Never Be

summer

Troye touches down at JFK around midnight; he'd asked Jed to pick him up, not wanting to bother his mom, positive he'd be in a shitty mood, anyway; he didn't want to take anything out on her.

And he knows before he turns his phone back on that he'll have a voicemail from Jacob. As he stands on the curbside, looking for Jed's beat up Honda Accord, he works up the nerve to check, to listen to it, biting at the skin around his thumbnail.

The first six or seven seconds is just Jacob breathing into the receiver, shaky and unsteady, followed by, "I got your gift. I'm impossibly in love with you." And that was it, that was the entire message.

Troye can't believe his own damn luck, that he just had to go and pick someone in fucking Europe to fall in love with. He's a six hour plane ride away, there are five hours between them, and he isn't ever coming back.

Just. Fuck.

Jed pulls up shortly after wearing a weak smile, and he pats Troye on the back after he shoves his suitcase into the backseat and climbs into the passenger seat, looking down at his lap.

"Good trip?" Jed asks, turning down the radio.

Troye nods. "Yeah. Leaving was a bitch, though."

"I bet. You alright?"

He shrugs. "Not really."

"Is he?"

"Probably not."

Jed turns onto the highway, merging right. "At least you're in on it together."

"Yeah," Troye replies, not bothering to tell Jed just how wrong he is.

Getting back into a regular routine is borderline impossible. It's so hard to remember what he used to do before Jacob invaded, leaving his mark on every inch of Troye's home, of Troye's life. The Mellet house seems quiet, which Troye knows isn't true, seeing as there are always at least four people screaming or laughing or crying at any given moment, but to Troye, the noise feels empty and he can't take it.

The first week Jacob's gone, Troye throws himself into his job at an absurd pace, staying late at the office, and when he gets home, he continues to type and edit well into the early hours of the morning from the desk in his bedroom. If he forces himself to focus hard enough, the fact that Jacob isn't there seems to be slightly more bearable.

They've only talked once since Troye arrived back in Connecticut eight days ago. Troye had called Jacob the morning after he touched down in New York, Jacob picking up on the first ring.

"Hi," he answered, voice hushed.

Troye cleared his throat. "Is this a bad time? Where are you?"

"No, no, I can talk. 'm at the library, though. Applying for jobs. I didn't want to sit in my house anymore."

He nodded. "Yeah, I know the feeling. Just, uh, wanted to say that I got your voicemail."

Jacob breathed deeply, probably stalling. "I didn't really know what else to say. It's all I could think of. Jesus. Tro." He cleared his throat. "That's the best gift anyone has ever given me. Ever."

Troye pushed his glasses out of the way and rubbed his eyes. "It wasn't a big deal," he countered. "It was easy, because I had all the resources at work."

"Troye..."

"And it didn't take too long, either. Just rounded up all those fucking sticky notes and a couple pictures and that was it."

"Troye."

"And, like, Sean and Karen helped me with it a lot, so I didn't have to do a lot, anyway--"