Tyed

chapter sixty one

It's weird, the days leading up to it, because Tyler feels like he's lying even more than usual. There's this odd weight, right in the centre of his chest. It's like there's this little black ball of something insidious and venomous that's taken hold between his sternum and his heart and it's beginning to eat him. Supposedly anxiety, if all his other symptoms are to be believed- the way he shakes when he looks Colby in the eyes, the way his heart doesn't seem to want to settle down. He can't laugh or smile without it feeling forced and faked. His mind always circles back to thoughts of blaming himself. For what? Doesn't matter. It's his fault.

And it's constant, this feeling, in every conscious moment, except the moments where he's fucked out too much to think. Which is why he keeps asking Colby for those moments, and Colby can tell something is wrong, but when he tries to ask Tyler just dodges the question because sooner or later it'll burn down, he can burn this feeling out, and nothing will matter anymore.

It's comfortable, this constant pain. Not because it's actually comfortable but because Tyler is used to it. It wore him down throughout most of high school. It's like an old friend in many ways. It was always there for him; he knows it well, is comfortable spending time with it. Here's the very thing he always wanted but this old friend has always told him he didn't deserve it and didn't need it, and sure that's not a great friend, but it's a voice Tyler is so used to listening to that he almost tunes it out and lets those thoughts get down to his soul.

Until, of course, the day he's meant to go. He can barely get out of bed that morning. He regrets sleeping in his own bed; maybe if he woke up next to Colby, the need to continue acting, to play boyfriend and pretend everything was okay, maybe that would override the overwhelming desire to just fucking go back to bed. Or, alternatively, die. Just die. Go spend the rest of eternity with Kevin in hell.

But Nancy comes in fifteen minutes after Tyler's alarm goes off. "You getting up?" she asks, knowing full well what day it is and what that means for Tyler.

"Don't just barge in. I could've been jerking off."

"No you couldn't have been." She doesn't bother to take him seriously. "Get out of bed."

"You're not my mother."

"You have often referred to me as your sister, so same thing." That pulls him to at least turn over to glare at her, and she looks taken aback. "Too far?"

"I don't know. I just don't wanna get up."

She sits on the edge of his bed. "Wanna call Colby  and your mum and pretend you're suddenly vomiting and can't do it today?"

"One, that's not gonna work, and two, I'll have to do it one day. I wish I didn't do this to myself."

"Well, you certainly didn't have to do it all at once, but you're here now. You know, I had an essay in philosophy recently-"

"You're gonna help me with the words of dead white assholes?"

"No, I'm going to suggest a change in thought that has helped people before. You can't control your emotions and you can't control what happens to you. But you can control your actions, and you can control your thoughts. If you change how you think, it kind of changes your emotions."

"No, it doesn't."

"I said kind of. Besides, even if you can't control your emotions- you can control what you do, can't you?"

"How's that philosophy? You just told me to suck it up and get up anyway."

"It's stoicism. It's genuinely helpful. Or, how about this." She opens her eyes wide, holds her hands up like she's about to explain something world-changing. "Ooh. Want a therapy tip instead?"