Glowing Eyes || Adopted by Josh Dun

rhode island

There's no doubt in my mind, to this day, that no one has understood or related to me more than Joshua Dun. If there was an award for 'Best At Handling/Understanding/Talking To/Laughing With/Being Friends With/Parenting Lynn Dun' Josh would receive it hands down. But, if there was a runner up, Tyler Joseph would take second place indefinitely.

For a while, Tyler and I's relationship was mostly as friends. He would pick on me like a younger sister, and, to be fair, Josh and I acted like we were siblings rather than a father/daughter duo, too. Though that's what it was on paper, I never really called Josh my dad. But back to what I was trying to say.

Tyler and I didn't get very sentimental (aside from the time he helped me through my distancing from Josh after the Ryan incident), and because of that, Tyler and I weren't close.

However (as you can guess by what I said earlier about the runner-up thing), that changed for me over time. Although this transition can't be credited to one day, the day that sticks out the most to me was the Rhode Island show.

It was mid-September, and the air had changed from hot and stuffy to cool and crisp, which I personally preferred. I had gotten a call from my brother for the first time in about five months two days before, and he promised to call me the day after. I never got the call.

It felt like my world had crashed to my feet. The part of my life I had finally forgotten had reared it's ugly head once again, and in its great return it did the only thing it knew best. Raised my hopes to let them crash back to the floor, more broken than they were left before.

As the day of the promised call passed, as the hours trickled away, I felt the weight of the world crash onto me worse than before. It wasn't just about my brother, it was about something I missed out on. Now that I knew what family, trust, and love felt like, I realized I never had it before. I never had it where it was supposed to be in the first place. I felt like that entire part of my life was then deemed pointless, and I wanted someone to argue that.

Problem was, no one else I could talk to from that time was alive to mull it over with me. So when my brother called me, I was silently expecting, silently hoping, to see something that wasn't there.

On the morning of the Rhode Island show, I woke up feeling like lead. I didn't feel like moving or talking to anyone. Even breathing felt like a chore. Josh and Jenna offered to let me tag along with them in exploring the city, but I turned it down. I felt horribly alone, and I didn't have enough energy to try and change that.

Turns out, though, that Tyler had woken up the same way (hence him not joining Josh and Jenna). So while I stayed alone with that horrible pit in my chest on the tour bus, Tyler stayed alone with a similar pit in his chest at the venue stage.

And thus begins the day Tyler and I truly met each other.

•••••••

Sitting on the tour bus was getting boring. I had slowly gone from checking the clock every ten minutes to every five. Then three. Then two. Now I was picking up my phone and putting it back down multiple times per minute.

I gave up chasing the time and decided to try to find Tyler or Mark. I stepped briefly outside, the cold air tickling my skin. Dark, stormy clouds loomed overhead, covering the sky completely. Wind whipped at my hair, a sign that it would rain soon.

I quickly rushed into the venue, walking through some halls backstage, trying to figure out where I was. As I descended farther into the confusing mess of empty dressing rooms and doors labeled things like 'makeup' and 'stage manager,' I heard music.