choke ↣ joshler ✓

45. Visitor

The door buzzed loudly as it unlocked and the guard held it open for Tyler to walk through. The guard pointed to an empty chair at a table and Tyler sat in it, his knee bouncing nervously. His dad had called in a few favors so he could do this alone since he was still 16 but he was starting to regret it.

"He'll be in shortly," the guard told him and Tyler nodded before watching the man walk over to the wall and stand there. He tapped his fingers against his skinny jeans and glanced around the room he was in.

There were no windows and there was only one door which Tyler had just come in through. There was a vending machine in the corner of the room but it looked mostly empty. It was a Tuesday morning at 9:30 so he wasn't surprised when no one else was in the small room. Normally visiting hours only took place on Saturdays but this wasn't a normal situation.

Suddenly, the sounds door of the door being opened was heard and Tyler refrained from looking over, not sure if he could handle it just yet. The sound of footsteps echoed throughout the room and Tyler winced at the sound of the plastic chair in front of him scraping the floor as it was being pulled out. Metal clinking around the leg of the chair accompanied it as handcuffs were closed.

"Hi."

Tyler looked up and his heart stopped. He was expecting to be looking at his ex-boyfriend but the person looking back at him almost seemed like a stranger.

Josh's hair had been shaved completely and was his natural dark color. The nose piercing he had was gone and so were the plugs he had in his ears, leaving small holes. He had bags under his eyes and his face had hollowed out considerably.

Being in the visitation room with no one except for Josh and two guards made Tyler uneasy but Josh wasn't allowed around other prisoners. Death row didn't have that privilege.

"Hi," Tyler whispered, not knowing what to say.

"I can' believe you're here," Josh smiled slightly.

"Me neither," Tyler said in that small whisper again.

The two were silent for a moment after that and Tyler swallowed, feeling like he was going to cry. He didn't think he could do this.

"Ya took your nose ring out," Josh pointed out.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I couldn't handle having it in," Tyler replied simply.

"How have ya been?"

Tyler looked at Josh and almost laughed. How has he been? Fan-fucking-tastic. It's not like he was recovering from a million different traumatizing things. "Not good."

"'M sorry," Josh paused. "How's New York?"

Tyler's dad has driven them back down to Missouri so Tyler could do this. He was on his spring break so it didn't inconvenience him at all. He couldn't afford to miss any more school if he wanted to pass his sophomore year. The only reason Josh knew he had left was because they had spoken on the phone one time when Josh was first transferred.

Josh had been moved to a prison in St. Louis to serve out his sentence and he would get moved once more when he was executed. Tyler already knew all this from his father but it's not like it hasn't been all over the news the past few months either.

"Good," Tyler nodded. "I like it there."

"I'm glad," Josh smiled. One of the hands that was resting on the table reached out to hold Tyler's but the brunette flinched away.

"Dun!" One of the guards shouted. "No touching!"

Josh didn't reply to the guard as he slid his hand back to himself. "Sorry. I jus' missed ya," he said to Tyler.