Deep in The Forest

1. Tyler Lee

The sound of blinds being opened and the sudden light pouring through my window woke me up.

"Tyler, get your ass out of bed! You have school and I don't want to have another phone call from your school saying you didn't show up!" My Mum shouted, pulling my covers off of me along with the warmth they provided.

"Ok!" I shouted back, sitting up.

"Don't shout at me!" She shouted, exiting my room.

The only thing I like about school is that it gives me a chance to get out of this shit excuse for a family household.

I climbed out of my bed and threw the covers back on it. It wasn't neat, but I didn't care.

Grabbing a new shirt from some old, broken draws that sat in the corner of my room, I pulled the one I wore off and replaced it with the clean one. I changed from my shorts into my jeans and pulled my trainers onto my feet.

"ALICE! HURRY UP!" I heard my brother, Lucas, shout from the hallway. Poking my head out of my door, I saw Lucas ready to pound the bathroom door with his fist.

"Lucas." He turned to face me. Nodding he unclenched his fist and walked back to his room.

Lucas looses his temper over small things a lot. Ever since our Dad left, he'd gotten worse. Mum's had to pay for at least five walls to be fixed since Dad left. Lucas growing up probably has a part to play in it too, hormones and all that.

A few minutes later my sister, Alice, came out of the bathroom, her face covered in heavy make-up. I never understood why Alice felt a need to cake her face in stuff that will probably harm her already naturally beautiful skin in the future.

"What, Dork?" She crossed her arms, leaning against the wall.

"Nothing." I started to walk past her then Lucas ran from his room into the bathroom, closing the door.

"Then get ready for school and try to actually get there this time." She pushed herself off the wall and shoved past me.

She never liked me. When Dad left and I started skipping classes, it gave her more reasons to hate me. Blame me. Just all round despise me.

Finally, I set off to school. This time, I decided I'd try to stay there. It get's so boring sometimes though, especially when you have no friends that you really hang out with. There's one person, Seth. Everyone kind of ignores him or tries not to talk to him. My guess is it's because he's transgender and everyone in this town is really closed minded since he's the first person I've known or seen that's open about it, and it's a small town.

===

"You're late, Mr. Lee." My teacher said, his eyes never leaving the paper he was scribbling on as I entered.

"Sorry, Sir." I quickly took my seat and slung my backpack over the back of my chair.

No one really talked to me in Home Room except Seth, who wasn't here. He told me yesterday he would be late, never said why.

Then, there was a knock at the door. "Sorry, is this room twenty-eight? The door sign is missing." I looked up to see a girl in a teal, zipped up hoody and blue skinny jeans. Her hair was shoulder length, dyed neon blue at the bottom, leaving the top black. Her backpack was slung on her shoulder and she wore glasses. She had black boots, clearly she'd had them a while since they had traces of mud on the toes.

"Yes, I need to talk to someone about that. You are?" Mr. Andrews placed his pen on the table and turned his swivel chair to face the door, where the girl still stood.

"I'm Lily. Me and my Dad just moved here." Her voice was soft and matched her appearance, in my opinion.

"Come on in, Lily. There's a seat next to Lee--"

"Sir, not to be rude, but Seth sits there." I said, realising how childish I sounded.

"I don't see Seth anywhere, do you, Lee?" As if summoned by the sound of his name, Seth appeared at the door next to Lily.

"Sorry I'm late. Excuse me, Miss." Seth squeezed past Lily, reached his seat next to me and sat down.

"Well, Lily, looks like you might have to grab a chair from the back and pick a table." Mr. Andrews got back to his paper and Lily started towards the back of the room, where there was a stack of chairs in the corner.

She moved carefully, making sure to not knock anything off of desks or to trip over someone's bag that they'd put on the floor instead of the back of their chairs.

She made it to the stack of chairs and tried to pick the one off the top. Instead, she grabbed the chair below it and pulled off both of them. Then she tried to put one back while holding them both which caused her some more trouble.

Finally, I got up and walked over to where she was struggling. "Need some help?"

"Please." She stepped back from the chairs, allowing me to take the two from her arms. I put one on the floor then the other back on the stack. "Thank you, Lee."

"That's my last name. Call me Tyler." I smiled, letting her pick up her new chair.

"Thanks, Tyler." She followed me back to my table and put her chair down. "Sorry, can I sit here?"

"Sure, this is Seth." I tapped Seth's shoulder, jolting him from the homework he was doing.

"Hi, Lily. Cool hair." He said with a smile and turned his attention back to the homework.

"Thanks, Seth."

"Seth, what class is that homework for?" Most likely I would have skipped the class and not heard about the homework. If I did, I wanted some time to come up with a cover story.

"History, but it's on a new topic. If you want to copy, you can." Seth always said I could copy his homework but I never did until it was a case of 'the school would call my Mum if I didn't do the homework'.

"Nah, I'll be fine." I looked over at Lily, "So, where'd you move from?"

"A few towns over. My--" She hesitated, looking at her hands, "My Mum died a few months ago and my Dad thought a change of scenery would 'help'." Seth stopped writing and looked at Lily.

"Sorry, Lil. Can I call you Lil?" Lily laughed, nodding.

"Yeah, you can call me Lil."

===

School went on, boring as ever. Seth, Lily and I talked through most of our lessons and Lily helped me with some lessons I missed or didn't understand. She was really smart.

School was over and everyone started going home. I was going to invite Lily over to my house to hang out, then I remembered my house isn't the best place to get to know someone so I pushed the question aside and started to walk home.

A/N

I'm writing a Joshler fic but I lost inspiration for it so I started this random story.

The characters are based on me a little: Tyler represents my hatred for school and the fact I have few friends (his family life isn't based on mine apart from not having a Dad), Seth represents the part of me that's questioning my gender and sexuality and Lily represents the nerd side of me that's good at lessons and is socially awkward unless she knows you which all together makes a socially awkward sexuality and gender questioning loner-ish nerd with zero confidence.

I hope you like this, even though nothing happens until part four. The first three parts are just introducing the characters and their traits.