THE BLIND GLASS RAGE

5

a/n: LISTEN TO ME. THE EVENT WITH TYLER THAT TAKES PLACE HERE ISNT WHAT YOU THINK. IT WILL LEAD TO A SHIT HEAP OF MORE SHIT, OKAY? DONT BE WORRIED OR ANYTHING OR TURNED OFF OF THE BOOK. HES GAY. WE KNOW THIS.

this is also unedited im sorry

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The first film I ever put together, I played We Move Lightly by Dustin O'Halloran in the background, at some of the confusing parts, so that it might make some sense. It's an amazing song, if I'm being honest, that brings out the parts in me that I forgot existed, and I felt that, when I listened to it, I could survive my entire life with only that. Soon enough, it proved to be not true, because I added that song in at the last minute, and that's when Josh came down into my basement without an invitation or a warning or an I'm here, but I didn't care, because I had a film to show him.

"Sit down," I told him, and he saw my computer and my camera, and he listened. "It's only fifteen minutes or so, but, just. Watch it. Like, see it, I mean. Don't think. Just watch."

"Okay." he spoke, and his voice was so calm with me, even after I freaked the fuck out, and wouldn't stop talking. "Let's see."

God, I appreciate him. Even now. And forever is a lie, which is why I will not say it to him, but I will care about him for a long long time. He is burrowed under my skin, and I no longer have a choice.

He watched it, we watched it, and he hugged me when it was over, and talked to me through his lips on the side of my head, and I cried then, but they were relieved, soft tears. Because it took a lot of me to make that, and you could watch, and see the blood and sweat and agony and tears that I poured into making that goddamn film, and I am still proud of it now.

I don't know why I'm thinking of my first film in a class that has nothing to do with much of anything. The professor is speaking about sound waves or something, and I can see a lot of shoulder blades when I look around, as opposed to the back of someone's head. Most of us were asleep, though I wasn't, because I wasn't tired. In fact, I felt pretty good, because I was going to get out soon. There was a lot of notes I was forced to take, though, and it would be much nicer if I could drop everything on my way out of the door, and watch the papers and my pencil and my patience scatter, but I pretend not to care too much to do that. To do any of that.

When the class ended, I took it upon myself to jostle everyone awake. In fact, it was just another girl and I that weren't basically dead, and she came behind me on my way out. "Hey."

I wasn't used to people talking to me, and spun around, ready to say something defensive or rude or leaking annoyance. But, I couldn't do that, because she was pretty. The nice type of pretty. The real kind. "Hey."

"So, I've been staring at you from afar for, like, two weeks, and you haven't noticed me yet, so the only way to hide fear is to appear fearless." She stuck her hand out in front of her, and her nails were green. "I'm Joe. Because my parents wanted a boy."

"I'm Tyler," I responded a beat too late, smiling at her. She smiled back, and her teeth were nice, just like the rest of her. And she was in a mint dress that matched her nails, and I thought that Joe and I could get along. Plus, she told me she had been staring at me for a while, and that shit doesn't happen to me, because I'm not that much of a looker. So, I was going to take advantage of the existence of this nice girl, in a way that I knew would be beneficial to the both of us. "You should come and eat something with me. Something like food."

She giggled, and she came along with me. Knowing Josh wouldn't mind if I took his van, I did, and thought of nothing else. Everything in the world slipped my mind, aside from the fact that a pretty girl noticed me, and she was in a van with me, and kept smiling and looking very nervous, and I was aware of the fact that I could probably kidnap her and demand a ransom of some sort, but I was not angry enough for that. And I thought about how Audrey, Parker, Josh and I had plans of some sort, and that didn't come back to me until they called me. Until I took Joe back to her dorm. Until it was almost seven in the evening.