dream boy//[t.j.]

Real.

"yes, mom...i'm just going to head to bed, it's been a long day..i love you too." i hung up and threw myself into bed. i wasn't really tired. i just hoped when i appeared in the room tyler would be there. he hadn't shown for nearly a week. i knew he had insomnia but i still worried.

i knew i shouldn't have worried as much as i did. i only saw tyler in my dreams. who even knew if he was real in the first place? the chances of him being real were about the same as it being 80° in antarctica. extremely unlikely.

i felt myself drift off into sleep. i woke up at the table and there he was. his fluffy brown hair was messy and he had eyebags under his eyes. oh how i missed him that week.

"tyler!" i exclaimed. i wanted to hug him but, we were forbidden from leaving the chairs we were in. we tried but it was as if we were glued.

"hey, sorry i haven't shown. my insomnia has been terrible lately." he apologized. i shook my head.

"don't be sorry. i get it." i assured him. he gave a small smile.

within the three years i dreamt of tyler, i grew to know a bit about him. not a lot but a good amount. he was 23 and he was in a band with his best friend, josh. he told me about how he was battling depression and anxiety but he's learned to control it. he says it was much worse when he was younger.

i never asked him what the name of his band was. or where he was from. as much as i wanted to know those things, i was held back. i couldn't just set myself up for disaster. it was better off not knowing whether he truly existed or not.

"so how have you been this week?" tyler asked me. i shrugged.

"okay, i guess. i've been working longer hours so i've had something to do. my 21st birthday was the other day though." i said. tyler smiled.

"happy belated birthday. did you have fun?" he asked. the truth was i got so wasted, i had to get my stomach pumped. it was horrible. i felt like a terrible person. my best friend, tori, assured me that i wasn't a bad person. it was my birthday. she told me i had an excuse. but that didn't stop me from deciding i would never again touch an alcoholic beverage.

"i did..but something bad happened. just a mistake, that's all." i told him. i didn't want to lie, but i didn't want to blatantly tell him. but this was tyler. he'd want to get the truth out of me.

"what happened?" he asked.

"i got super drunk and had to get my stomach pumped. i felt like a horrible person. i could have seriously hurt myself. i was so careless." i admitted. tyler went to reach out and hold my hand, but was stopped by the force that kept him on his side of the table. he frowned.

"you're not a horrible person. not even close, (y/n). everyone gets drunk on their 21st birthday. remember when i told you how mine went down? sure, i didn't have to get my stomach pumped. but everyone gets drunk." tyler tried to comfort me. it helped a lot. knowing tyler didn't think i was less, always made me feel better. i didn't know why.

"thanks, ty. it means a lot." i said with a small smile. he smiled back.

"i'm glad i got to sleep tonight. i couldn't bare not talking to you." he said. i blushed. then i mentally face palmed. stop. it's all in your head. remember that.

"i feel the same way. it got really boring to just sit here in this dark room alone." i replied.

"i have a question. but i get it if not, i've wanted to ask this for a long time now." tyler told me. i raised in eyebrow.

"hmm?" i asked.

"would you..would you maybe want to chat in the real world? like maybe through phone number or instagram or something?" he proposed. his question caught me off guard. three years of all this dreaming and this was the first time he brought this up.

"oh tyler...i don't know." i replied.

"it was stupid of me to ask..we've only seen each other in dreams. i'm sorry." he immediately apologized. i shook my head.

"no, no. it's just.." i struggled with words. what if he was real? what if he got offended? "how do i know you're not a figment of my imagination?"

tyler tensed up. he looked like he got shot. then, hurt flashed his face.

"r-really? of course i'm real. i could tell you everything about myself." tyler said. i began to feel bad.

"i'm just confused. i'm sure nobody besides us has met someone in a dream. a repeated dream, at that." i admitted.

"twenty one pilots. that's my band. look us up. i'm real, i promise." he said. i wished he hadn't said that. because i knew i would look it up. and i would be disappointed. because there was no way he was real. it had to be in my head.

"tyler..its time for me to wake up." i told him. in reality it was only six am. but i had to get out.

i woke up. i was hyperventilating as i usually was when i woke up. i went to my kitchen and grabbed a cup of water.

i wanted tyler to be real. but i didn't want to look him up, because i knew he probably wasn't.

i decided i would get it over with. i had to know. whether i would be disappointed or not.

i grabbed my laptop and typed in "twenty one pilots".

it was time to find out whether or not the boy in my dreams, who i secretly loved, was real or not.

a/n: chapter one and i'm already leaving you with cliffhangers. i'm so kind :D