Is Not Saving Someone The Same As Killing Them? || Joshler (Bromance)

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Tyler walked into the cafeteria. Josh was sat at their table, already munching on his lunch, and Tyler's stomach twinged with anxiety. He was going to eat today, he wanted Josh to at least think he was okay. He hated people worrying about him, but at the same time at least he knew they cared, right? But Tyler already knew that Josh cared.

Tyler grabbed one of the styrofoam trays stacked on the counter and moved down the line. He scooped a small bit of mac and cheese into the top left corner, he thought it looked like paper-mache paste. He scooped some green beans into the top right corner of his tray and grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to drop into the largest section located on the bottom right. Tyler didn't get a milk but he did get one of the little grape juice cups.

Josh had watched Tyler walk into the cafeteria and had turned his attention to his lunch and began scooping up forkfuls of mac and cheese into his mouth. If he was honest, Josh really loved the school's mac and cheese. Josh cast a glance at the lunch line a moment later, just as Tyler was grabbing a pb & j and a juice and making his way over to the table. Josh really hoped that Tyler would eat today, he was really concerned by now. Admittedly, Josh was upset at Tyler for hanging up on him but he was trying to let it go because something was obviously upsetting his best friend. Tyler sat down next to Josh, leaving one seat between them for elbow room.

"Hey," Tyler's voice was scratchy from disuse but he smiled tentatively at Josh and picked up his fork.

Josh smiled brightly, "Hey. How was your morning, bro?"

"Boring." Tyler placed a forkful of green beans into his mouth. They tasted like wet rubber and even squeaked against his teeth the same way, he tried not to grimace; tried to look as if he was enjoying it, or hopefully at-least indifferent.

***

For the past month, Tyler had been pretending to eat lunch, pretending to be happy around Josh and forcing himself to exert more energy by having one or two band practices a week. But, when Josh wasn't looking, wasn't paying attention, Tyler would drop food into his empty milk containers. His smiles would fall like the last autumn leaves in a storm. His laughs weren't quite full, they were missing something important that gave them their truth. Every day after lunch, Tyler would run to the bathrooms and vomit. He didn't have to make himself, he was just /that/ disgusted by the bland tastes and putrid textures and smells of every bit of food he looked at, touched, or put into his mouth. He ditched a lot of basketball practices, going to that rock area he fell asleep on by the creek, and just barely survived off of protein shakes and red bulls.

Josh was really relieved to see his best friend doing better. Though he had his suspicions, Josh dismissed them because he really wanted to be hopeful in Tyler.

Tyler always went directly to his room after school every day, he hadn't talked to his family in quite some time. He thought about telling Josh everything that was happening, how he'd been lying and deceiving everyone, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. So he just tried his best to survive. And he tried to hope for the best.