Simultaneous // Josh & Jake Kiszka

Chapter One

Present Day...

"The fact that it's not killing you like it's killing me...it says everything."

You were standing in the rain. Your eyeliner streaking down your cheeks like pitch black tears. Hair sticking to your neck as it poured down. And he had finally said what was on his mind.

"You're my person, Josh!" You cried. "You will always be my person!"

He was drenched. Tight curls pulled back from his face, like he'd just stepped out of the shower as you both stood in the street.

"I'll never be your person. I'll always just be one half of your people."

You shook your head. Raindrops falling out from your bangs. Hot tears against cold rain, never knowing which stung more.

"That's not true." You stepped forward, your heart breaking as he retreated back. "I loved you first...I will love you last..."

You could feel yourself about to lose him. And the realisation that you could do nothing to stop it was absolute.

"I just need you to know." He pulled the rain from his facial hair with a wet hand. "It wasn't just lust, for me. The way it was between us. It was a different type of heaven. It made me feel even closer to you. That was why I craved it, all the time. I needed all of you. And I needed you to know that you had all of me."

Thunder rumbled under dark clouds above. The sound of cars riding through puddles as they passed continued, as if the world hadn't stopped turning just for you.

"You think this isn't killing me?!" You almost screamed, stepping into the space he had moved away from. "For as long as I can remember, I wished to find someone like you. I wished on daisy petals and shooting stars. And the only time I stopped looking into the sky was when I met you."

He was defeated. All the fight gone from his eyes. You feared you'd never see that smile of his ever again. The one that brought you out from the darkness into blinding sunshine.

He crept back towards you, raising a moment of hope. "Then...why?!"

One Year Ago...

He was nervous. And you were sick of waiting for him to kiss you. The way he lingered by your door, thinking of ways to keep the conversation flowing so that he didn't have to stay goodbye was endearing.

But you wanted him to push you up against it and sink his tongue into your mouth in the way you'd been picturing it all night.

"I had a really good time tonight, with you." You said gingerly, pulling your keys out of your bag.

He noted how you seemed eager to get inside. His top lip trembling on any words that didn't involve having to walk away from you.

"Yeah." He agreed. "It was nice."

It hadn't been nice. It had been an evening of latent desire. Watching him speak but thinking of what else that mouth could do. Nice would have been if you'd enjoyed his company and ended the evening on a promise that he'd call you.

This was something else.

"Josh?"

He was staring at his feet. Loitering with one foot on your step, the other planted firmly on the pavement. His head snapped up as you said his name.

"Sorry." He apologised, pushing a fist full of curls back away from his forehead. "I'm no good at this."

"Josh..." You repeated. "Would you like for me to spell it out for you?"