Drowning in you

•fortyfour•

And so, time passed, as time tends to do, and josh seemed to age a year for every day he spent hunched in the chair beside Tyler.

He visited the kind waitress at the cafeteria, her words built him up, but they were like sugar to his malnourished mind, they carried him high, then left him to plummet farther and farther into sadness.

He became accustomed to the smell of
Chemicals that burned his nose, to the the male doctors who would peer through the window when they thought he wasn't looking, the whispers of the nurses that lingered just outside the door, he knew they didn't think Tyler would make it.
Every so often he thought he heard a faint mumble from Tyler, but he was fairly sure that it was just his sleep deprived state of mind.

That day josh was eating lime jello he had found in the cafe. Its distinctive smell of fake flavors and preservatives brought him back in time to memories of  cafeteria lunches.
The slimy food made him gag slightly, but he didn't mind, it had become a habit of his to eat it everyday. Tyler lay as he had for weeks, his feathery hair splayed on the pillow around his handsome face.
It was then that josh realized if Tyler ever woke up he would need somewhere to go, to recover from everything that had happened. Jenna couldn't be that home for him, and Tyler's parents were retiring soon, they would have no place for their pop star turned suicidal son. So it had to be josh. with much reluctance josh pressed a gentle kiss to Tyler's brow then stood up, stretched his stiffened limbs, and walked out of the hospital. He trudged onward toward his car, and found its windshield covered in faded flower petals that had fallen on it from the cherry tree above. He carefully brushed this   Pink blanket off the glass, then slid inside.
With a long sigh he turned the key and drove off. The sharp California sunlight cut sharp lines of light on the dashboard, and Los Angeles's many sights and sounds overwhelmed his senses. He pulled into the lax airport at about noon only to realize that flying back to Ohio would mean hours- days away from Tyler. You can do this, you've come this far. He thought to himself sternly. He quickly bought a ticket from the preppy man in the check in area. He passed the gate he had met Tyler at when he had flown from Ohio. He had waited in great anticipation for Tyler's arrival, despite his bare jealousy for Jenna and Tyler's marriage he had still wanted to know how his plan had worked. All his memories from then until the present moment were tinted grey, like a bad filter had been applied to them, making them fuzzy and low quality.
Because of the short notice he didn't even wait at his gate, just boarded straight on the plane.
He felt the pressure of anxiety around him. Tyler would have squeezed his shoulder, comforted him. That kind of understanding between two people can only be built over time. Josh thought he was a pretty good natured guy, there were very few people he hated, but he hated everyone he could see when he walked on that plane. They were all so happy and protected from the terrible grip of grief, and yet they all still complained and fretted about their lives. He couldn't stand pretending to be happy around them, it was to much to ask. He often felt this uncontrollable inpatients when he was around strangers that didn't understand him.
He settled down in the window seat he had been assigned. The teenage boy he was sitting next too thankfully didn't know who he was, and josh felt a little calmer knowing no one would see him like this. He knew music could shelter him from the impossibly long suffering of the flight, so he plugged in his headphones and hit shuffle. He felt a chill tear through his body when he realized what he was listening too. When they had filmed the house of gold music video Tyler had sang. His beautiful voice floating across the grassy fields of the set. Josh could have listened to him sing like that for hours, but it ended far too soon when Tyler had to get changed into his outfit for the video. Later, when the behind the scenes video had been released josh had commented on how much he loved Tyler's cover of the song. The next day he had been listening to music and had been shocked to hear Tyler singing:

Why do you build me up buttercup, baby

Just to let me down and mess me around

No worst of all you never call, baby

When you say you will, but I love you still

I need you more than anyone darlin'

You know what I have from the start

So build me up buttercup, don't break my heart

When josh had asked Tyler he had said that he had illegally downloaded it from the YouTube audio just for josh. Josh had loved that Audio ever since.
It was painfully bittersweet.
He didn't shift his body for most of that incredibly long flight to Ohio, only to occasionally hit the skip button on his phone to switch the song.

When the plane finally touched down his bones were stiff and his mind was filled with images of Tyler lying all alone in the hospital room with no one to watch over him.
These images urged him to hurry out of the maze like airport and quickly hail a taxi.
The drive to Tyler's old home with Jenna wasn't long, they had purposefully bought one close to the airport so Tyler could travel easily.
Josh didn't know it, but he was following nearly exactly what Tyler had done when he had visited Jenna on Valentine's Day.
Everything seemed just as it had been when josh had last visited their new home, but he knew that everything had changed. He paused before the wooden door, mentally preparing himself for what he would find inside.
He opened the door with, and saw Jenna sitting on the couch with her head resting on the shoulder of a man.

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Sorry the updates are so inconsistent I have so much going on right now!
-Samantha <3