bobcaygeon | j.r. and p.w.

five | you are my favourite what if

The photo doesn't relate to the song but Josh has a recollection again and you need to read this chapter closely. It affects chapter right of the story.

This chapter is continued in two chapters.

EDIT:
Republishing the story slowly.

{Josh's POV) July 4th, 2016

My hands swung loosely at my sides, walking down a pathway in a community garden. Id always had lamenting, a lamenting silence for me.

I was silent in my words, watching the patriotic fireworks blast off in the air as I wished I could share this moment like I did with her. I missed Amanda again on days like this. Laughing and being happy couldn't happen for me. Even after drinks and drugs and everything else I'd struggled with in my life, I couldn't find something to keep me sane, something to keep me from slipping into other things.

My hands found my phone, scrolling through old photos and letting the teardrops roll down my face. My eyes found no sound, a wordless melody of banging firecrackers in the sky and my own heart playing the tune of melancholy.

I was melancholy, sad in a bad way and feeling terrible in the way that I felt. I wanted something real to hold onto. The Fourth of July just brought more pain for me.

Mike, Matt and Ian all had their families and loves and lives in the world and I was stuck alone, singled out by the heartaches of my past. I didn't know what to say or do about any of this, my lips finding no sound.

Then I saw the sign of hope. I saw moi flowers, bluer than my own eyes, in the grassy sides of the stone path. I grabbed them into my fingertips, my smile lifting as I dropped them through my fingers, grabbing one and putting it in my pockets.

I decided to enjoy the Fourth of July for what it was - a celebration of pure living. No matter where you came from those fireworks would light up the night sky that day here, and you'd feel immersed in their light. I now wished I hadn't missed the ones for Canada Day, which was the First of July, but I'd been at a party and had a few before they'd started blasting them off on Vancouver Island.

It made me miss home, where I could find familiarity in the ocean. And I remembered dozens upon fucking dozens of these flowers, in the flower shop where Amanda had dragged me because we'd been looking for wedding arrangements. It was the best and worst part of my memories.

I looked at the scattered flowers I'd left, blown away and swept up by the early July wind that next morning, tears starting to stop falling in my head, the rain starting to clear.

"Josh? Are you okay?" My bandmate Mike asked. "You were out super late. Did you have another sleepwalking episode?" Mike laughed, and I put on a smirk; a trademark one.

"I realized I'd be okay for once, Mike. I just... I saw those flowers and I felt happy and free. When they were swept away from my feet, they had swept up into a swirl. Like something happy. And now where they were, more would grow right? Even me pulling one out meant one would replace it. Someone would replace her for me, although no one could ever be her." I spoke, looking at Mike. Mike smiled a little at what I'd said.

"I've never heard you be that poetic or philosophical before. You're usually saying the funniest thing. But maybe now that you've realized this, maybe you can open up more. Part of it is learning to accept what has happened. I did when me and Tristan's mom divorced." Mike told me, and I listened, looking at him, knowing what he'd done before he met his fiancé, Megan.

But in all of this honesty, the Fourth of July was always a celebration for me, and now would be. Of the day I chose to live my life after Mike's advice. I accepted what had happened between me and Amanda.

"Mike..... I need to call a band meeting." I smiled a little, planning on making the biggest revelation of my life to my bandmates.