insomniac || j.d.

josh

they never told me she was coming back. the hallways seemed cloudy with my own dread when i walked back into the therapy office. the nice lady, Bethany, asked me questions and talked to me like usual. The room got even foggier and i found myself slipping into the realm of my own mind.

I stood in the doorway of tyler's room and looked down on him disapprovingly. the bottle was empty.

"Josh!" Tyler cried, his arms thrown at my feet.

"Tyler." I said quietly, a soft part of me yearning to crawl up next to him on the bed.

In my mind he had died thousands of times. It was only his own fault. He didn't have to swallow those pills. He could've just stayed with me, on earth. If only he wasn't so sad. If only the world wasn't so heavy on his small pale shoulders. I slowly fell to my knees in the doorway. I picked the dying Tyler up and cradled him in my arms.

"Don't let me die, Josh." he whimpered

"There's nothing I can do, the pills are already too far in your system." I said, tears spilling from my eyes but my demeanor was stone cold.

"No." Tyler gasped. "I die if you forget me." He used his last remaining strength to grab my head with his hands "Don't forget me."

"Never." I said.

Instinct pricked at my neck and sent me into a fit. Within seconds I was on my feet and out of Bethany's office.

I was already sprinting out of the door and down the hallway. I kept seeing flashbacks of Tyler dying in my head, but I still ran through the fog in my mind. The lights passed above my head in a blur. my hands skimmed open doorways and dirtied brick walls. everything was so blurry but her. i wept for tyler and i wept for Rowan as I watched them pull her out of our room on a gurney. I crumpled to the ground and melted as the flashbacks of the hospital flew into my vision.

"Josh!" Kelly screamed

but there was nothing I could do for her now.

"My Tyler, my tyler." she broke, her body slumping against my numb one.

my feet were bare against the cold tile of the hospital floor as I watched her body fall against mine. I couldn't find myself in time to catch her, so I watched as she slowly sunk to the tile. She was destroyed. A mother who lost her child. There would forever be a permanent hole in her heart where Tyler used to live and breathe. That night- that part died. Just like Tyler. Just like my sanity.

I saw flashbacks of blinding red ambulance lights and desolate streets. The lights of the hospital blurred with the lights in the institution and I wondered if this was it for me, if finally the life I had created for myself in my head had merged with my real one.

I saw the blue hands of my best friend lay under his head like a praying angel. his veins had run cold. his heart, hollow. his eyes were closed and I imagined what it must be like to see your life flash behind dark eyelids. they began to prep him to take him away and i saw the look of horror glazed over the joseph family. they were huddled together. chris didn't move, he was holding a destroyed Kelly off the floor. the siblings had wide eyes filled with tears as they moved him. I watched as they wheeled him away and that's when I told myself that I'd see him soon, he was only sleeping after all.

and that's what drove me insane.