Holding On To You (A Twenty One Pilots Fanfiction)

CHAPTER FIVE

Josh ran towards me, Tyler close behind. A familiar-looking girl was running beside Josh, their fingers tightly intertwined. Her hair was long and bright red, obviously dyed. I recognized her tattoo of an intricate tree on her upper arm. Where had I seen her before?

Josh having a girlfriend was news to me. As we grew up together, he never really had a girlfriend. He was content with just Tyler and I. Tyler went through a few over the years, but never got very serious about anyone. But then again, I have no idea what happened in the recent years that I had not been a part of. 

Josh quickly introduced me to the red-haired girl. I finally figured out where I recognized her from. She was the girl sitting at the end of the table in the cafeteria on my first day. She's the one who I'd judged for her tattoos and piercings. Her name was Molly. Today, she was only wearing a few earrings and a nose stud. Her hair was neatly curled, and I saw her differently.

When I asked, Josh said they'd been dating for almost a year now. Molly requested that we actually go into the bookstore; she needed to pick up a copy of a biology textbook. She and Josh went inside, but Tyler told me to stay and walk with him. 

We started walking down the street. He began telling me what the past few years of his life looked like. Ever since Tyler and Josh left for their freshmen years at PSU, I hadn't really seen them. We'd texted on and off a few times during that year, before we lost all means of communication.

"See, basically, I made music a major priority, causing me to fail two classes. Things didn't look too great for Josh either, as far as academics. So, we just dropped out. We dropped out and devoted all of our time to our songs. We had to spend all of our money to record our first album of songs," he filled me in.  

I felt privileged, because I had actually heard many of these songs as they were being written.

"Wow, quite I story," I replied. 

"Anyway, it was hard at first. You know how hard it is to get people to notice you, to like you? It was the toughest time of my life and I wanted to give up. Then some miracle happened and we got signed, by Fueled By Ramen. That's we started writing Vessel."

Aside from music, Tyler explained that Josh got his first girlfriend, Molly. Tyler said that he dated a girl named Madison that he met during his short time at Penn State. They dated for about a year and a half. He broke up with her about four months ago. He said that she still goes here, this being her third year. 

In exchange, I told Tyler about my life the past two years, but most of it was pretty boring actually. Besides dating Carter, nothing interesting had happened to me at all. 

"Do you wanna grab some tacos? I'm starved," commented Tyler as we approached a Taco Bell.

We had walked many blocks, and I wondered where Molly and Josh had gotten to. Tyler said that he'd text Josh to meet us here. We went inside and grabbed a table for four, and shortly, Josh and Molly walked in laughing hysterically. Tyler, nor I, wanted to know what was so funny, so we just ordered and waited in awkward silence. After the food was ready, Josh began a general conversation. We talked about music, school, our lives in general. Molly had a great personality, despite my first impression of her. 

Conversations later, we threw out our trash and began heading back towards the campus. It had turned out to be a great day after all. It was already 6:00. I had my first test tomorrow in English and Kara and I planned to study together this evening. 

Josh and Tyler said goodbye and drove off, in their rental car, to their tour bus. This left Molly and I to walk back to our dorms. It turned out she was in the same building as me. We talked all the way back. She told me that Josh has talked about me a lot, and that he was super excited to meet up today. I told her that they seemed great together as we got on the elevator. She was Floor Two, so I rode the rest of the way up alone. 

Kara was waiting for me and I grabbed my English folder out from my shelf. We studied until eight. I had an early class tomorrow, so I decided to stay in for the night. I made a small portion of microwavable mac and cheese that I'd brought, and Kara left to go take a shower. 

I checked my phone. Of course, there was a missed call from my mom and a text from Alex. I would call my mom tomorrow. After all, I had already talked to her this morning.

Alex's text was a simple "Hey, how was your day?" and I just didn't feel like responding. Instead, I watched one of my favorite shows on Netflix, and later drifted off to sleep.