Burdens and Bulwarks (Tyler Joseph Fanfiction)

Chapter Six

*TRIGGER WARNING**THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS VERY MILD TALK OF SELF HARM, ALTHOUGH IT IS VERY MILD, I WANT YOU TO BE SAFE. PLEASE READ SAFELY. I LOVE YOU. MESSAGE ME IF THIS WARNING APPLIES TO YOU AND I WILL TELL YOU WHERE THE PART STARTS AND WHERE IT ENDS*

He's mine. All mine. Or... At least, I think he's mine? Wait, how does this stuff even work? What are relationships? I'm so confused now. We kissed. Tyler and I kissed. I basically admitted my feelings for him-

"Scarlette?" Tyler broke me from my trance.

Crap. I've just been staring at the side of his face, my head resting on his shoulder. I stay straddling him with my fingers tracing his jawline.

"Yeah?" I respond.

"What are you thinking about?" Tyler asks me softly.

I pause for a moment, I'm not sure if I want to tell him I was thinking about how I have absolutely no idea how relationships work. How I am so unbelievably terrified of learning.

"Us." I whisper onto his neck.

"What about us?" He whispers back, tracing circles on my back.

I sit up and his hands drop to my waist, I stare at him for awhile before clearing my throat. I grab one of his hands from my waist and look down at it, pressing it up to mine and noticing how much bigger it is than mine. I trace the lines on the palm of his hands and sigh.

"So... are we like.... together now?" I ask, still admiring his hand.

I see him staring at me from out of the corner of my eye.

"If you want to be." He mumbles, his voice is raspy.

"Do you want to be?" I rub circles on the tip of his middle finger.

Tyler puts the hand that I'm playing with under my chin, making my hand drop to his wrist, which reminds me of the razor that I saw in the tree room. His wrist is covered by his sweater's sleeve, but I know what's underneath.

"Yes." Tyler states, the confidence in his straight forward answer is comforting, "Absolutely."

I smile and nod my head, "yeah." I don't know why I needed his answer first, maybe I needed reassurance. I've noticed that we all want closure. We, more or less, want closure on the grade we got on the last math test. We want closure on what we will have for dinner. Parents want closure on how their children turn out. My mom wants closure from my father. Me? Well, I would say that I want closure from life, but that's a bit dramatic. I wonder what Tyler wants closure from. "Always."

Tyler smiles and places a hand on my cheek, "forever."

"Everyone sees forever differently, Tyler." I frown, thinking about how my mom and dad were suppose to be the product of forever too, but turned into complete misery.

"Okay, well, the way I see forever is the exact definition of it." He raises his eyebrows.

"Oh yeah? And what's the definition?" I laugh, crossing my arms.

"It's an adverb; a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or another adverb or a word group. Expressing relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, or degree." Tyler grins really big, "Forever. It means, for all of future time; for always."

I bite my lip and smile, burying my face into his neck. "I like the sound of that."

"I do too." He whispers, leaning his head on mine, "and, I know we don't know everything about each other. I know there is still more to learn about you. I'm excited for that. I just wanted you to-"