As I sit in the waiting room by my gate I realize how excited I am to be going to LA. I'll be able to see catch up with my youtube friends and hang out with them in person. 'Please. You are most excited to see Tyler.' A voice in the back of my mind says. It's not wrong. I can't wait to see Tyler. I feel like one of Tyler's fangirls, obsessing over him 24/7. I can't help it. He's just so.. perfect. That's the only way I can describe him. Everything about him is flawless. He has the most adorable smile I have ever seen, his eyes are a gorgeous shade of green and when he laughs it feels like I've just taken a sip of tea. All warm and fuzzy on the inside. I've liked him for such a long time I don't even know how it started. Ever since the first youtube video of his I watched, I've had a thing for him.
And now by some mysterious quirk of fate he happens to be one of my best friends. 'But you don't want him to be your friend, do you?' that voice nags me again. Once again it's not wrong. I don't want Tyler Oakley to be my friend. I want him to be so much more than that. I want him to feel the same way about me as I feel about him. I want to be able to kiss him the second I walk off that plane at LAX. I want to wrap my arms around him and never let him go. However that's never going to happen is it? Our viewers can ship Troyler as much as they want but they will never change the fact that Tyler sees me as his much younger, buddy.
Fate is such a bitch. Maybe if I was older he would find me attractive in a non-platonic way. Maybe if I lived in America it would be different. The truth is that I am scared. Far too scared to ever mention this to him. He is one of my best friends. I don't know what I would do without him. I don't want to screw that up and have it become all awkward between us because he doesn't reciprocate my feelings.
Not wanting to ruin our friendship in no way lessens my love for him. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to not kiss him every time he does something adorable or pass out when he smiles at me. A part of me wishes I really had kissed him at Digifest. Then all cards would have been on the table and to hell with the consequences. But I couldn't just let the chips fall, I care too much. If I had kissed him at Digifest it would have torn my already mangled heart into millions of pieces to have to brush it off after we got off stage. It's funny though. For a single fleeting moment before I kissed him on the cheek, the look I saw in Tyler's eyes.. Well it almost looked like he wanted me to kiss him. How is that for wishful thinking?
I look down at my phone and I see all of the positive feedback on my twitter and tumblr feeds about Happy Little Pill. Most people seem to like it, that's amazing news! I'm grinning again. Tyler is actually my inspiration behind that song. He's the inspiration behind a lot of my songs actually. He is my Happy Little Pill. He's addicting like a drug and the more time I spend with him the more I crave his company. He is the person who always makes me feel better about myself. He helps me deal with hate online. When I'm with him everything seems bright and colourful, like he is my own personal sun.
Thinking about him makes me miss him even more. I want to talk to Tyler now. In under 24 hours we will be on the same continent, in the same airport but 24 hours seems like such a long time without hearing his voice!
My gate waiting room is surprisingly empty at the moment. So I whip out my phone, plug in my headphones and facetime Tyler. No answer. That's odd. Not to sound full of it but Tyler usually picks up my facetimes. I suppose time difference makes it difficult to reach eachother but I swear he hardly ever sleeps. He's like an insomniac meerkat charged on starbucks and shots of one direction sexiness. I try facetiming him again. No answer. I guess he's busy. I know Zalfie are visiting LA at the moment, he's probably hanging out with them.
I begin to listen to music as I wait for my flight to begin boarding.
My eyes scan the crowd at LAX airport looking for Tyler. I see him standing next to a board displaying arrival times.
"Oh hey Troye!" Says Tyler as he sees me.
"Tilly!" I exclaim, going in for the hug.
Much too soon Tyler pulls away and gives me the once over. "You look good for such a long flight!"
"Thanks Tilly, you look good too. As always." I say flirting just a tiny bit.
"Aw thanks boo. Come, I have someone I want up to meet." Tyler grabs my hand and pulls me forward.
Sigh. He's holding my hand.
"Daniel!" Tyler calls toward a crowd of people. I recognize a few of their faces. I can see Zalfie standing there, they wave in greeting. A 6ft male turns and smiles at us. He starts walking towards us and I can't stop staring. He is hot. He has blonde hair and blue eyes, massive arm muscles and (I would bet my life on it) a perfectly sculpted chest under that designer tee.
Tyler lets go of my hand and walks towards Daniel. They embrace and Tyler goes in for the kiss. Good God that is a lot of tongue. My eyes are glued to the horror scene before me. After what feels like hours the pair resurface for air. Tyler grins and turns towards me, Daniel's arm wrapped possessively around Tyler's shoulders. "Daniel this is Troye, Troye this is Daniel, my fiancé."
"Sup Troye?" Daniel says. Even his voice is hot. All deep and smooth.
"S-sup Daniel?" I hear myself say but I am a million miles away. My bug eyed expression is fixed on the ring Tyler is wearing on his left finger. F-fiancé? When the fuck did that happen?
Tyler follows my gaze. "I know it's kind of a surprise. We met a little while back at one of the shows Daniel was modeling at and have gotten really close over the past few months and well it just felt like the natural step. You totally have to be my best man though! I mean Troyler is still my brotp for forever!"
