Tyed

chapter sixty six

Slowly, time becomes real again. Tyler becomes aware of his body burning; each breath more full of carbon dioxide, struggling for oxygen. He becomes aware of the sun inching down the horizon. He becomes aware of a street he only remembers in theory, a hill and its view giving him the only real clue of where he is.

His phone, in his jacket pocket, is still with him, but he can't look at it. He crouches on a sidewalk, breathing heavily, sweating through his shirt. Sweating out the pain. Some mother in leggings pushes a pram down the sidewalk across the road and stares at him. Why look at him? Nothing was there.

He looks up at the street name, the nearest big road. Junkyard Road. No, he does in fact know where this is, just because it was a funny name, because Lachlen always joked about how stupid of a place to live it was, said rent was cheaper here because nobody wanted to live on Junkyard Road. Did he come here on purpose? Did he come here because he had nowhere else to go?

Lachlen lived the other side of Gem Varily. Tyler hopes he still lives here. Because it's true. He's got nowhere else to go.

Tyler remembers Lachlen's house. There's this crushing weight on him, the weight of loss, and with the way that memory fades, like sunlight ruining a painting, he can't remember just how devastating it was to lose Kevin, he knows it felt so much worse than he feels right now; or at least, he knows it must have been. He feels like he has never felt heavier, like loss has never crushed him this much. He knows it must not be true. That does not make this crushing weight easier to deal with. He remembers Lachlen's house, knows where he's meant to be going. He just struggles to look up, to lay eyes on it, to focus his feet towards it. Now that he's stopped, he feels like all he can do is collapse. Don't look at his phone. Don't do it.

Instead, he leans on the fence of Lachlen's house. Stares up at his window. His curtains are closed. If those are even his curtains anymore. He probably lives with his fancy new boyfriend. He's probably happy. He's probably found what Tyler so badly wanted to believe he had, wanted to believe couldn't be ruined.

There's no moment where you're happy forever. Tyler knows that. Just like how antidepressants don't make you happy, they just give you the ability to experience happiness, Tyler knows that he wasn't going to be happy forever with Colby. But he knew he would be happy sometimes. He knew they'd argue and sometimes it would be boring and sometimes he'd hate Colby's guts. He knew a lot of it would be tedious and he'd sometimes wish he did other things. He knew that would happen no matter what he chose. He knows he's going to be bored and get into fights and feel like life is tedious now that Colby- well, Tyler's not ready to accept quite yet that it's ruined, but it feels like it, doesn't it? He's not going to get Colby back after this one, is he?

Point is, Tyler's going to be unhappy at some points of his life. But when's he going to be happy? He can't imagine it just about ever anymore.

Sometimes walking with Kevin at night was boring, or tedious, or they'd argue, or it would be sad or angry. But sometimes he was happy. Sometimes he was really happy. He didn't feel this aching loneliness or this need for the other half of his heart like he feels in this moment. Like he felt up until some not-quite-definable moment, some moment that slipped by him, changed him in a passing gust of wind and didn't think to let him know. When he fell in love with Colby.

When that hole is filled, that love isn't the only thing to make him happy. Going to the arcade, watching Nancy lose her shit at the machines; talking to Kali, in the silence they don't have to fill, making something small together. Getting a moment to himself in the cool evening, looking out at the sunset, or sipping a coffee. Those moments can be so quickly emptied when there's a hole of unrequited love, but they're full and warm and joyous when you aren't longing for someone you'll never have again.