THE BLIND GLASS RAGE

2

a/n: how is this so far, hmm?

***

I was having a very difficult time trying to find the difference between being asleep and not being asleep on the drive there. It was Josh's van, and he insisted on driving, because he didn't trust me. He was right not to, though, seeing as I had a strong tendency to get distracted by the things inside of my head while I drove. "I don't really want to die before we get there, if that makes any sense." he smiled, letting me know he was joking, but not really. I readjusted the pillow located behind my head, and moved my feet onto the dashboard, kicking at the bags of fast food and empty cups, shoving them out of my way, and on the floor of the van. He didn't care.

"It's an hour and a half," I rolled my eyes. "I would have managed. Probably."

"You fell asleep on the way to Food Lion, Tyler." he stated. "And food lion is down the street from your house."

"I was up all night before," I defended, snorting obnoxiously at him, and ignoring the rude claims he was making. "You don't know shit about me."

He just laughed and peered out of the window, with one hand on the wheel and the other near his face. His fingers were resting on his lips, and he looked tense, but I said nothing, did nothing, saw nothing. I became one with the seat of the car, the day old fries that we bought yesterday, and the drink he bought me before he left.

"I swear to holy god, if you have to pee in ten minutes-"

"You know it's acceptable to say the word piss, right?" I asked, and he just shook his head at the windshield, rolling his eyes the way he did when he drank. But, it wasn't the same thing, somehow. "Piss piss piss-"

"Oh, quit it, you turd," he shot out, and I laughed loudly, the sound being thrown from me in a thick, sharp, intense way. It's not even that he hated bad words. He just didn't say them, and the two of us made a huge joke out of it most of the time. Still, foul words don't fall from his lips unless they have to. I've heard him swear a few times, like when someone pushed me in tenth grade, and cussed me out when I muttered something at him. That was pretty interesting.  

"Turd? Who the fuck says tur-you know what? It doesn't even fuckin' matter, because we're going to Cincinnati. Cincinnati, Josh. Like we've always dreamed of, and shit."

"Where's this Tyler coming from?" He screamed, and I am not used to hearing his voice so loud. It hyped me up on something that wasn't quite pure happiness, but something else. And don't think that I'm not happy, because I am, most of the time. Especially now, when Josh is my best friend and I'm going to my dream college with my best friend.

"Your ass," I snapped playfully, only for him to smack blindly at my head, keeping his eyes glued to the road. Josh was an amazing driver, though, and I knew good and well that he didn't need to look after the road like it was a newborn baby, and was probably just using that as an excuse for me not to hit him back. "Right. Out. Of your. Ass." My hand came down on the back of his head. He yelped, keeping his hand where it was on the wheel, and slapped back at me, biting down on his lip in concentration and focus. Eventually, through all our laughing, me having to grab at the wheel, and me getting poked in the fucking eye, we calmed down, and started actually driving again. Neither of us were even buckled, and in my head, I realized that these are the kind of moments my life is worth living for, and the kind of moments my mom fears like a disease that has no cure.

"This is so terrible of me to think, but I wish I had some wine right now," he snickered at some point, when the conversation between us broke, and we sat in our respective seats, thinking our respective thoughts. He was a good listener, though, whenever I talked. Unlike me, because the truth, is that I have never been a master of getting lost in other people the way he has. I am a selfish, cynical, pessimistic person and there is a lot of things that have happened to me that have lead me to believe that the world is cold. The things I've seen happen to other people make me think that, actually. My life was never a bad one. Never. But there are others who have terrible circumstances they trudge through every fucking day, and for what? For what. "Is it illegal for the passenger to drink?" he asked me, and I laughed a bit. "And not to have been drinking, but to actively drink in the passenger seat."

Josh was the one who introduced me to what pain meant, and what is was for. He was tipsy, and allowed me to climb inside of his soul and discover everything that I could, though it still wasn't much. It wasn't much at all. "Pain just sharpens you, strengthens you." He nodded to himself more than to me. We were in the abandoned apartments, and he had his bottle of wine curled against his shoulder, and the world was not allowed to take pictures of the incredible mystery that Josh was, because he ignored the desires I had for once, and I was kind of happy it happened. He was pretty selfless and hated to acknowledge it, but everyone that knew him was aware of the fact that his love for pleasing and helping other people was present quite often.

The night the two of us spoke about pain, he has never spoken of again. The memory of that night never graces either of us, to the other's knowledge, and I know Josh never wanted to talk about it. After he said what he said, I asked him a question, and, to this day, I am surprised at his idiotic I was. "Are you in pain?"

And he knew exactly what I meant. He still does. He knew on our way to college and he knew when we got there and he knew when all of those things happened to us after we were there, and he knew the answer, too. It was bright and shocking in my face, but I never really got an answer from him. I didn't need one. If I did, he would have given me one. He just brought the bottle to his lips again, tipped his head back a bit, and kept his eyes on me, letting me know that was it. That he was closed back down.

"That's a good question that I should probably know the answer to, but I'll google it." When I did, I was disappointed to see that it was illegal unless you lived in the listed states, and Ohio was not one of them. I'm disappointed by the laws, really, and whoever constructed them. "That's some fucking bullshit," I laughed. "In Mississippi, you can drink and drive as long as your, like, Breathalyzer thing doesn't read over .8%."

"I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"You should feel bad, because that is some fucking bullshit."

He laughed, turning his head to me, and turning it back. "I heard."

"Good, because that's some serious shit."

"Language!"

And that is how we spent the ride there, crying over nothing and screaming over everything, and praying for some decent music to flood the car, from the old, sketchy radio. That's exactly how we spent the ride there. And I think that if I was aware of all the things that were going to happen to Josh and I when we got there, I might have forced him to turn back around. But, I had to look at the astronomically large picture, and if I'm going off of that, turning around wouldn't even have been an option.

***

a/n: writing is my release i stg