GONER

10 • Nachos Ft. The Collision

A/N: Fun fact: I relate to almost every character I write about except the happy ones. Tyler is a lot like me in this.

***

"Guess what time it is?" Josh screamed, standing up violently. I jumped roughly, my heart pounding at my chest due to his volume. The empty soda can he was drinking fell from in the center of his chest, dropping pathetically to the carpet. But, when I looked up at him, he was smiling down at me, holding his hand out.

We had been talking, just talking, before all of this, and I laughed, grabbing his hand. I hoped mine wasn't sweaty. Apparently it wasn't, because he practically picked me up off of the ground with one hand.

"What time is it, Josh?" I asked, watching him throw on some boots that he wasn't even wearing earlier.

"Time for your first ever football game," he shouted, motioning for me to follow him out of his room. "It's going to be so much fun, I swear."

"I hope you're right."

"See," he said, walking down the steps and into the living room, "this is the time for me to say 'I usually am' but, I'm usually not. But I'm positive that you're going to have a good time. Mercury and James are cool."

"Your closest acquaintances?" I asked, referring to the two friends he had.

"Precisely," he smirked, walking over to his brothers. They were laying lazily on the couch and the floor, sprawled across it like starfishes. This is what teenage boys looked like. Careless and young. Not me. Not anything like me. Though it's not fair to base everyone else's life off of mine. "And it's already six. It never starts exactly on time, but we still need to get there." He explained, turning to the two older boys. "This is Tyler's first football game. It's important, you guys."

"And why are you bothering us?" Jordan asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Because," he smiled, biting his lip. He was walking towards the door, and if found it in me to start following him. "This is a day that will go down in history."

"History?" I teased. "I doubt it's that important."

"Don't ever doubt me," he laughed, chuckling.

"Woah, boys," someone called as soon as he touched the door handle, and it was his mom. "Where do you think you're going? You can't leave without saying goodbye to me."

She was laughing, but it was obvious that she was serious. And when he kissed her cheek, her eyes got this soft, sad gleam in them. I wanted to know the meaning of the sadness, but knew I should never ask. You just don't question people on things like that.

"Be careful," she said quietly to him, and he nodded, grabbing his wallet from the bottom of the coat hanger.

Then, he turned around to look at me, ushering me out of the door. I already had my shoes on because I never took them off, and so we just headed outside. And I was still amazed to find that it wasn't raining. I knew it would take a while to actually get used to that. No rain. The ground being relatively dry. The grass not super squishy. It's all very nice.

But what really got me, was the fact that Josh opened the passenger door for me. No one has ever done that in the entire time I've been alive, and my heart basically cracked at the action. He just gave me a small smile, motioning me into the car. My cheeks were bright red, I could feel it, and I tried to avoid his eyes as I sat down. There was a small smile playing on my lips, and I bit the bottom one in attempt to stop it from spreading.

"Thank you," I said gently, and he just nodded before shutting it. Then, he came around to the drivers side, opening it and sliding in.

"See," he smiled, jabbing the keys in the ignition. "There's only a few things you need to know about after-school things. All you have to do is show up and act like you care about sports. Which is what everyone else does. Are you excited?"