sober//joshler

MISTAKE

"Tyler? Tyler!"

Tyler jerked his head off the desk, eyes focusing on his angry-looking professor, Mr. Armstrong, standing at the front of the classroom, arms folded in irritation.

They were bang in the middle of Tyler's least favourite class, homeroom. While these days Tyler wasn't a fan of school in general, he disliked this class in particular. The main reason for his dislike was in the shape of the slumping figure of none other than Joshua William fucking Dun sitting exactly one row in front of him, so close to Tyler he could've leaned forward and touched his ex-friend's back, or placed stupid notes all over his sweaters just like he had done back when they were close, when looking af each other hadn't become taboo. Having Josh sit so close to him that he could smell the faint metallic smell coming from him was like being repetitively stabbed in the gut with a dull knife.

"So nice of you to join us." Armstrong snarked. He was a math teacher, something that Tyler failed abysmally at, so they had never been on the friendliest of terms. Turning to the rest of the room, Tyler's professor continued.

"Would anyone be so kind as to explain to dear Tyler over here what I was just saying?"

There was an achingly long silence. Tyler was by no means popular among the student body, not since he had stopped hanging out with Brendon and his crew. Tyler didn't have many friends, any, really. Just a few people he could eat lunch with and hold a conversation, nothing more.

Finally, after a painfully long eternity, one of Tyler's closest acquaintances, a tall blond girl by the same of Jenna Black stuck one slender hand in the air. She was very pretty, definitely the prettiest girl in the school, in Tyler's opinion. If he hadn't had his sights set helplessly elsewhere, he might've asked her out.

"It's a winter trip up to Maine. Groups of around ten will go to different lodges and cabins in the woods for around a week and participate in snow sports, teambuilding, that sort of stuff. Applications are due Friday."

She flashed Tyler a gentle smile and, despite his perpetual misery, Tyler found himself smiling back a little bit. Jenna was a nice girl. Tyler probably didn't deserve her as a friend, but she didn't seem to have a huge problem with him, so he didn't stress over it too much.

"Thank you, Jenna." Armstrong nodded. "Like she said, the whole grade is invited, but we understand that due to the fact that the trip is around Christmas time, the numbers will be small. We usually get around 30 applicants, and from there the students are split up into groups of around 10 to 15 students and sent to a winter resort lodge. It's good fun, a nice way to send the holidays, with friends. The programme is very loose, so it's not like a typical school trip."

Tyler ran a nail along the groove of his desk. He'd didn't want to go, but the idea of being at home during Christmas time, surrounded by mourning family members passing in and out of the house like ghosts sounded even more depressing than going on the trip. The memory of Jay was still too strong at his house for anything to be pleasant.

"Quick show of hands, who thinks they'll be attending?"

About half the class stuck their hands up. Ryan, Hayley, Ashley, Mikey and Jenna. She looked excitedly over at Tyler, nodding at him encouragingly. Knowing full well he would regret this, he slowly stuck his hand in the air.

"Alright, that's one, two, three, four, five...six, Tyler...seven? Is that a hand up, Joshua?"

Tyler hated the way the second that name passed out of his teachers lips his blood ran cold and stopped dead in his veins. He forced his arm to stay up, watching as Josh slowly raised his arm up too, so it was high above his head, fingers wiggling slightly. He was going alright.

Dread roared in his ears, too loud for him to concentrate on anything else. He started numbly at his hands as Armstrong continued talking, the words faint and fuzzy. This was a mistake, of course it was a mistake! He couldn't walk five feet without tripping over memories, and he hated it. He was suffocating.

The second the bell rang, Tyler was our of his seat and hurrying to the door, bag slung over his shoulder. He pushed past Ryan and Mikey, feeling their pointed stares on his neck. He shoved past everyone, carving a path through his fellow students. He couldn't do this, he couldn't do this. Not if Josh was there. What if they were paired in the same cabin? However many days in close confines with the one person he hated the most?

If you hate him so much, why'd you keep your hand up? Tyler asked himself bitterly, taking a sharp right and hurrying down an empty hallway. Could've put your hand down if it bothered you so much.

This trip was most likely going to escalate everything. Nothing would get better, at best things would stay the same. Despite this, Tyler couldn't help but hope, hope against everything, hope against what he knew to be facts.

Hope that maybe, just maybe, he could get Josh back. Not whoever was in his homeroom or whoever he shared a locker with. That wasn't Josh. He wanted his best friend back, his best friend in the whole world.

His bo-

"No," Tyler said softly to himself, hurrying mindlessly up a flight of stairs. "Shut up. That'll never happen, never."

And he was right. His hope was tainted by the poor judgement and hopelessness that Tyler was known for. He wasn't thinking straight.

But he still didn't want to stay home.

Tyler stopped at the top of the stairs, sighing loudly, fisting a hand around his hair. He had no idea what to do. Stay home and be surrounded by the memory of his dead brother, his grave freshly dug. Or go on the trip and surround himself with the memory of him and Josh.

That grave was still a fresh too, more fresh than he would've wanted.

Tyler shook his head again, shoulders heaving up and down. He needed to clear his mind. He needed to paint, to draw, to sketch everything onto a piece of paper. He could return to the situation at hand later.

For now, he had art to do.

//HATE THIS 

life update: I'm beyond tired, i have three days left of school and i have all the things that ive done by the killers stuck in he head fUN//