the EP and nearly the entire album before I even considered it so my fans wouldn't have been waiting so long for nothing. I recorded a video the night before, the script to which I'd been thinking of for months now, and finished editing it that morning.

I didn't write letters, a note. I didn't have to. Everyone I would have written to would already know the reasons why and there was nothing I had to say to Tyler that he couldn't hear from them. Besides, I was pretty sure he wasn't going to be spending much thought on me anyway. If he hadn't before, I didn't see why that was going to change now.

I sent a text to Grace an hour before, something sweet and simple and not suspicious enough that it would have her rushing over to save me from some presumed awful fate.

I love you, thought I should tell you that. You're a kick-ass best friend.

I didn't feel bad about it, not even as I traced the contours of my reflection in the mirror, the bathtub filling behind me with the resonating sounds of splashing water. I had nothing to feel guilty for as I chugged down half the bottle of vodka and choked, curling over as I felt it rise back up my throat but swallowing it down before it could make its way out. Everything was going to be okay as I slipped into the swaying hot water and took the half a bottle still left of my anti-depressants.

It wasn't even really that I wanted to die. I just didn't want to live, either.

Or maybe I just felt like I was already lacking the life I'd been given at birth.

My plan, as it turns out, was more flawed than I'd originally thought it to be. I'd forgotten about Tyler's tendency to just barge into my apartment unannounced thanks to the spare key Grace had innocently shown him the location of. I'd forgotten how long it took to drown, for alcohol to kick in, for pills to settle in your stomach, and how painful it is not to be able to breath. I'd forgotten about everything but the heavy heart in my chest telling me I'd done a lot in twenty years, I'd done enough, it was okay to never do any more.

I didn't hear him calling out my name or padding across the apartment in curiosity, probably drawn by the light flooding out from under the bathroom door. I didn't hear him knocking, telling me he was here, or stepping back to wait a minute for me to emerge. I didn't hear him asking if I was okay, what I was doing in there when I didn't come out after a couple minutes had passed. I didn't hear him knocking louder, more urgently, or turning the door handle only to find it unlocked.

I didn't hear anything until firm hands were wrapping under my arms and pulling me out of the bathtub, sound popping back into my ears the moment I was no longer submerged in the scalding water.

I coughed, jerking out of his hold and sprawling across the floor as I choked up water and blood and vomit, trembling so hard I slipped across the bathroom tiles. His arms curled back around me, pulling me into him as he rocked us back and forth.

He was mumbling things. I didn't bother listening to what he was saying.

"No," I muttered, over and over and over as I started to sob. "No, you ruined it. You ruin everything."

He was sobbing, too. I guess he'd finally looked at me.

I wasn't surprised he didn't like what he saw.

You're twenty-one and he treats you like glass but you feel like a thunderstorm. You are wild and alive and you refuse to let him be the cause of so much of your suffering anymore.

He was different, after. They all were.

Tyler treated me like a thin piece of paper that could tear or blow away if he shifted me the wrong way and my friends treated me like the Great Pyramids built to withstand anything, like the strongest person they'd ever met. I hated when Tyler ran his fingers along the white lightning on my arms so gently, like he really did love me and was terrified of nearly losing me again. I loved when Grace snorted disbelievingly every time I told her I couldn't do something, like there was nothing on Earth I wasn't capable of.

We had conversations, all of us. I told Grace I loved her and she had absolutely nothing to do with my decision. I told my mom I loved her too and I was sorry I didn't tell her I was falling back into old patterns. I told my subscribers about those old patterns after taking down the video I'd thought would be my last.

Tyler, I didn't tell anything.

He looked at me more, came over more often like he was absolutely terrified that if he wasn't there every second he was going to walk in on that same awful thing again, spent the night curled up on my couch without asking more often than not. He didn't talk about boys anymore or relationships and he hadn't made a video of his own since the incident.

Sometimes, when it was dark and the lights were out and I was staring up at the ceiling waiting for the melatonin to kick in, he tried to get me to talk about it.

"I don't understand," he'd say. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Or, "Are you okay? Are you thinking about it again? How long had you been having those thoughts before you..."

Then, "Please, Troye, just help me understand. Why couldn't you tell me? We're best friends, aren't we?"

I laughed disbelievingly, the sound cutting through the night as sharply as a knife. He didn't ask me that again.

Sometimes, though, I still found myself waiting in the dark for his questions to inevitably come and entertaining the wild notion that maybe tonight I would answer them. I would tell him everything I hadn't in the nine years I'd known him, tell him everything I couldn't in the six years I'd been in love with him.

I never did, but I kept feeling like I was going to explode if I kept it all in any longer, like I was spiraling back into the abyss every time I kept my mouth shut.

So, naturally, I wrote it down.

I scribbled furiously across blank sheets of paper, drawing lines of letters of the thrumming of my heart, until I had pages and pages of lyrics at my fingertips. Sometimes Tyler was there when I was writing, seated on the couch and watching me curiously but never growing brave enough to ask what I was doing. Sometimes Grace was there, chattering mindlessly on about our high school days as I tried hard to keep up, twisting her words to fit a rhythm I hadn't yet worked out myself.

It took me two months, but eventually I had everything down.

I ignored Tyler entirely in the two weeks it took me to work all the lyrics out into separate songs. He knocked and I didn't answer or he came barging in and I pretended he wasn't even there, no matter how hard he tried to get my attention. I was focused on this, on working our story into something he might understand and I might be able to share, and the rest of the world didn't really matter until I suddenly had three full songs in my hands.

I took them to the studio the moment they were done, ignoring both the concerned and proud looks from my manager who, like everybody else in the world, knew all too well about my recent suicide attempt.

Fools was the first finished, probably the happiest of the three, which was seriously saying something considering the chorus line was 'only fools fall for you'. DKLA took a little longer, never quite sitting right with me until we brought in a rapper who worked around what I'd written like she knew exactly what I was trying to say and who I was trying to say it to. It was a little disconcerting, but I didn't think too hard about it.

Talk Me Down came the easiest, but it took me the longest to work myself up to playing out. It felt like it was saying the most in regards to things I'd never said before, like it was the most honest I'd ever been about Tyler and probably ever would be. It was admitting to things I'd been telling myself weren't true for so long I'd actually started to believe it and that was terrifying in and of itself.

By the time all three were done, I'd realized thinking about Tyler didn't hurt anymore. I still loved him, as much as I hated to, but that didn't seem so awful and all-consuming the way it had before. I loved other things, too, loved other people even if it wasn't in the same way.

I realized I was okay without him, knowing I'd never be with him.

At the same time, I'd also come to terms with the fact that maybe he kind of had a right to know everything I'd been keeping from him for so long now. He deserved the truth and that was exactly what was in the three songs I'd patched onto a USB drive and left under the mat with the spare key to my apartment.

Scribbling a short note to stick to it, I let out the first free breath I had in seven years.

Here's everything I would've shared if we'd stayed the way we were.

You're twenty-two and you don't have him, but he knows how you feel and smiles anyway and yeah, you find yourself smiling back. It doesn't hurt and you don't hate him and, most of all, you're okay.