Freak (Troyler AU)

Chapter Fifty-Five

*Tyler's POV*

I parked my car in the usual parking space, smiling cheerily as I reached to turn the radio off. Any other day I would be incapable of functioning at this time, and hour and a half before I usually got to school, but today I was ecstatic. It had been exactly a week since last Tuesday when my car broke down at work and Mom had to drive Troye and I home, and it had been the most boring week of my life. The day after Troye seemed a bit off all day, zoning out and forgetting to reply. I didn't think much of it, not even thinking until he called me later that night saying he was sick and blamed me for it.

Naturally I felt horrible, despite knowing it probably wasn't my fault. Cold temperatures don't actually make you sick, germs do. I guess it could have been something he picked up from that coffee shop though, which we wouldn't have had to go to if it weren't for my car. Either way, I found myself taking the blame even if it wasn't warranted, offering to come over and make him soup or something. He'd rejected the offer immediately though, insisting he looked like a rotting corpse and I was not allowed to see him under any circumstances, not even through Skype. That was disappointing, but I chose to respect his wishes.

The days that followed were worse. He was too sick to come to work or school for the rest of the week, explaining it was the worst flu of his life and he couldn't do much other than sleep and drink water. He told me on Friday that he had been living off of tea and medicine tablets, which was probably meant to be a joke, but it only worried me more. On Saturday I tried to pay him a visit, but he only opened the door a crack to look out before slamming it in my face. I tried to argue, but he called me and told me he was going to leave me standing out there until the snow piled up over my head. Sunday was the day he told me he was finally starting to feel better, telling me he'd probably be at school tomorrow. I waited until I was late for class for him to arrive, miserable the entire day when I read the text saying he wasn't quite up to it yet.

However, that was yesterday, today he was for sure coming. He even texted me a selfie of him with his backpack on, captioned simply to 'stop worrying because he was all better'. I'd believe it when I saw it. Which was exactly what I was waiting to do now, see him. I'd been taking notes for him all last week, suggesting he come in early today so we could go over them. Really it was just an excuse to spend more time with him considering how much I missed him these last few days, but I wasn't going to admit to that.

Given it was my first time seeing him in forever I'd also had to spend extra time on my appearance, spending forever making sure my hair went the right way. I'd started going to the hairdresser to get it re-dyed monthly now. Seeing as I didn't have anything else to do the last few days I went to get it done then, eager to see Troye considering how much he seemed to like my hair when it was more vibrant. Then there was the matter of my outfit, which took ages more than usual today. It was the last week of school before the holidays, aptly titled 'spirit week'. Everyone definitely had high spirits knowing we wouldn't be stuck here for much longer.

Anyway, whoever arranged it this year was an idiot. Yesterday they'd chosen candy cane day, where they expected everyone to dress up in horizontal red and white stripes, the least complimenting outfit you can imagine. They didn't even have any special events yesterday or movies during classes, the only thing different from our usual school days being when they announced the school merchandise going for sale in the student-run store. That was hardly exciting, but I'd probably end up paying the small fee for my school ring, just to say I had the stupid keepsake.

I was hoping today would be more exciting, though the theme wasn't really. 'Snowflake day'. The farthest thing you can get from creative. They literally only asked us to wear white, how festive is that? I'd planned on wearing all-white, realizing after I put on the outfit that it made me look like a giant marshmallow. I opted for black pants and a white t-shirt and sweater instead, looking slightly-less marshmallowy now.