Drowning in you

•Fortytwo•

Josh found a crumpled up recite in the back pocket of his ripped black skinny jeans.
It was from Taco Bell, and when josh saw that familiar logo he choked back a gasp as memories of Tyler flooded his mind.
Soft pale yellow Light filtered through the blinds in the hospital casting thin strips of light and shadow onto the crumpled slip of paper.

he touched the tip of a pen he had snatched from the front desk  to the paper. He paused, reflecting on how accurate it is to compare a pen to a harpoon. The two are so alike.
He trailed the thin line of blue ink absentmindedly across the paper, letting it wander in slow arcs.
He waited for words to come, but their presence, the presence that had pushed at the sides of his head begging to be let out all his life was gone. He had always wanted to speak, to comment, to share, even to sing like Tyler did. Anxiety bared his flow of constant ideas and thoughts from escaping his lips.
So instead of writing he sat, for when words don't break the silence sometimes feelings can.
So he sat in the silence looking at Tyler's closed eyelids, and his slightly chapped lips, dreaming of the nights he had spent drumming his heart out to the words that came so freely to Tyler.
He sat for what seemed like an impossibly long time rubbing his thumb slowly over Tyler's  still hand.
Eventually he knew the words wouldn't come, so instead he wrote the three words he knew to be true.

I love you

They were scratchy and messy letters, the pens ink skipped and dragged, but it was important.
An important statement, a feeling that could be described in three million words, or three. For it was undefinable, eluding even the most insightful poets, skipping and dancing, following no ones rules.
That was love, josh decided.

He slowly folded the paper in half, then in half again, until it was small and compact. He slipped it slowly into Tyler's cool palm, gently closing his fingers around it.

It was then that a nurse bustled in. She was as delicate as a flower, her thin arms, which protruded from her boxy blue scrubs, were littered with hundreds of tiny pale brown freckles.
"Sir, what is your relation to-" she consulted her clipboard nervously, "Tyler Joseph?"
"I'm his friend, his best friend." Josh stuttered out.
But so much more than a friend, and yet those feelings are trapped in my head so are they even real?
The nurse smiled sympathetically, her thin pink tinted lips pouting.
"Well-I'm sorry what is your name?"
"Josh Dun."
"Well mr. Dun, I can tell you really care about this friend of yours Tyler."
More than you would know.
"But I don't think that it is necessary for you to linger here Day and night."
Yes it is, how could I leave the one that means the most.
"Perhaps you could go on a little walk in the park? Just an hour, that's all I'm asking."
He's my love, my only weakness, I can't just leave him.
"I need to clean the room, just one hour." Pleaded the nurse. She meant well, josh could tell from her face, so he took pity on her.
"Ok, but can I have a minute alone with him before I go?" Josh sighed.
"Yes of course mr. Dun." She slipped quietly out of the room, leaving it dead and silent once again.
Josh leaned over Tyler's body, and spoke
The first thing he could think of.
"Tyler, I'm not mad at you, I'm not frustrated, I miss you. I miss you with all my broken heart and my mechanical mind and my stitched together soul. My body aches for your laugh and your smile. Please Tyler, use that strength I know you keep inside you, come back to me. I'll try harder Tyler, I'll be better to you, I'll change if it means you will smile, please Tyler. I've never felt so separated from my heart, because my heart is slumbering with you. You stole it years ago, and I'm never complete without it, without you by my side.
Please wake up Tyler. Please."
He closed the warmth of his two calloused hands around Tyler's which held the note, then abruptly he dropped his hand, turned, and ran out of the blank room, hurrying past the medical staff before they could see his tears.

He found himself at the edge of a small lake in the neighboring park sometime later, and under the safety of the swinging willow branches around him he wept.
He opened his phone to find thousands of messages and comments from the clique frantically questioning about the sudden stop of the tour, and josh and Tyler's inactivity on social media. His numb mind couldn't formulate a way to sugar coat the dreadful truth.

Tyler lost all hope, his depression finally got the better of him, he's attempted suicide, and is now struggling at the border between life and death.

He tried to distract himself, he wandered aimlessly through the green tinted light of the park.
He stopped next to an ice cream cart, and waited in line for ten minutes, surrounded by whining kids and grouchy tired parents until he could order.
then he was off again, weaving mindlessly through the park, every once in a while licking his melting ice cream.
It was vanilla, the kind of ice cream Tyler always ordered. Josh had noticed this on their tours early on. It wasn't uncommon for the two of them to stop for ice cream on a hot day or after an especially tiring show. He had finally confronted Tyler about this one night under a sunset drenched sky on a beach in France.
They had been sitting back to back, Tyler looking up the beach, josh looking down the beach.

"Tyler, why do you always get vanilla ice cream?"

"You know, I really have no idea. Maybe it's comforting to have something so calm and un- extraordinary when we're traveling in such new places." Tyler had mumbled thoughtfully.

"Yeah, or maybe you're just a plain vanilla guy." Josh had joked.

Tyler had turned around so fast to see if josh was joking that some of the aforementioned desert smeared across Josh's nose.

"Tyler!" Josh and wailed, pretending to be all. Offended.

"Shit sorry josh, I'll clean it up." Tyler had muttered in embarrassment, his cheeks flushing. Josh had watched Tyler's eyebrows furrow slightly in concentration as he tried to wipe the white smear off Josh's nose with one hand. He had eventually just given up, sighing in frustration when he realized that it was only smeared.

Josh and laughed and laughed at the frustration in Tyler's face, and eventually Tyler had laughed as well.

Josh shook himself out of his memories, and noticed the shadows of the park lengthening slowly. He had to get back to check on Tyler. He hurriedly retraced his steps through the park.
He ran past all the other occupied rooms in the hospital hallways until he finally reached Tyler's room.
He rushed to his side, placing a hand on his exposed tanned arm. Then he remembered the note he had tucked into Tyler's hand.
He slowly unfurled his fingers to see if it was still there.
The paper was gone, its simple purity discarded with all the other past-expiration-date feelings and stories that lingered in the hospital from so many life stories cut short.

Much love for reading my story!
-Samantha <3