(no subject)
For Taylor, it is subtle. There isn't any big, explosive realization. There are no late night epiphanies or sharp jealousies when he sees affection bestowed on someone else.
There is just what there has always been between them. Lingering touches, intense eye contact, and shy grins that seem to speak more than an entire conversation between them.
That's not to say that there aren't any explosions or epiphanies or pangs of jealousy. There is that, and much more. He'll realize things with a jolt, like the delicate curving of his throat, the gentle bobbing of his adam's apple as he laughs or swallows or coughs or sneezes. The way his bangs would fall over his face when he leaned over mesmerized him so much more after he noticed that his platonic feelings toward his best friend weren't so platonic after all. Or, when suddenly he's too busy to make time every day to spend with him. There's a new girl in the picture, red-haired and tall and wide, but beautiful in her own way. He thinks she hangs the moon, and Taylor wants to yell at her, but she's much taller than him, and wider, though she's not extraordinarily fat. Taylor thinks she could stomp him.
Sometimes, they'll make eye contact, and stare, and so much emotion is exchanged in that simple act, that he can't help but think that maybe he isn't alone in this, this unexplainable, insufferable, miserable yearning. Maybe he feels the same.
But then the contact is broken, and he's telling a story about the new girl, and Taylor pastes a smile on his face that he kind of hopes looks as fake as it feels. He doesn't say anything about the strained qualities of the smile, though, so Taylor thinks that maybe he's a better actor than he previously guessed.
The days pass by, quickly and slowly, dragging through him like a sandstorm, whipping around him, taking every last bit of resistance and self-esteem and endurance that he has.
Until one day, Taylor snaps.
He's been calling Taylor all day, texting and messaging, and all Taylor really wants to do is sleep. So he does. He sleeps through the twelfth-through-twentieth phone call, and twentieth-through-fortieth text message, and he sleeps through the fifteen straight minutes of the doorbell ringing and the door rattling on it's hinges as he pounds away at the hollow, weak wood.
Of course, he's frantic, worried about Taylor, who's never so much as missed a call from him, always there, waiting when he's not needed, and jumping into action when he is. Taylor doesn't answer the door, or go to school the next day, or unlock the window when he comes to it under the cover of midnight, stars twinkling down through the smog and cloud cover, laughing at him as he knocked and scratched at the window, shivered in the cool breeze.
He stays the night outside the house, though, back against the rough bark, poking holes into the t-shirt he wears that smells like Taylor, the one that he stole from his dressers when he was in the shower. He catches Taylor's mother on her way out to work, and she says that Taylor's been sleeping, hasn't been feeling well, and yes, of course he went to school yesterday, of course you didn't see him, he transferred schools starting yesterday, didn't you know?
No, he didn't know, and now, he also doesn't know what to do.