Tyler looks up and catches Daniel's eye and blushes adorably. He leans up and the two begin to kiss passionately again. My eyes widen ever further, I can feel the blood vessels in my eyes bulging as if my eyeballs are about to pop out of their sockets. Tyler's left hand snakes into Daniel hair and Daniel leans even deeper into the kiss. My brain is screaming at me to look away but my eyes won't comply, they won't stop staring at Tyler. Tyler making out with some guy. My Tilly making out with his model fiancé.
"Are you okay Troye?" Zoe calls.
"You look kind of sick mate." Alfie calls.
Sick I'm a hell of a lot worse than sick right now. I feel as if every part of my body is trying to repress the scene in front of me. My heart has shattered into a million pieces. I see dots in the corner of my vision. I can't breathe. My throat is locked in place. My body is shaking.
And I still can't stop staring at Tyler. I give a shudder and feel myself fall backwards. I don't remember seeing the ceiling as my eyes close. I just feel the terrifying sensation of falling.
"Ah!" I gasp as the falling sensation jolts me awake. I sit upright in my plane seat so fast that my knees knock the tray in front of me. I hear the man sitting in front of me grumble irritably. Oh thank god. It was just a dream, it was just a dream, It was just a dream, I chant silently to myself. I bend down in my seat to pick up my phone that was knocked from the table. As I pick it up my hand is shaking and I notice the chalky colour of my skin. The back of my neck is clammy and I feel cold. As if every pore in my body was just sweating and now I've walked into a room that's well air conditioned.
"Are you alright dearie?" Asks the woman next to me. She looks like a typical grandma. Grey hair, wrinkles and a warm smile. She introduced herself as Gladys and her husband as Frank when we were first seated.
"Yes, I'm fine thanks." I reply.
"Are you sure?" She presses. Her eyes are crinkled with concern. "The way you looked when you were asleep just now was as if you were being tortured."
"Yes, thank you." I say.
"We'll alrighty then, I just think that this is a long flight to travel with something on your mind." She says with a kind, knowing smile on her face.
"Well.. The thing is.." I begin. "I've just realized that I am hopelessly in love with my best friend and that one day he is going to find someone to love as much as I love him and I-I don't know how I'm going to deal with that." I gauge her expression to see how she is reacting to my gay confession. Instead of looking horrified or outraged however, she looks thoughtful.
"Hah, it's alright sonny." She laughs as she sees me watching her. "My grandson's gay too. It's perfectly normal. This boy you love- is he gay too?"
I breathe a sigh of relief. "Yes he is. But he is a few years older than I am."
"And he knows how you feel?" She asks.
"Uh no he doesn't." I admit. "But I know he doesn't feel the same way."
"How do you know?"
"I can tell that I'm just a friend to him." I explain.
"Bullshit." Gladys announces.
My eyes widen. Did she just say what I think she just said?
"A nice, handsome young man like yourself, what's not to like. You just haven't told him how you feel and therefore he doesn't know you think of him as more than a friend." She states.
"She's right you know." A voice says from behind me.
I turn around in my seat. "What?" I ask in surprise.
A young couple stand up and rest their arms on the back of Gladys' and mine seats. "My name's Allie." The girl introduces herself. "And this is Burt." She says gesturing to the man beside her. The couple look like they're in their mid-twenties. Both are very tan and very blonde.
I shake both of their hands. "I'm Troye." I introduce myself.
"Well Troye," says Allie. "This lady is right. Burt and I have been good friends for forever and unknown to the other, each of us had been crushing on each other for years before we got together."
Burt chuckled. "I had no idea she felt the same way until a friend of ours actually spelt it out for the both of us. When I asked her out the next day,"
"I said yes immediately and told him that he took his sweet time getting round to it!" Allie laughed.
"I was nervous!" Burt exclaimed. "If you had said no it could have ruined everything."
"But- I said yes. And if you hadn't have made the first move we never would have gotten together and I wouldn't have this beautiful ring on my finger" Allie says wriggling the fingers on her left hand.
"That's adorable guys, congratulations." I say. "But that doesn't mean that Tyler feels the same way about me."
"But you'll never know unless you admit to him how you're feeling." Gladys chimes in.
"When Frank," she begins, gesturing to the sleeping man beside her. "And I were in college together we were inseparable. The greatest pair of friends anywhere. Secretly I had loved him for what seemed like forever but I was always too scared to admit it. He was my best friend, I didn't want to lose him. It would have broken my heart. So I pretended I didn't love him even though it was killing me inside. I was just about to move on from him and settle for someone else when Frank asked me to be his girl. Poor thing was so nervous and red in the face. But he had felt the same way as me all along, he didn't want to say anything because he didn't want to lose what we had either. It could have been disastrous. Both of us almost missed out on our chance of one true happiness because we were afraid of rejection."
"So you think I should tell him how I feel?" I ask tentatively.
"Yes!" All three say at once.
"At the very least you won't have any regrets about what could have been." Allie encourages.
That strikes a chord. No regrets, Troye. No watching Tyler blatantly make out with Daniel because he doesn't know how I feel. No regrets, no secrets.
"Thank you," I say gratefully to all of them. "I'm going to do just that."
"Good." Burt says and Allie grins before they seat back down in their seats.
"Atta boy, Troye." Gladys pats me on the arm before closing her eyes and cuddling against her husband's arm.
I stare out the window at the clouds below. Holy shit in less than 12 hours now I will be telling Ty how I truly feel. Holy shit.
