I Must Be Losing My Mind

Chapter 1

A/N: This was only meant to be a oneshot, but I wrote another part to it. And it's completely fictional. And I also posted it to fuckyeahjoshandmatt.tumblr.com anonymously. Mwahaha.

“Josh, you’re here.” I breathed, pulling the man into a tight hug. He beamed at me. “I thought you weren’t going to come today.”

He let out a small chuckle. “I’m always here, Matt. You know that. I’m just late today.” I smiled, and exhaled heavily.

“Where were you?” I pulled him to my bed, his leather shoes squeaking together as he crossed his legs. I watched carefully as he folded one arm behind his head and wrapped the other around me.

“Here, there, everywhere. You know me.”

“Did you buy new clothes? I’ve never seen those pants before.” I wrinkled my nose, smoothing my hand over the white denim.

“Yup.” He popped the p and grinned over at me. “Bought them in town.”

“We match, Josh. We’re both in white.” I motioned to the hospital issue gown I was wearing. He giggled.

“But Matty, I’m not wearing a dress.” He poked me gently in the ribs and I just rolled my eyes at my best friend.

“It’s not like I have a choice, Josh.”

“I know, Matt, I know.” His face fell for a second, and then his eyes lit up again. “I got you something too.”

I shifted my weight to look at him better. He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a simple ring. Plain silver. He slipped it onto my right ring finger.

“It’s beautiful, Josh. Thank you.”

“S’not a problem, Matt. Keep it safe, okay? And look,” he held out his right hand too, showing me an identical ring. “We match!”

“We do!”

“I’m happy you like it.”

“Nurse Angie might not. It could be against her rules, you know?”

I looked down at my hands and curled my fingernails into my forearm. One simple touch from Josh allowed me to relax and release, but it didn’t shake the feeling of unease.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Matty.”

“I can’t help it. It makes me feel okay when I’m panicking.” Josh carefully reached out and inspected my forearm, which was covered in tiny, red, crescent-shaped marks. He frowned.

“I’m sorry, Josh.”

“You panic a lot, don’t you?” Josh commented softly, placing my hand back and cupping my face instead. I blushed slightly.

“Uh huh. That’s why I’m here, right?”

He laughed humourlessly. “Not exactly. But that’s beside the point.”

“What is the point then?”

“The point is that you’re here to get better, and I’ll stay with you the whole time. Okay?”

I nodded. Carefully untangling myself from Josh’s grip, I leaned over and grabbed the folded paper on the table. Snuggling back into Josh’s arms, I showed him the drawing.

“In art earlier, they asked us to draw what was important to us. So I drew you.”

I frowned at my picture. Looking at it, it wasn’t as good as I remembered. The hair was coloured the wrong shade of blue. The hands were too out of proportion. The eyes weren’t large enough.

“Matt! That’s amazing!”

“It’s not. It’s completely wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “No, no, it’s fantastic. I love it.”

A knock on the door made me tear my eyes away from Josh’s. I checked the clock. It was 12:30. Shocked, I turned back to Josh.

“Josh, Josh, Nurse A-Angie’s here! Y-you gotta hide!” I whisper shouted, and Josh nodded. He jumped up, and hid behind the curtains. I shouted to Angie to come in.

There she was, beaming, in her pink nurse scrubs. Her brown hair was scraped back into a bun and her fingernails were painted cherry red.

“Hey, Matt. How’s it going?” She sat in the chair next to the bed, placing my lunch tray on the table beforehand. Of course, she couldn’t sit on my bed like Josh could. She wasn’t my friend.

“It’s okay.”

I watched as she organised some pills for me. Her bony fingers swiftly wrote things on the board at the end of my bed. Then, she handed the several pills to me.

“Here, have a drink too.” She passed me a glass of water as I took the tablets.

“You’ve got salad today for lunch, okay?” I nodded. “Is Josh not here today?”

“He’s hiding. H-he doesn’t like people.”

“Can I say hello?”

I reluctantly nodded. Josh peeked out from behind the curtain and I nodded to him as his cue to come out.

“Hi Josh, it’s nice to see you. Did you want lunch too?”

Josh looked at me for an answer.

“No, Angie, he can share mine. It’s okay.”

“Okay, that’s fine.”

“Look, Ange, Josh bought me a ring.” I held out my hand to show her.

“That’s so pretty! I like it.” She grinned. “I’ve got to go and hand out some more lunches, but I’ll be back later, okay? Call me if you need anything.” She smiled, left and Josh sunk down into where she was sitting.

“Josh, come and sit next to me.” I whined.

He stood up, but passed the tray to me and put it on my lap. “I’m just going to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I nodded and he left the room. I tipped the salad into the waste bin. I wasn’t hungry today. It was then I realised I could hear murmuring from behind my door. I tiptoed over, pressing my ear to the thin wall. I could hear Angie’s animated voice chatting away to someone.

“That one in there? That’s Matthew. He’s absolutely crazy.” A brief pause. “I know, he’s got an imaginary friend. Called Josh. He apparently bought him a ring today.” I frowned. Imaginary?

She continued to talk. “Yeah. He’s psycho. I guess he’s lonely, with no family to visit him, so he made up Josh. Sad, really.”

Josh never came back from the bathroom. I guess he must have heard Angie saying that I was psycho. Who wants to be friends with a freak? That’s all I was. A freak with no friends. Stuck in a mental hospital.

I twisted the ring around my finger, before screwing my face up in anger. I buried my nails into my wrist and dragged them up my arm, leaving sore, angry red marks. Josh hated it when I did that. But he wasn’t real. So I could do whatever. He left me all alone. I pulled the ring off of my finger, and inspected it. Something was written inside. I squinted to read it.

I’ll be right beside you. Always.

Bullshit. He wasn’t real. I threw the ring at the window. Instead of shattering the window, or even bouncing off of it, it simply dissolved through the glass. No. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I was furious now, I wanted my ring back. I wanted my Josh back. I went to reach through the window, but my hand just crashed against the glass. I pursed my lips, pulled my fist back, and sent it flying through the window. It didn’t dissolve. The window shattered. Broken shards littered the floor and some must have hit my hand, for it was stained red.

Good. I deserved this. Josh ceased to exist. And it was my fault. I took Josh’s hiding space behind the curtain as Angie charged into the room.

“Matt! What did you do?”

Through choked out sobs, I managed to get my words out.

“J-Josh isn’t real!”