Tyed

chapter twenty one

It's been fifteen whole minutes since Tyler decided he was determined to forget his dying father was getting out of prison, and other than the reminder that comes with the thought that he's doing a good job of forgetting it, he's doing a good job.

"Well, it depends on why you're doing it," Colby says, as they're halfway through a discussion about Tyler's degree. "If you genuinely want to do engineering, then you should, but if you're doing it because you don't know what else to do? Then it might not be worth it."

"It's hard, and I do kind of hate it, but that's the problem. I don't know what else to do." Tyler shrugs. "If I don't do that, what am I meant to do with my time? The thing is, I feel like I need some kind of job, some way to spend my time, but every job I do I end up hating it."

"You haven't done every job," Colby counters. "Try thinking about what you want to do, not in terms of what actual career, but the effect you want to have on the world."

"That's a big question," Tyler mutters, chewing on his lip. "I don't know. I guess I want to help people?" Yeah, if Tyler was even capable of that.

"It's not a question you have to answer now," Colby says. "And maybe you will end up doing engineering, I don't know."

"Well, I mean, I'd like to use my degree. Or at least I think I would." Tyler shrugs. "Went to all the effort of getting it, right?"

"You'd be surprised how many people don't. And hey," Colby's tone is lighthearted, "you might end up staying at home, depending on how things go in your life."

It's a very deniable and low-pressure way of saying that if they're to be together Tyler doesn't have to work, which is true, that's the current point; but Tyler's thankful he's not the only one who's hoping and feeling like this has lasting potential. Well, Colby did pay his rent for like, a year, but he's made it clear that that doesn't necessarily mean Tyler has to stay.

It's refreshing, and rare, and beautiful, to have someone make it clear how much they want you without any of the pressure of saying yes if yes isn't what you want to say. Has Tyler had that, ever? Maybe bits and pieces of it, facsimilies of it. Maybe his only love prior to this. It was long enough ago and painful enough that he doesn't want to think about it; instead, he just wants to enjoy what he has now.

The most difficult part, that Tyler's not sure he can get over, is the getting over part. The past haunts him in everything that he does, and so far he's managed to avoid the worst of it, but such big impressions were left on him that he's afraid those impressions are going to affect his view of Colby. It's happened before; he's slept with people drunk before realising sober in the morning that they looked just a little bit too much like his father. Freaking out on people the morning after is generally frowned upon. Tyler always found something to freak out about, something that triggered memories he didn't want triggered. Then he didn't want to tell anyone anything, and they all slipped away sooner or later, wanting to get closer to someone who was on fire and surprised when they got burned.

The thing is, Colby hasn't put Tyler out; he can't. Nobody can. But he's tolerating the fire in a way Tyler's never seen anyone tolerate him before. Maybe it's just because he was dating people who were all young and cool, and coolness quite often arises from having the energy to focus on charisma because nothing has ever gone wrong in your life. Not always, because Tyler was pretty cool, but he'd tripped into a life where he truthfully didn't belong. Dating Colby comes with a similar social status to dating someone cool, but it's because of wealth, something he also tripped into. While he probably wouldn't be able to understand the material conditions Tyler grew up in, he might just be able to get, at least from the outward angle, the spiky parts that really hurt.