sober//joshler

STRANGERS

Tyler held back a yawn as he made his way through the throng of people flooding the hallways. God, Monday's were hell. The whole corridor smelled like stale Sunday booze and regrets. The smell stung the back of his throat, threatening to claw up the memories that he had so carefully buried in the last three months.

Had it been three months? No, a little more. Three and a half maybe. Tyler wasn't sure. He had stopped keeping an exact count a long time ago. Something about seeing the day his life had been shot to pieces carefully counted out to the second hurt more than he had been prepared for, so he had simplified the days and left it at the months slowly progressing along

It was winter now. The sidewalks were beginning to frost over and some mornings Tyler woke up to a thin blanket of snow layering his backyard. He loved snow days, they carried with them all the simplistic memories of childhood.

God, Tyler missed being a kid. He missed how life had been back then, with no worries but what dinner was going to be and if Josh could cime over for it. Now it was easier to make a list of things that he wasn't worried about.

Tyler sighed to himself, keeping his head down as he pushed past his classmates, fighting his way to his locker. This part of the day was tricky sometimes. He and Josh once shared a locker and, since the end of their friendship, neither one of them had moved. Josh because he was rarely at school for long enough to be bothered and Tyler because he was desperate to hold onto the last thing of his and Josh's.

Theirs.

It had once been a word that had described everything. Their friends. Their tree house. Their memories. Now they were two separate entities, Josh and Tyler.

Both on two different walks of life. Josh had no walk. His path was on the edge of a cliff, the great abyss of alcoholism and drugs. Tyler, on the other hand, was setting his whole future into place. He was enrolled in art. It was all he focused on now. Creating the pain away. Maybe if he sketched enough he could create something to fill the emptieness in his chest. Maybe he could sculpt the old Josh back, the one with the happy smile and bright personality and gentle hands that always seemed to want to encompass Tyler's.

Tyler shook his head vigorously, shaking the memories off. That was in the past, everything was in the past. Only two more years of this, less than that, and he was free. He could get out of Ohio and travel the world, make new friends. Start over. Square one.

Tyler reached his locker, wincing as a passing freshman trod on his toe. To his sinking horror, there they were, huddled around Tyler's locker, around their locker. They reeked of drink from five feet away.

Josh, Brendon, Ryan, Gerard, Bert, Pete and Mikey. There were more, the members of the group rotated in and out. Only a month ago there had been a short little guy with skunk hair clinking to Gerard's arm, but now said person was replaced by the unkempt figure of Bert, the school's offical drug dealer. Pete and Mikey were together, maybe. They had fucked before, but maybe it was just for fun. Same with Brendon and Ryan, although Brendon was too busy with Josh most of the time.

Sucking in his breath, Tyler knelt down at his locker and grabbed his sketchbook, exchanging his oversized sweater in its place. He could feel someone's eyes on the back of his neck, but he ignored it, focusing on nothing but his cold hands fumbling wirh the straps on his bag. Zipping it shut, Tyler stood up and came face to face with a sickeningly familiar face.

Josh eyed him with surprise, as if he only just noticed Tyler was there, Tyler was still at school. As if he only just noticed Tyler, for the first time in god knew how long. If felt horribly wonderful to have Josh's attention on him, even for a second. But then his ex-best friend's eyes darkened and he tilted his jaw up. On his chin there was a harsh white line. A mark from their fight in the car. Three and a half months ago.

"Don't you have some picture to paint?" Josh asked coldly, his speech slurred slightly. Not for the first time, Tyler wondered who was driving him home those nights, who was making sure he lived until the morning. Probably no one.

"Don't you have some poor girl to impregnate?" Tyler fired back sharply. The hurt on Josh's face was satisfying, temporarily filling the hole somewhere in Tyler's chest. He watched with more than a little triumph as Josh narrowed his eyes, his blue hair falling into them.

"Shut up, faggot."

Tyler brushed Josh's words off. They were just words. They didn't mean anything anymore.

Just words exiting the drunken mouth of a boy Tyler had once loved, a boy who had once sworn that he'd never leave Tyler, never in a million years.

Yeah, just a stranger.

//picking this up bc I like the plot for it a lot so far//