Grudges - Joshler

16

He doesn't know when exactly life decided to move on, but it did and Tyler just had to go along with it, depression or not. It's not like he could just slam on the brakes and force life to stop for him anyway.

Finals are coming up before he can be free for holiday break and he honestly cannot wait. He doesn't even care if he fails all his classes at this point, he just sort of wants to stop being so stressed and just breathe.

The only thing was that he'd have to go back home instead of staying in his shitty room inside that shitty dorm. He'd have to face his parents at some point and avoiding them for thanksgiving and his birthday with the excuse of studying for finals can't really help him when school is out for the semester.

He wonders what his parents would do to him if he told them he wanted to drop out of college to pursue music. He shudders at the thought; first he'd have to gain confidence in himself and his abilities before bringing up that conversation.

He's sitting in the dining hall with Jenna, helping her study for her history final and she's just not getting it—which Tyler doesn't blame her for, history sucks—but it's just as frustrating for him as it is for her.

"When did the American civil war happen?" Tyler asks again, holding her notebook in his hands, her cursive writing in blue pen staring back at him.

"God, I don't know," Jenna puts her head in her hands defeatedly. "1860?"

"Close," Tyler gives her a small smile. "April 12th, 1861. When did it end?"

"I don't know." She groans and Tyler wonders if she even paid attention in class as she wrote these things down.

"Guess." Tyler urges, trying to sound encouraging.

"Just tell me, Ty." She says with a sigh and a pleading look turned his way.

"You're gonna have to memorize all this you know that, right?" Tyler chuckles at her glare. "I'm just saying I'm not always gonna be there to tell you the answer."

"Well you're here now, wise guy." Jenna points to her notebook. "Tell me the answer."

"Jeez, ask politely." Tyler laughs again when she kicks him in the shin under the table. "It ended on May 9th, 1865. Just 4 years. Who was it between?"

"Iron Man and Captain America." Jenna jokes weakly, taking a well needed drink of her coffee.

Tyler feels a sudden stab in his heart, the knife being plunged deep and not wanting to be removed.

"No," Tyler forces himself to say without looking as hurt as he suddenly felt. "It was between the United States and the Confederate States. The war was about trying to end slavery and stuff. The Confederate States wanted to continue doing terrible things with the slave industry and the United States were like fuck that and began a war."

"I don't see why I need to learn this anyway," Jenna grabs the notebook to look through it and Tyler glances around their table at all the other students studying and doing homework.

"I mean it's good to know the background of your country, I guess." Tyler shrugs and Jenna sets the book down, glancing around the dining hall for any sort of distraction. Her face lights up when she finds one and Tyler raises an eyebrow.

"Isn't that Josh?"

The knife in his heart twists and he feels the wind get knocked out of him as he turns his stare to where she's looking.

Sure enough, there's Josh, hair dyed blue and fuck him, how does he manage to make every colour look good? Tyler is pretty positive he can dye his hair the colour of the rainbow and it'll look sick.