GONER

11 • Ice Cream Comes After Boxes With Fragile Things

You should try answering your phone once in a while, and tell me where you're going, while you're at it. Went to work, and won't be back until the morning. I was blessed with the night shift. Call in pizza if you're hungry. Don't stay up too late, Tyler.

I love you,

Mom

That was the note my mother gave me, attached to the fridge we hadn't had any time to decorate. A small number was scrawled across the bottom of it, but I didn't call because I wasn't hungry. I didn't want anything but Josh, and that was that. His body hadn't left mine more than ten minutes ago, and I could already feel the sad, drastic effects. I wanted his lively press and the taste of his smooth, effortless words. But I couldn't have that at the moment. I could just hope to have it soon. It is Wednesday after all, and so I'll get to see him for two more days before being forced to sperate during the weekend. And I will not, under any circumstances, ask him to hang out with me during that time, because no one likes clingy people, from what I've learned. If Josh ever categorized me as annoying, I would probably cry.

It suddenly occurred to me, though, that I was annoying. Very. I just hoped he wouldn't ever think that. And, God forbid he ever found out about everything else that was incredibly wrong with me. What could I possibly do at that point? Besides hide from everyone until the school year is over.

Is that even an option I would have? Because you can run from everyone else, on occasion, but my past is tied to me like tangled strings.

Softly, I walked up to my room, as if not to disturb the ghosts lounging in the halls and on the other side of doors. I was always very quick and light on my feet, and my steps made little noise due to my weight. I was kind of thin, as you might have picked up. Other than the candy and things Josh and I shared, I never consumed anywhere near as much as I was supposed to. So I floated down to my bedroom, where some of the boxers were still on the floor. Most of them were in the corners, and I bent down next to the one labelled TRY NOT TO DROP. That one had my laptop in it, I was sure.

After fishing through some stuff, I found my camera, a million different chargers, and, at the bottom, my laptop. Humming happily, I figured I should dump the entire thing out, which is what I did. I was especially careful of my camera, though.

Picking up the computer and setting it on top of my bony thighs, I moved my back against my bed, shuffling towards the mattress. The sheets felt warm and smooth against the back of my neck, and I fiddled with some buttons on it before watching the screen flash once, signaling that it had turned on. My shoulders raised in a slightly happy motion, before moving to grab my charger from the pile of wires and cords. It was quite long, and so I just moved over to plug it inside of the outlet next to my bed, still sitting on the floor.

And then it asked for my password and I bit my lip, trying to remember exactly what my password was. I'm sure it had something to with cats, or maybe some friend I had back when I had friends, and so I just went through my mental list of passwords until one worked.

I was right. It did, in fact, have something do with cats.

Almost immediately, I logged onto YouTube, attempting to find Shot In The Night. That was the song that played as he drove me back home, and I could imagine that he was playing that as he drove away. His hands dancing in the air and taking complete control of the wind. Taking complete control of me.

I hummed along as I went through everything most teenagers went through on the Internet. The initial boredom, and then the small amount of curiosity and the possibility of getting a virus. The last part, of course, was when you breached the stranger part of everything. Tutorials on how to speak to giraffes and stick ten marshmallows in your mouth at once suddenly seem so incredibly interesting, and you end up with some foreign people in your bank accounting trying to sell you stuff you don't want. It's a very strange and vicious cycle, but I was listening to the song Josh brought me here in and it was okay because I like Josh and this song.

Because I have no clue as to what's going on in the outside world, I tried to read some of the news. It was all about celebrities, natural disasters, or other sad things, and so I moved on a bit after that. None of that was interesting to me, and most of it I couldn't stomach. And so I fooled around on Twitter and things, before my phone rang.

My initial reaction to that particular occurrence was surprise. No one bothered to contact me aside from my mom, and so I didn't know if I should have even bothered to get the device from my pocket or not. But I did. And I was inexplicably happy about it.

When his name flashed across the screen, I tried not to sound like a creep, and instead like someone that didn't sound overly excited to be talking to him. I took a deep breath before accepting the call, my hand shaking as I raised the phone to my face.

"Hello?" I questioned, acting as if I didn't know who it was.

"Hi, okay, so I was wondering if you wanted to go get ice cream with me tomorrow after school and do dumb things, because I have nothing to do for...the rest of my life, and I like spending time with you."

Dumbly, I asked, "Is this Josh?"

He snorted, and though, to most, it wouldn't be considered attractive, it was cute to me. "Of course this is Josh. Who else would randomly call you and ask you to come and get ice cream with them, Tyler?"

I bit my lip, smiling so broadly that it hurt. "I don't know?" I entertained him easily. "Maybe Oprah. She's cool."

"You would rather get ice cream with Oprah instead of me? I'm wounded." He gasped, laughing gently. The sound literally made my heart clench in my chest, the feeling stopping my breathing and increasing the speed of it at the exact same time.

I tried not to focus on the sound and just focused on answering him, my words feeling garbled and useless in my mouth.

"Of course not!" I shrieked, chuckling. "You're much better."

"You know, I'm really glad you think so because my ego would have been seriously damaged."

"Maybe that's a good thing," I joked, slipping the device in between my shoulder and my ear. The Killers were still playing, and it seemed to fit the situation just as well. He was talking and I still liked the song and I still liked him.

"Shut up," he whined, "so are you in?"

"Eh, why not?" I shrugged, sounding as if I really had to think about it. Heaven knows that of course I didn't. "It sounds fun."

"Everything with me does. Wait, wait, that's probably not true. Sometimes I suck."

"If you don't be quiet, Joshua."

"How did you know my full name was Joshua?"

"I assumed."

"Just as long as you're in, I don't care what you call me."

"Okay," I whispered.

"Alright," he smirked gently, his voice almost non-existent.

And then our words faded away and we hung up the phone and I was left with good music and good feelings.

***
A/N: Forgive any mistakes and the shortness of the chapter lmao. I hope you guys enjoyed this somewhat ^.^ feel free to ask questions and stuff because I know I leave a shit ton of things to the imagination sometimes, and I apologize for that. Love you guys :3