dear tyler joseph ☼ j.d. + t.j.

3

tyler looked down at the money squeezed tightly in his hand, he was standing in line at the  hospital cafeteria in desperate need of some caffeine. he'd been there  an hour and josh was still fast asleep. a couple nurses had come in and  checked all the many machines hooked up to josh's tattooed arms. tyler wasn't sure how long he could wait, the anticipation was killing him, but he couldn't just wake josh up with a soft 'poke'. no, he had to wait. and waiting was the worst part.

"that'll be $2.19." a  middle aged man said from behind the counter.  tyler handed him the wad  of cash and took the warm foam coffee cup from the mans hand.

"thanks." tyler turned on his heel and headed back towards the elevator.

he pushed open the heavy  wooden door and to his surprise saw a smiling, well rested, joshua dun  sitting up in the bed. he was laughing at something ashley had said and  didn't even notice tyler's presence. that's when he saw it again, the  boy who was in the middle of a bad situation still smiled and still  laughed, as if everything else in that moment didn't matter. ashley  looked over at tyler and smiled before opening her mouth to speak.

"josh look." she tilted  her head slightly and pointed towards the door, where tyler was still  standing, clutching his increasingly less warm coffee.

"hi." tyler managed to  say as josh turned to look him in the eyes. a smile began to grow on  josh's face as he realized who he was looking at.

"hi." josh replied,  wrinkles formed in his cheeks as his smile widened. "come sit?" tyler  nodded and walked over to the chair set next to ashley's.

"i take it you got my letter." josh said fiddling with the green blanket that covered his legs.

"yeah, i did." tyler  smiled and wrapped his hands around his cup. josh was finally awake,  tyler could finally speak to the boy that was in love with him, but for  some reason tyler couldn't find a single word to say. his mind was  completely blank as he stared at the purple haired boy.

josh turned his head to  ashley and moved  his eyebrows together, she nodded clearly  understanding the unspoken question asking her to leave. josh turned his  head and watched her go, once the door was shut he turned his  attention to tyler who was staring down at the white lid of his  disposable coffee cup.

"i know this is all  really weird," josh began with a soft laugh. "but um, i couldn't go  through with surgery without telling you how i feel. it just didn't seem  right." he scratched the back of his head and waited for tyler to  answer.

tyler nodded and paused a  moment before speaking. "i'm glad you wrote the letter and i'm really  happy you sent it." tyler still hadn't looked up from the cup, he was  afraid that if he made eye contact he wouldn't be able to speak again.  "the only thing i was wondering is, why?"

"why what?"

tyler ripped at the  brown cardboard wrapped around his cup and took in a deep breath. "why me? you don't really know  me and yet for some reason it feels like you do and, you care about me? i  guess that just doesn't make sense to me, we haven't ever even talked,  not in depth." before tyler knew what he was doing he looked up and saw  the beautifully sad eyes of the boy sitting in the hospital bed right  beside him.

"i don't," josh took in a  breath and licked his lips thinking about what he would say next, and yet he couldn't  find any words to explain why he felt the way he did about tyler. he  just did. "i don't have a real reason 'why' exactly. it happened out of the blue  really. i didn't know i was falling in love with you until it was to  late. i'd already fallen, and there wasn't anything i could do to stop it. not that i wanted to." josh looked into the deep brown eyes across  from him and smiled, knowing tyler had spent the time to read the letter  and actually come to see him made josh's heart beat a little faster in  his chest.

tyler stared back at  josh, the answer he was given wasn't exactly the one he had expected.  but it was still a good answer and tyler could understand what josh was  going through, and as he sat there in the hard wooden chair he felt  himself begin to fall for the boy named joshua dun.

•••

tyler went home that night and replayed the whole event over and over in his head until he fell asleep. when he woke up he didn't exactly know what to do, was he supposed to go back to the hospital to see josh or would that be weird? tyler wanted to see josh again, he wanted to talk to him and really get to know him. he wanted to sit next to him and hear the beep of the heart monitor, and to see the smile on josh's face that made his nose scrunch up and the area next to his eyes wrinkle. tyler smiled at the thought of josh sitting in a hospital bed smiling as wide as he could just because tyler was there.

tyler walked into his kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down on the small wooden table he had bought at a consignment store. the sound of his phone vibrating brought him out of his thoughts and back in to reality. the text was from an unknown number, tyler furrowed his brow and unlocked his phone to read the message.

unknown: hey there ty, its ashley, josh's friend. i got your number through your friend melanie, sorry if that's weird, she is so nice and always speaks very highly of you, we met at a bar a couple nights ago and instantly hit it off. anyways the point is after you left yesterday josh couldn't stop smiling and talking about you. it was the happiest i've seen him in weeks, so if you wanted to come back by again today and see him i think it would make josh feel a lot better. no pressure though! i totally understand if you don't want to. it was nice meeting you tyler!

tyler smiled down at the phone and finished his coffee before answering.

tyler: i'd love to come by again, thank you for letting me know how much it meant to josh. i wasn't sure if i should come back or not, it was nice meeting you too ashley.

with that tyler got up, got dressed, and headed to the hospital to see josh. tyler was nervous and excited at the same time. nervous because he had just met josh and still wasn't sure how to act around him, and excited because he really wanted to talk to josh again, to see his smile, hear his laugh, and just be with him without the pressure of having to talk.