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━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━
THERE WAS SOMETHING THAT WAS WEIGHING HIM DOWN. Josh knew that he had to do something about that feeling of heaviness, he refused to continue going through life with that feeling. It was just too painful.
"When am I coming home?" his voice was quiet as he spoke, he waited for an answer but it never came. Instead, there was just breathing on the other side of the line. Josh's fingers clenched the phone tightly. "Mom, when am I coming home!?" he raised his voice, and he knew that she'd flinched.
"I . . . I don't know honey. Your father won't talk to me about these things, you know that." her voice was soft and low like she was being careful to not have someone overhear her. Josh concluded that she was in the same area as that bastard.
"It's been weeks, mom. I can't do this anymore. I don't belong here, everything's . . . different, it's harder. I need to come home, be with my friends, be with you." Josh confessed he tried to resist his voice's urge to crack. "Don't you want me to come home?"
He'd lost that battle as his voice cracked with his final sentence. There was silence at his mother's end before he heard a sniffle from her. Josh clenched his jaw, he was pissed at her even though it wasn't her fault; it never was.
"I do, I do. But, you'll have to just wait a little bit longer. Okay?"
It was Josh's turn to be silent now. He ignored his mother who called his name over and over again before hanging up the phone. He laid back on the bed he was one and stared up at the ceiling, he tried to imagine what his life would be like if he'd grown up relatively normal. If he'd been raised in a home with a functional family, with a father who loved him, and a mother who didn't just verbally express her love but acted upon it too.
Thinking about how different his life would be shortly brought a smile to Josh's face, there was a moment where he felt happy laying down on his bed with his eyes shut imagining the said world. But that moment of happiness quickly passed when he realized one thing, it was only just a dream and dreams always had to come to an end.
☆
Josh did return to his school that day and it was extremely awkward. During history class, he could feel Embry staring at him but anytime he'd turn in his direction the boy would quickly turn away. They had a fight, and they needed their space, Josh knew that. Yet, when the bell rang he almost found himself walking towards Embry out of habit.
