Coffee Shop Soundtrack (Marianas Trench)

Chapter Twenty Three

Josh woke up, sleepily rubbing his eyes. He looked down to his chest where he saw Matt still asleep on him, and smiled. He remembered the events of yesterday, and frowned a little. He wished he could have shown Tyler a lesson, but he didn’t want to stoop to that level. Besides, Tyler would have beaten the crap out of him. He didn’t stand a chance.

Matt begun to stir in his sleep, and Josh watched as he moved a little, the wide cuff of his sweater getting caught and dragging up. Across his left wrist was a mess of bruises and scrapes and scars, even a cigarette burn, but that’s not what worried Josh the most. It was the horizontal, uniform cuts scaling up the boy’s small forearm that made his heart drop. It wasn’t exactly hard to tell what those were from. And it wasn’t as if they were tiny scratches either; they were wide, deep cuts. There were old ones scabbed over and scarred, but more prominently new ones, maybe made one or two days ago. Josh furrowed his brow, staring at the marks as the younger boy slept. But even that wasn’t for long, because the boy rolled again and stretched, opening his eyes and blinking a few times.

“Morning, sleepy.” Josh said quietly, and Matt whipped his head up. He soon relaxed when he saw who it was, and smiled gently.

“Morning.” His voice was raspy, where he’d just woken up, and he burrowed his head into Josh’s chest. As soon as he looked down he caught sight of his exposed arm, and rushed - as subtly as he could - to pull the sleeve down. He was stopped by Josh, who gently pushed the sleeve up again.

“I...” Matt begun, panicking.

“Don’t worry about it. I know what it’s like, and I’m not going to tell you to stop at once. Just try, for me?” Josh said. Matt thought about this for a minute, before getting up to leave the room. He came back in a couple of minutes with something in his hand.

“Where’d you go?” Josh asked. He smiled. “I need to give you this.” He handed a small razor to Josh, biting his lip as he did so.

“You sure?” Josh said. “This is a big thing.”

“I don’t want to do it anymore. Tyler told me I deserved it b-but I need to forget about him. I’ll be fine with you.” Matt said.

“You’re very brave.” Josh commented, liking the way this made Matt’s cheeks turn pink. “And for the record, you don’t deserve it.”

Matt just smiled and kissed Josh sweetly, and then bit his lip. Josh raised an eyebrow.

“I wonder what he’s doing.” Matt commented, getting up and crossing the room.

“Probably getting drunk. Don’t think about him.” Josh said, and Matt nodded. The younger boy rifled through his drawer, finding a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt. He got a white v-neck and clean underwear, and looked back at Josh.

“I, um. Am I okay to use your bathroom?”

Josh chuckled. “Duh, it’s as much mine as it is yours.” The brunet smiled and left and Josh got up and changed into his clothes. Matt came back in just as he was pulling on his socks.

“You wore that shirt the day I met you.” Matt said casually.

“You remember that?”

“Duh. You spilled coffee down me.” Matt laughed and rushed over to hug Josh.

“I’m still sorry about that.” He murmured into Matt’s hair.

“Oh my god, shut up.” Matt said, laughing more.

“I’m only messing around.” Josh retorted.

After a minute, Matt spoke up, despite being a little quiet. “I’m glad I met you.”