Frustration -SERIES- [Part 1] [boyxboy]

Chapter Seventeen

I jolted awake just over an hour later and peered blindly out through the window; the sunshine was bright and my pupils were contracting painfully.

'Are we here already?' I asked a bemused looking Josh groggily.

'Nope. We're in Worcester. Bus driver needed to stop to refuel.' He stood up and stretched, and I noticed Rachel doing likewise beside me. 'We're gonna go get some snacks. Wanna come with?'

I debated for a moment; I was depressed and lethargic and wanted to go back to sleep, but I didn't want to run the admittedly minute risk of being left alone on the bus with Conor. 'Sure.'

We traipsed off the bus with almost everybody else and I squinted my way towards the shop, heading straight for the processed foods. All I wanted was comfort noodles and to be back on the bus.

I was waging the internal debate over which flavour to choose when Josh materialised beside me and grabbed my arm.

'Ow! What the fuck?'

He was steering me forcefully towards the door, trying and failing to keep his facial expression cheery and normal. 'Nothing. That old guy behind the counter gives me the creeps is all. Let's just get back on the bus.'

I was scowling at him in confusion as he tugged me to the exit, but stopped short when we passed the magazine rack right beside the door. I don't know how it caught my eye, out of all the magazines spread along that one wall, but somehow it stood out like a spotlight.

'Shit,' Josh muttered in defeat, letting go of my arm and standing slightly protectively next to me, worried, I knew, that I was going to have a mental breakdown and start flinging canned goods around the store at any second.

Numbly, I walked closer to the magazine rack and reached for the latest issue of KISS Magazine, staring in apathetic bewilderment at the cover. There was a jagged line spiking down the middle, with a heading on either side: Conthur on one and Tycon on the other.  On the Conthur side were a couple grainy snapshot-style photos of Conor and Arthur kissing on stage last night, and on the other were some photos of Conor and I that I didn't recognise. It looked like I'd posed for them though, at least some of them.

'Are you okay?' Rachel's voice asked quietly in my ear, reaching out to try and take the magazine from me. I pulled it out of her reach and flipped it open grimly. If the whole fucking country was going to see it, I may as well see it too.

About a third of the way through the magazine was a double-page spread on the "breaking story". There were a lot more photos than just the ones on the cover, and our good friend Carrie Chilcott had written two pieces on the matter; one about Conor and Arthur, and another about Conor and I.

On the first page were a few more dark and grainy photos from Conthur's stage show, as well as a few of them just hanging out before any of it had happened, obviously oblivious to the fact that they were being photographed. Carrie's short piece described the "whirlwind romance" that had "obviously been going on behind Tyler Lincoln's back all along" which was "driving the fans into a frenzied state of euphoria", which I thought was an exaggeration. They'd been excited, sure, but they were hardly "frenzied euphoria" excited.

I switched my gaze to the other page and took in the series of photos of Conor and I, looking stupidly happy. We were posing in some of them, looking a little bemused, and it hit me suddenly where they'd been taken; it was that fangirl from the plane, Gretchen or Gertrude or whatever her name was. Then there was an admittedly really sweet one of us kissing, the one she'd taken when we thought she was finished with her photoshoot. Conor looked surprised but somehow happy at the same time, smiling against my lips, and my eyes were closed, with one hand lightly on the side of his face. Of these, Carrie had to say: