Dive: A TharnType Story

17

The next month passed in agony for Type. He couldn't stop the onslaught of nightmares that had started plaguing him every time he shut his eyes. It reached a point where he would avoid sleeping altogether. He hardly got a few hours of rest in a day. It didn't help that Tharn would incessantly text and call him. He had started showing up at his dorm's parking lot just to get him to talk to him. Type had to resort to getting in through the back entrance to avoid his ambushes. He wanted to move on from what happened, but Tharn was making it very difficult for him to do that by showing up in front of him everyday. 

The first time that he saw Tharn waiting for him at his dorm parking lot after that day, he was terrified. His heart was hammering against his chest. He did not know what to say to him or how to meet his eyes, so he just avoided his gaze and walked straight into his building, acting like he didn't even see him. As soon as he entered his dorm, he had collapsed on the floor, crying again. He had no sleep that night. But Tharn kept it up and the shock and fear he had initially felt slowly turned into frustration and guilt when he realised Tharn waited for him outside for hours on end everyday, just so he could try to talk to him. No amount of ignoring him, being downright rude or pretending like he didn't exist seemed to deter Tharn from his mission to get him to talk to him.

Type did not want to, at all. He had told him what he had to on that day. He had already said his piece. He just wanted to move on with his life. He wanted Tharn to move on too, which is why he was avoiding him in the first place. He never took Tharn for a stubborn person, but his actions the past few weeks proved otherwise. He was unrelenting.

His visits thankfully stopped when the term exams rolled over. Everyone was busy with their noses in their books. Even Type. He drowned himself in his studies because it helped him stop thinking about anything else. He realised it was a good way to distract himself from thinking about less than savoury things. It helped him take his mind off things for short moments and it was enough to make him feel slightly better. He wasn't going to let go of something that was giving him some relief after weeks of his mind going through pure torture so he hit the books with a fervour that he had never shown towards education in his entire life. 

After the term exams were done, Type decided to immediately leave for home because Tharn sent him a bunch of texts as soon as the last paper was over. His heart deflated when he realised Tharn hadn't given up, like he had assumed after not hearing from him for two weeks. He was just giving him space during the exam period. Classic Tharn. The latest text from him informed him that Tharn was going to be waiting for him at his dorm again.

Type did not want to live with the guilt of seeing Tharn try so hard to fix what could never be fixed, so he needed to put as much distance as he could between them. He didn't blame Tharn for what happened. He knew Tharn was also equally as clueless about how they ended up sleeping together. That wasn't the reason he was avoiding him at all. After what happened between them, he just couldn't be around him anymore. 

Tharn had been an important part of his life, but he knew that they couldn't go back to the way things were. There was too much baggage between them now; mostly his own. And because of that, he also felt like he didn't want to drag Tharn down with him either. He just wanted to forget it and move on. Much like he did when his family moved to Chiang Mai after the incident. It helped him forget about what happened. He wanted that again. To forget. 

So he didn't even visit his dorm to pack his things when he stepped out of his last exam. He figured he already had what he needed at home. He directly headed to the bus station and got on the first bus to Chiang Mai.

°°°

Tharn was going through the hardest time in his life. He couldn't believe that Type had just abandoned their friendship like that. He needed to win him back, no matter what. He needed to apologise to him and make it all better. He knew that he couldn't completely fix everything, but he needed to do something or he felt he would completely lose his mind.