if you look at him, he'll kill you!

7: sticks and stones

tw: homophobic slur, bullying/kind of abuse

-

josh felt horrible.

he felt way worse than he did yesterday.

he sat in world geo, his desk pulled as far away from tyler as possible but he couldn't help but want to push it back.

tyler's face was fucked.

basically the entire thing was bruised and there were cuts above his eyes, on his lips, his nose, his cheeks.

he seemed to wince everytime he moved, as if his whole body hurt.

josh noticed that when he got up to sharpen his pencil he had a slight limp to his step, and he was holding his ribs as if they were going to fall out.

tyler turned around, meeting josh's eyes for less than a fraction of a second before he quickly looked down, pulling his black hoodie farther around his face as he made his way back to his seat.

josh looked around at his 'friends' and he questioned if it was worth it.

tyler obviously needed someone.

but josh didn't know if he could be that someone.

he didn't want to risk it. he didn't want to have to deal with the things he dealt with at his old school.

josh decided that he deserved this. josh deserved to have this freedom. it wasn't his fault tyler was alone.

he just needed to keep tyler in the back of his mind for the next two years of his life and he'd be all good. if his social status depended on tyler's loneliness and obvious abuse then so be it.

josh was abused at his old school which meant he knew what tyler was going through. and he shouldn't have to go through it again.

joshua dun realized that he was a fucking hypocrite.

★

he was about to start walking home when he heard someone call his name. josh believed the kid's name was seth.

"josh! come here!"

josh made his way over to the group of boys standing at the side of the school, a few of them holding pebbles and other holding quarter sized rocks.

"pick up a few, c'mon," josh recognized the kid talking as jack.

"why?" he leaned down and grabbed a few anyway, but he looked at the boys with a questioning glance.

"because. we, my friend, are gonna be following faggot joseph home. and we're gonna throw these," he stopped talking, shaking around the rocks in his hand, "at it's psycho head. maybe it'll make it's brain work right again."

josh wanted to drop the rocks and run, to tell tyler to get home as fast as possible.

but of course, he instead picked up more rocks and shoved them in his pockets and followed his friends as they walked.

they made it about two blocks when the first kid threw a rock and hit tyler's shoulder.

tyler flinched, but continued walking.

another rock. this time it hit tyler's left ear.

tyler's whole body tensed, and he quickly glanced behind him before speeding up.

"come on, joseph! you know that no matter how fast you walk we're gonna catch you, right?"

josh didn't want to be a part of this. maybe he could just slowly drop his rocks along the way and just pretend that he threw them.

yeah, that wasn't happening.

"your turn, dun."

josh's head snapped up and he grabbed the smallest pebble in his pocket, lightly chucking it in tyler's direction and purposely missing.

"bro, that was weak. throw another."

josh sighed, grabbing a random rock from his pocket and throwing it harder.

he missed again but this time it sailed directly next to tyler's head. tyler turned around quickly, glaring directly at josh before facing the other way again.

"dude. it's not fun if you don't hit it."

"fine."

josh grabbed another rock, pelting it directly at tyler's neck.

"yeah! that's it, josh!"

tyler reached around, pulling his hood up and around his head.

"hey, dumbass! now we're just going to throw them harder! that's what you get for trying to protect yourself."

the group continued to throw their rocks at tyler's head and josh couldn't deal with it anymore.

he knew they were nearing his and tyler's houses and he really didn't want to explain to the boys why he was going down the same street as tyler.

"hey, uhm, i have to go. my house is down that way somewhere so i'm gonna head there," josh said, causing all of the boys to turn towards him. he pointed down a random street that wasn't his.

"okay. see ya, dude."

josh quickly turned down the street, turning the corner and running to get away as soon as he could.

he hated himself for what he just did. it was obvious that tyler had a bad home life and now josh was part of the reason as to why his school life was bad too.

and he didn't know how much longer he could keep this up.

-

827 words

published on july 4th, 2019

happy america day i guess.