Existential Indifference (Joshler)

13. Epilepsy

Start the song. It's No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross by Sufjan Stevens.

Two seizures. Josh had two seizures today. Hayley had almost decided to stay home from work tonight, but Josh wouldn't let her. Instead, he suffered through a full sleepless day of the most intense pain he'd ever felt until the sun finally went down. The second the sun slipped beneath the horizon, Josh practically dragged himself outside and laid on the lawn, just so the slightly cooler air outside could soothe the debilitating heat overtaking his sweat-slicked skin.

Hayley took Josh's phone to work with her at his own request. He knew he'd call someone for drugs if she didn't take it. The pain was too intense. He'd cried almost all day, and there was nothing Hayley could do to soothe him as his blood burned though his body like acid and his brain screamed for him to do something-anything-to stop this.

Josh squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pull air into his lungs, but shooting pains attacked him from every part of his body with every breath. He gripped the grass beneath him tightly in his fist as he fought back the urge to scream when the pain continued to swell inside of him.

Fear brought tears to his eyes as he tried not to think about what would happen if that pain grew to be so big that he just exploded all over the lawn. He was dying, wasn't he? He had to be dying. This felt like dying.

The slight chill of the night air hardly soothed Josh at all anymore, so he stared up at the stars and silently pleaded with God to make this stop. He couldn't handle this anymore. He was seconds away from tearing Hayley's house apart to find anything with a high enough chemical content for him to get high off of it. Getting sober wasn't worth this level of pain. Nothing was.

The pain in Josh's body was so disorienting that he didn't even realize someone had sat down on the grass next to him until he heard, "Is there any reason in particular that you're laying outside after midnight?"

He forced his eyes open, but he wished he'd kept them closed immediately afterward. Tyler was sitting crisscross beside him on the lawn. He was wearing overalls again and looking worriedly at Josh. Josh couldn't pull him into this. He deserved so much better.

"Um," Josh mumbled, looking up at the stars as he tried to hide his pain as much as possible. "Any reason you're outside on the wrong side of town after midnight?"

Tyler smiled, but apparently took that as an invitation to lay down next to Josh on the lawn. He crossed his ankles and stuck his hands in his pockets as he looked up at the stars. "I already told you, I rarely sleep. Sometimes I go for drives when I can't sleep, and I saw you laying on the lawn."

"Why don't you sleep?" Josh asked, feeling a bit annoyed with Tyler for not enjoying being able to sleep when Josh had been awake for three days straight.

"School," Tyler replied simply. He looked at Josh then. "I wrote three essays today."

As much as Josh wanted to either cry, yell at Tyler, or bury his face against Tyler's chest and pull the younger man's arms around him until he finally fell asleep, Josh swallowed all of those urges down and forced himself to smile supportively instead. "How do you think they turned out?"

"I suck at grammar, but I think I got my point across. Hopefully," Tyler said quietly. He looked at Josh then, making him nervous with how intensely he studied him. "Are you okay?"

Josh wanted to either tell Tyler everything or just yell at him to fuck off so he could lay here and wallow in self pity, but he couldn't do either of those things. "I'm sick," he replied instead.

Tyler frowned. "I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?"

It was frustrating for Josh to try not to allow his withdrawals to twist his perceptions of Tyler's behaviour around to annoy him when the younger man was so kind. There was nothing he could do for Josh though. Unless he brought Josh enough coke and dope to knock him out, there was nothing he could do to ease the pain threatening to send him tumbling headfirst into another seizure.