Searching for Purpose (Twenty One Pilots)

27. Lost Inn The Middle

Tyler woke up the next morning with a hangover. His first hangover ever, to be exact.

Drink to forget, right? What a great idea that was. It didn’t even work.

I know you remember everything.

Tyler groaned as he sat up and stumbled to his bathroom. He turned on the shower and jumped under the cold spray. He didn’t even care that the water was freezing. He didn’t care that his hips were burning from still unhealed wounds. He didn’t care that his head was screaming out in protest. He didn’t care.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Tyler muttered under his breath. “I’m so stupid.”

Took you long enough. Everyone else already knew that.

Tyler rubbed his hands over his face. His eyes burned from the shampoo he had forgotten he still had in his hands.

Half an hour later, Tyler stepped out of the shower, only to remember that he never actually used the soap.

“I’ll do it later,” he said.

In a half dream, half nightmare like state, Tyler hurried around his room, shoving random bits of clothing and toiletries into his empty backpack as he did so. He threw away whatever food was left in his fridge and took out the trash. After unplugging all the unnecessary things from the outlets, Tyler turned off his lights and locked his door.

“Hey, Ty,” Michael called out as Tyler made his way through the living area. He was sitting next to his brother, who was bent over a sketch book and clutching a pen in his hand so tight his knuckles were turning white. Michael’s lazy smile turned into a frown as soon as he saw the troubled look on Tyler’s face and the bag in his hands. “Where you off to?”

“Don’t know,” was Tyler’s short reply. He sounded quiet and far off. Like he wasn’t all there.

“Well, how long are you going to be gone?”

Tyler shrugged.

Michael’s frown deepened. “You okay?”

Tyler shook his head.

Michael turned and shared a look with his older brother. Gerard, or Jared, Tyler wasn’t too sure of his name, gave Michael a small, knowing nod and turned back to his sketch.

“You’ll call someone if anything happens, right?” Michael asked.

Tyler nodded.

“Be safe.”

Tyler nodded again and dazedly turned towards the door before he started walking to where his car was parked. The walk wasn’t very long, but it was long enough for Tyler to manage to get lost in his strange state of mind. It took him a while to get situated in his car and find the emergency energy drink he kept in the glove compartment. After he drank the last drop, he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. His mother had always told him not to drive while he wasn’t emotionally stable, but another one of her sayings was that desperate time called for desperate measures, and boy was Tyler desperate.

The scenery passed by Tyler in a blur. The voices floating around in his head blended together like the tress outside the car windows. Tyler’s music was blaring so loud in an attempt to block everything out. He was pretty sure that he and the cars that drove past him on the road were just about deaf.

You’re an idiot she never could like it was all a lie he doesn’t care about you’re just looking for attention you don’t have anything to be sad why can’t I be normal?

Tyler pulled into the shoulder of the highway to catch his breath.

“I can’t get a break,” Tyler cried. “All day, worse at night. Why can’t it just stop?”

He wiped his nose on his sleeve, which caused the fabric to move up on his arm slightly. His eyes caught a glance of the marks that now littered his wrists. He had always promised himself that he wouldn’t do that. That he would never go that far, but it seems that lately he was breaking all of his promises.

What is the point of living anymore if I’m so broken?

“I would give anything for it all just to stop. I want to look in the mirror and be okay with who I am. Not even happy! Just okay,” Tyler whispered. “I just want to be okay.”

Hours passed, dragging by like a small child trying to pull a wrecking ball across the desert. It was physically painful. Tyler had stopped only twice during the endless minutes he had spent flying down the highway. Once to buy a pack of more energy drinks and another to restock.

The sun had set about an hour before Tyler finally pulled into the parking lot of his destination, which increased the amount of times he looked over his shoulder tenfold. He couldn’t handle it all; the paranoia, the anxiety, the stress, the wrong wrong wrong go back home.

“I don’t know if I have a home,” Tyler whispered quietly to himself as he stood outside the doors to the Forest Inn.

The inn had become an in-between place for Tyler. It was almost perfectly halfway between his parent’s house and the city he went to college in. It was between the pressure and the stress. The forced laughs and hiding away. It was between being dependent and completely alone. It was where Tyler actually felt comfortable. It was, for right now, where he belonged. Where he was okay.

The lady behind the counter was different from the one Tyler had met the two previous times. This lady was older, with grey hair and sad blue eyes. She looked as if she knew every secret to the universe.

“You look lost,” the lady spoke. Her voice was soft and calming, like a hug that Tyler so desperately needed at the moment.

“I’m not lo-,”

“Not in the literal meaning of the word,” she interrupted him. Tyler knitted his eyebrows together. The lady looked down and typed something into the computer, silently getting Tyler’s room in order and handing him the paper to sign. After she handed him his key, she took a deep breath and began to speak again.

“Down in the forest,” she spoke, “if you walk in deep enough, there’s a river. A tree branch hangs over it at just the right height so you can dangle your feet in the water. It’s a great place to go and think.”

Tyler stood in his spot, looking at the little old lady in front of him. How she knew exactly what he needed, he didn’t know. It was probably just written all over his face.

“Get some good rest. Breakfast is at eight.”

Tyler nodded slowly and turned down the hallway that led to the staircase. Each step he took felt like some sort of weight was being lifted off his shoulders. Maybe it was because he wasn’t home and he wasn’t too far away. Maybe it was because he finally found the balance he needed.

Maybe it was because the energy drinks were finally wearing off and he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

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So some of you may not like this, but I've figured out an ending. I know how to get there, but I don't know how long it will take. There will definitly be more chapters, don't worry, but I need to get my thoughts in order first so updates might slow down for a while (as might the updates for my other stories). I do have one question for you guys though.

Happy or sad ending?

Please reply.