Find Out

25. denail, anger, bargaining

songs to set the mood for this chapter:
All I Want by Kodaline
Visions of Gideon by Sufjan Stevens
Arcade by Duncan Laurence

Tommy didn't say anything for a very long time.

You didn't look back at him, watching as your tears slipped from your eyes, landing softly on the plush cradled in your arms.

"Are you breaking up with me?" His voice was choked and his words were thick, laced with pain.

"I just hate how sad you get talking about how far apart we are I just don't want you to be-"

"Do you love me?"

Your body became tense, drawing in a shaky breath as your eyes burned. You hadn't looked at him this whole time, afraid to let yourself come undone. You bit the inside of your cheek, shutting your eyes.

"Tommy-" You whispered, feeling yourself break with each shattered breath he let out.

"Listen," He took a deep breath. "I'm so painfully in love with you. I'm so fucking in love with you that even now, I can't hate you for ending this. I'm so utterly in love with you that there's nothing you can ever say to me that would force me to stop looking at you the way I do. God I fucking hate the distance but I would live on a different planet if it meant you would still love me. If you need to end this, I'll let you, but if you think you're doing this for me, I'm telling you right now I don't fucking want you to leave me."

His eyes were red, full of the tears he couldn't stop from falling down his cheeks. His voice was raw from talking all night and his hands were clenched. You couldn't tell, but his palms ached with bloody indents where his nails pushed through skin. His whole body looked worn down, sore, and tired. He looked so truly broken but the second you forced your eyes to his, all you saw was beauty. He was the prettiest person in the world to you, that even through his tears, he looked perfect. So undeniably human. This boy, who's sobs were threatening to wreck his entire body, plagued with exhaustion and sadness, sat before you, looking so painfully beautiful.

"Tommy I just don't want to hold you back," You said in a hoarse whisper.

"You are what keeps me going every single day. I don't tell you enough but you are. I can't imagine being where I am now without you. You're everything to me," His voice was barely above a whisper, pleading with you, trying to speak loud enough so that you could hear him.

Your chest gave way, collapsing with sobs as you combed your fingers through your hair.

"I just-I can't-" You stuttered.

A small yawn was heard in the VC as Tubbo's mic lit up.

You and Tommy both froze, immediately turning off your cameras. You muted your mic.

"Tommy?" Tubbo asked, voice thick with sleep.

"Hey Tubzo," Tommy greeted, forcing his tone to remain steady.

"You sound rough big man, get any sleep?"

"N-not yet."

"Tommy, it's barely 6 A.M. You have school in an two hours, how come you didn't sleep?"

"I uh, I just couldn't fall asleep I guess."

"Oh. You alright?"

"I'm fine, just tired I guess." His words were cut off by a shaky breath, a dead giveaway that he had been crying.

"Hey Tom, VC 3," Tubbo said, tone suddenly very serious.

The two of them left the VC, leaving you alone with a sleeping Ranboo, trying helplessly to not relive the past couple of hours.

You closed discord, still hugging the cow close to your chest.

You collapsed onto your bed, feeling the sobs you had held back rake through your body, completely ripping you apart. You don't know when you fell asleep.

You woke up to the sun washing your room in bright white light, painting your walls with the beginnings of a new day. Groaning in regret, you pushed your legs out of bed, feeling your head pound in objection to the sudden movement.

You couldn't accept it, not willing to relive the couple of previous hours. Maybe it hadn't even happened. Maybe you had never even called them. Maybe yesterday you hadn't made the worst, sleep deprived, decision of your life.

You walked downstairs to serve yourself cereal, deciding to skip school today. You brought your breakfast back up to your room, starting up your computer to see the email tab you had forgotten to close last night. Your acceptance email sat in the "sent" folder. Your stomach dropped. This email meant you really had been accepted yesterday and you really had called your friends and you really had-

"FUCK!" You screamed, angrily pushing all the lose papers off of your desk. Your keyboard snagged, also being thrown to the floor in the midst of your tantrum.

You pushed out of your chair, vision red with anger, you stormed out of your room.

You needed to break something right now. 

Your eyes caught on a flower vase which had sat empty for the past couple of months. You stared at it, remembering the last time it had been full of flowers, sent from a relative for your brother as a get-well-soon present. Like flowers could heal your brother. Like flowers could just fix everything all the time.

You knocked it to the ground, flinching as it shattered against the hard wood floor. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Tears pricked at your eyes, you hesitated before quickly going to get a broom. Filled with regret, you swept up the broken pieces, ignoring the fresh sting of new tears on your cheeks.

You grabbed the keys to your moms car. They had left it parked in the driveway before taking your fathers car to transport your brother to yet another hospital.

Quickly you drove to the nearest Walmart, hastily searching for a vase that looked the most similar to the one that now lay in jagged pieces in your trash can.

If I can replace it, they won't find out.
If I can replace it, my parents won't be mad.

It's fine! They won't even notice! You promised yourself, setting down the new vase in place of the old one. They looked nearly identical. You felt your shoulders relax.

What next?

You glanced around your room, frantically looking for something to do. Anything.

You wasted the rest of the day on Bedwars,
desperately distracting yourself. Your phone remained silenced. Deep down you knew this was your fault. Tommy wouldn't be the one to call you this time to fix this. He couldn't.

The next couple of days, you didn't stream. You stayed off of social media, completely deleting instagram and Twitter. Only your friends from school had your Snapchat, so you kept it. In reality, you didn't have that many close friends that lived near you and only a few of them knew you streamed.

Your days became much more boring, switching from getting ahead on homework to working on some chore around the house, you kept as busy as you could. Somehow justifying it all as a way to make your parents happy.

Maybe working as hard as you could in school would make them love you. Maybe if your grades were high enough, they would be proud of you. Maybe if your GPA was perfect, you would feel better.

You didn't let yourself think about Tommy. Not once. Not even in the middle of the night when the only thing that could stop you from crying harder was feeling the soft fabric of a certain cow plush in your arms. Not even then. Especially not then.

1268 words