Falling Too {tyler joseph fic}

Seven

Ari pov

I sighed as I walked to my car, hoping desperately I didn't just lose him. I spent the short drive home with my mind in chaos, worrying about Tyler and if he still wanted to be my friend, and dreading the confrontation with my mother once I got home. I knew she would be mad at me and I cursed myself for forgetting to text her where I was.

It was typical of her to get mad at me like this, she always worried about what I was doing and where I was. She never considered my opinion on matters like what I did with my time and couldn't get it out of her head that it wasn't the80's anymore and it was perfectly acceptable to do things like go out on week nights and stay out after 11:00pm

I pulled into the driveway and pulled out my backpack, slinging it over my shoulder as I trudged inside. I kicked off my shoes and headed upstairs to my room, hoping to sneak past my mother and delay her lecture.

"Arianna? Get in here!" I heard her call from the kitchen. My heart sank and I felt tears beginning to form. I hadn't even seen her yet and I already wanted to claw myself out of my skin.

I slowly entered the kitchen and stood in the doorway, waiting for her to yell at me.

"Where have you been?" She asked turning to face me, her eyes boring into me as she waited for an answer.

"A friend's house," I answered quietly, looking at the floor.

"What friend?" she demanded, her voice getting more commanding as the seconds passed.

"Tyler," I said as quietly as I could without being inaudible.

"Why did you think you could just go over without checking with me first? How was I supposed to know where you were, you could have been kidnapped for all I knew!"

I hunched my shoulders and hugged my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible. "I don't know I just forgot. I didn't mean to," I ended in a whisper as tears threatened to spill over.

"I don't know what to do with you. Why did you go over there, you must have homework to do."

"We worked on it. I'm almost done," I said as I tried to defend myself.

"Mhm, well you can't focus as well when you're working with other people, you should have come home first and gone over once you were done with it."

"I'm sorry. And he was really helpful, I wouldn't have known what to do without him," I was shaking now and wanted nothing more than to disappear.

"Well just don't let it happen again, You're not allowed out until all your homework is done, understood?" I quickly nodded and fled the room, grabbing my bag and running up to my bed where I fell down crying.

I couldn't believe her. She never understood how horrible she made me feel. How every time she talked to me all she did was tell me how everything I was doing was wrong. I couldn't handle it anymore. This had been going on since last year and it was getting worse as college admissions deadlines were growing closer. She kept telling me I needed to focus on my school work so I could get into a good school and earn a well paying job, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life- I wasn't even sure I would live that long.

I knew the little argument meant almost nothing and other people had similar conversations with their parents on a regular basis, but My entire life was so overwhelming and the littlest thing could cause me to break.

I curled into a ball, sobs shaking my body as I sank my teeth into my wrist. This was how I dealt with my pain. I couldn't cut because people would notice and my mom would get even more mad at me. This way the only marks would be faint red splotches that would be gone in a day or so.

I looked at the clock through my blurry eyes and read 11:13pm. My phone buzzed on floor where I had thrown it when I reached my room but I couldn't summon enough strength to reach it. After laying in the same position for twenty minutes, I finally uncurled myself and crawled over to my phone. It was a text from Tyler, asking if everything with my mum had gone OK. I silently began to cry again as I unlocked my phone and typed a simple no.

At this point I didn't care that I barely knew him, or had just told him I didn't want to go out him. All I wanted was someone to hold me and tell me everything would be alright, that I could fight through this and become everything I want to be.

He quickly texted me back: I'm coming over

I cried even harder at that- he couldn't come. My mum would be even more mad and everything would be worse.

After laying there for what felt like hours but was really only a minute or so I felt my phone to buzz. I couldn't see who it was through the tears so I declined it and lay back on my bed. It began ringing again and I decided to answer it.

"Hello?" I shakily answered.

"Ari! Thank god, what's wrong talk to me," I heard Tyler's relieved voice through the speaker.

"She yelled at me. A-and told me I couldn't go anywhere without doing my schoolwork, and basically said I-I was a-a failure," I stuttered through my sobs.

I heard Tyler exhale, "No, no you're not a failure. You're amazing. You're really good at science and math, and, and playing Mario Cart."

I tried to smile but I knew that these things didn't really matter. I bit down on my wrist again and I continued shaking as I struggled to stop the flood of emotions.

"What's you're favourite colour?" I asked softly, trying to focus on outside things

"Y-yellow," Tyler answered, clearly confused as to why I was asking such a thing.

"Hmm. Tell me about yourself?" I whispered again, as I clung onto the one person that had a chance of saving me.

"What do you want to know?" He whispered back.

I gasped as I tried to stifle to tears. "Anything"

There was a slight pause, "My name is Tyler Joseph. I was born the first of December. I like basketball, um, I'm pretty good at it. I play the piano. I write songs. I care about you." He stopped for a few moments before saying almost to soft to hear "I know what're you're going through."