Anathema

forty - fall straight down

He didn't know where he was going, but he ran as fast as he could, his lungs burning and his eyes blurry. He ran through crowds and across busy streets, half blinded by the tears, but he was in too much pain to care.

It was all wasps. Nothing but fiery wasps filled his entire body, tearing his heart to pieces and ripping his fragile consciousness to shreds. Orange and black tinted his vision and formed shadows of memories; dark trees, sleepless nights, screaming and blood and fear.

Why?

Why had Josh responded like that?

Tyler never should have told him. He never should have let himself believe for the slightest moment that someone would accept him for who he was, even someone as kind as Josh. Humankind didn't have the capacity to love and understand a freak like him. He knew that now. He knew that everyone was lying to him. Dr. Ann didn't care about him. She was just doing her job to get paid. His mother didn't love him. She was just conforming to the social norms of a mother. He already knew his siblings hated him. He knew the kids on his team hated him. They probably hadn't even noticed he'd missed the last two games. And now even Josh didn't love him. Even Josh, sweet, beautiful, kind Josh had abandoned him at the first sign of trouble. Had he felt nothing those days in the treehouse? Had he never shared Tyler's love, even platonically? Had that moment in Tyler's room, alone during the storm of snow and fear, meant absolutely nothing to him?

No. It had meant something. It had meant something because Tyler had wanted it to. Josh had come to the treehouse because Tyler had wanted him to. He had taken him to Cincinnati because Tyler had silently begged to run away from himself. He had come to his house that first day with the basketball because Tyler had been so desperate for a real friend that he made one up and convinced himself that he was really there. And now that same friend had taken him hours away from home in an enormous, unfamiliar city, and left him completely alone. Tyler had never seen Josh talk to anyone other than him. No one even looked at him. Josh wasn't real. It was time he finally accepted that.

"I'm sorry, Nico!" he screamed into the busy street, a migraine pounding behind his eyes like a jackhammer. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you! You were right! You were right! You were always right. Please come back..." He fell to his knees on the side of a building and curled up, sobbing into his arms. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He needed his migraine medication. He'd taken his backpack up to the building with Josh, but he'd left it there. He didn't want to go back and face him again, even if he was imaginary. Approaching Nico and Clancy was like walking through a wall. Why would Josh be any different?

A crimson wave of pain crashed over him, and he squeezed his eyes shut and desperately wished it would go away. He almost prayed, but then he remembered everything Nico had told him about praying and God's love, and decided against it. He had nowhere to turn, and he felt as though even God had abandoned him.

Slowly, he staggered to his feet and started back the way he had come. It took him much longer to find the building a second time, but eventually, he found himself looking up to the sky, cold poison dread seizing his heart. He started to turn around, but iron spikes of pain drilled through his head, and he knew he had no choice but to climb up and get his backpack. He wasn't sure he'd make it, but at this point, he wasn't sure he cared if he fell or not.

The wind was howling when he reached the top, and it took him a moment to see past the tears and the snow. When his vision cleared, his heart nearly stopped.

His backpack was where he'd left it, but Josh was gone. Even the cigarette he'd dropped had vanished, leaving Tyler's alone on the rooftop. There was a light layer of snow over his backpack and the roof, and there were no footprints. There was no sign that Josh had been there at all.