Searching for Purpose (Twenty One Pilots)

29. Absent Conversations

It was hard for Tyler to sleep the next few nights. He had caught look of himself in the mirror, something which he had avoided doing since he left campus. He was in dire need of a haircut and shave, along with shower that actually involved using soap. He had been so consumed in his own thoughts that he neglected to remember to stop by the front counter to ask for more shampoo.

Along with hair, more lines had appeared on Tyler's face, effectively adding on at least five to ten more years of age. He was a child lost in a grown man's body, fending for himself in a world he wasn't ready to conquer. His clothes hung off his now bony shoulders and his tan from the summer had faded, leaving him with a sickly pale glow. His knuckles were dry and cracked from the hours he had spent outside in the forest and his stomach had all but caved in on itself due to a lack of proper meals.

When he finally made his way back to campus, hardly anyone could recognize him.

The walk through the living room area in his dorm hall was excruciating. Each step added on ten pounds to his shoulders and the carpet felt like quick sand. Every single eye was on him as he walked the sort distance out of the room and into the hall. Tyler had never before felt so judged.

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Josh sitting stiffly on the edge of his seat; eyes wide with worry and fists clenched so tight his knuckles were turning white. It seemed as if Josh wanted to jump up and run towards Tyler, perhaps enveloping his best friend in a hug, but Tyler knew that Josh was still mad at him. Tyler was still mad at Tyler.

In the safety of his own room, Tyler fell onto the floor. He couldn't hold back the tears any longer. He had been okay for the entire drive back, but the feeling in the back of his throat, where he felt like he was being chocked by invisible hands, had been present the entire time.

Eventually his tears dried and Tyler pulled himself off the floor and into his bathroom. He welcomed the warm spray of the shower and stood for what seemed like forever, letting the small droplets roll down his face. It gave the same effect as crying to Tyler. He didn't know why, but he liked it.

"Why are you so pathetic?" Tyler asked his reflection. He turned away from the mirror, unable to stand the way he looked any longer.

He redressed his wounds from previous nights and attempted to wash away the dark bags that found home under his eyes. He was a mess, and he knew it.

When he finally returned to his room, Tyler found a small cup of soup sitting on his desk with a plastic spoon sitting next to it. The cup only had maybe a few sips inside, but it was more food than Tyler had had in the past two days. Initially Tyler planned to ignore it and dump it down the sink later, but the smell had filled his room, catching the attention of his empty stomach.

It took a while for Tyler to get it all down, even though it was only a small amount, and by the end he felt a little sick, but he kept it down. A feeling of accomplishment and pride boiled up inside Tyler.

"I did it," he whispered. "It wasn't much, but I did it."

He set the cup and the spoon back on his desk where he found them and went to bed questioning who had left the small cup of food. He couldn't think of anyone who knew he didn't usually eat and would care and worry about him enough to go out of their way and leave him a little something. Everyone he cared about on some level didn't care about him back. He could only reason that a friend would do such a thing, but Tyler didn't have any friends anymore.

He had ruined any chances with one.

Tyler woke up just before noon the next day. His head was spinning a little and his stomach felt like it had been flipped upside down, repeatedly, throughout the night. The cup and spoon that he had put back on his desk were gone, leaving Tyler to wonder if it was all just a vivid hallucination due to his consistent lack of sleep.

He had a text from Jenna stating that she had heard that he was back. She wanted to go see a movie with him. He politely declined, saying that traveling took a lot out of him and he felt a bit under the weather. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the full truth. The full truth was that he was scared.

He was scared to get close to people. He always sort of had been, but now it was worse than ever. The first person he had gotten close to in a long time was now down the hall from him, mostly likely hating his very existence. Tyler didn't blame him. He hated himself, too.

He was scared that one tiny little thing would slip, that some way, somehow, Jenna would find out one little thing and completely disown him as her friend. He wanted to hang out with more than anything, but he didn't want to lose her, and that terrified him.

Now, of course, Tyler knew that all of his fears were made up. He knew that Jenna would never leave his side. He knew she would try and help to the best of her ability. He knew all of that, but that's the thing about mental illnesses such as the ones he had. They twisted and distorted his view on life and thought up terrifying and unrealistic realities. You could spend years telling and trying to convince a child that there were no sharks in the sink, and no matter how much that made sense to them, they would still be petrified to simply turn on the faucet, let alone wash their hands.

Tyler left his room a little while later with nothing more than a light jacket protecting him from the cold. He didn't mind it too much, as he had gotten quite used to it from sitting for hours upon hours in the frozen air down in the forest, but he could still feel it. In a way, it made him feel alive, something that had been lacking in his life recently.

Tyler found himself back at the bench his feet always managed to lead him to. It was the place where he had his first nonviolent interaction with Jenna. It was the place where thoughts swam around in his head, feeding poison to his brain and convincing him to do things he never would have otherwise imagined. It wasn't the best place for him to go, but for some reason it felt safe.

"I don't know," Tyler said. He could see his breath when he spoke. As a child he always imagined that he was a dragon. He'd race around his back yard with his brothers and sister, laughing for the sake of having fun and squealing every time another would get hit with a snowball.

Tyler missed those days of innocence. Where he could sit in his mother's lap and read a book with her and not have to worry about what was going to happen the next day or in an hour. Where other people planned out his day and dictated his every move. Where people told him what was right and wrong and made sure that he was doing what he needed to be doing. Sure, it was kind of like a prison, but Tyler liked to think of it as a well-oiled machine to success, and now apparently, depression.

When Tyler got back to his room, he noticed that the door was slightly ajar. He looked around the hall, but no one was moving and no door was swinging shut behind anyone. Tyler was alone.

Tyler went to bed immediately that night, not even bothering to change out of his clothes. He didn't even notice the granola bar that was set in the middle of his desk, nor the full box from which the granola bar came that was sitting in the bottom of his closet.

He also didn't notice the when his door opened slightly and then closed a second later, and the small, sad sigh that escaped someone's lips as they walked down the hall back to their own room.