semi-automatic ; j.d

fourty six ; stomach's tied in knots

"hey, whatcha doin?" asks jenna, popping her head in to mia's room.

she glances up at her from her laptop screen. "writing an essay."

jenna nods casually. "cool."

"cool," replies mia.

"so do you feel like getting back together with josh today?" asks jenna with a nonchalant tone. it's been over a week and this question is still being asked.

she spins around in her chair and glares at her best friend. "no, jenna, i don't."

jenna sighs with disappointment. when she found out that her otp broke up, literally out of the blue, she was upset. she still is, really.

"i just don't understand why you broke up with him," she says while walking over to mia's bed and laying down. "i thought he made you happy."

he did. and i hate myself for hurting him. "it wasn't working for me, i guess," mia replies.

jenna let's out an obnoxious, clearly fake cough. "BULLSHIT," she yells between coughs and the pretends to clear her throat. "wow, i think i'm coming down with something. i think it's called 'my-friend-is-a-terrible-liar."

she rolls her eyes. "that is the worst name i've ever heard." and actually, considering the fact that i told josh i didn't have feelings for him, i'm a great liar. like oscar worthy lying.

"why can't you tell me what really happened?"

"because it's not that simple," says mia with a shake of her head. she tries to focus on her essay, but with all the josh talk she knows it's useless.

jenna frowns. "just talk to me. we're best friends, after all. we tell each other everything."

she sighs under her breath. "i know, jenna. but right now i just don't want to talk about josh, okay?"

"okay," she replies quietly. "you know i'm here for you, right?"

"right."

"well, good," jenna gets up from the comfy bed and walks over to the doorway. "i'm gonna go make dinner now."

"dude, c'mon, you gotta get up."

"mh, no."

tyler sighs with frustration and pulls back the curtain of josh's bunk. "i know you're sad, but we still have a tour to finish."

"i don't want to," says josh, even though he knows those words aren't true. but right now he's feeling as shitty as humanely possible, so saying dramatic things like that doesn't phase him or tyler.

"let's just go so we can get this interview over with. i'll do all the talking, i promise," coaxes tyler. being in charge of heart broken josh is not an easy job.

the cherry haired boy makes a small sigh of protest. "what if they ask about her?"

"they're not gonna," tyler insists with a shake of his head.

"but last time they did," points out josh. during their last interview, which occurred when josh was still feeling like a functional human being, a question came up about relationships. of course then he was happy to be talking about mia, but now he was scared that it would be brought up and he wouldn't know what to say. he hadn't mentioned anything about the breakup publicly, and he didn't want to. because he still wants mia back.

tyler gives josh an empathetic look. "if they do," he starts, putting a hand on josh's shoulder to comfort him. "then i'll change the subject. okay? you don't have anything to worry about."

josh stays quiet for a moment, hesitation written on his face. finally he nods, "okay."

so they go to the interview, and like usual josh let's tyler do the talking. he's never really liked having to talk a lot and he's glad that his best friend understands that. plus tyler always has the best answers to questions.

much to josh's relief, relationships don't come up in any of the questions. they usually don't, anyways, but after their last interview josh is paranoid about it.

he's been paranoid about a lot of things, lately.

what did i do wrong? that's been the million dollar question swimming in his thoughts and keeping him up at night. did he not love her enough? did he love her too much? did she lose feelings for him because he's not there?

to say he feels guilty is an understatement. he keeps planning out paragraphs worth of text apologies, staring at them for a few minutes, and then he'll delete them.

before the shows all he does it sit around with his head in his hands. he doesn't even really wanna be there, he wants to be with mia. he wants to go to her and hug and kiss her and force her to talk to him and give him some better explanation than that she's 'not feeling it'.

when he's playing on stage, josh loses himself. there, behind his drum kit, he doesn't have to worry about anything and can take all his anger out on his drums. but he thinks the fans have noticed his shift in mood, because he hasn't really smiled since mia broke up with him. he hasn't smiled at all.

josh isn't handling the breakup well. obviously.

"everything's gonna be fine, josh," said tyler with a gentle voice the day after mia had broken up with him.

josh had sniffled and then wiped his tear stained cheeks. "it hurts, ty," he replied quietly. his chest was aching and the crying didn't help his throbbing migraine. "i love her so much."

"i know you do," the singer had coaxed while brushing his fingers through josh's hair. "she knows that, too."

"t-then why doesn't she l-love me back?"

tyler sighed heavily. "maybe something happened. jenna said she's been acting weird, so maybe-"

"if s-something happened then she would've told me," josh whimpered, shaking his head. (A/N LOL BITCH YOU THOUGHT)

it was quiet for a few minutes as tyler rubbed josh's back and let him cry it out. well, cry it out for the day. he had been crying about it for a while.

"things will be different when we get back," tyler promised. "you'll see."

josh didn't say anything after that. he didn't argue with tyler at the fact that he didn't want to wait two months to fix things with mia. he could hardly stand being broken up with her for less than twenty four hours.

and now, a week later, josh feels empty.