next door » joshler [book #1]

thirty five » we're broken people

you know, everything would be so much fucking simpler if the two of them would just cooperate with each other.

like- if tyler kept his promises. if he said 'i love you' back when josh came home from work and hugged him, whispered the words into his hair. god, if only tyler had said it back then, but the words lodged in his throat and he excused himself to the bathroom, where he sat, shaking. 

if only josh stopped keeping so many goddamn secrets, taking constant showers and making up ridiculous lies so tyler couldn't smell the smoke on his skin. what he didn't know is tyler wouldn't care if he did.

so they smiled at each other and pretended everything was fine, because it is! everything's great! there are z e r o problems in their relationship.

okay, who are we fooling here? their relationship is a fucking trainwreck.

"josh," tyler says one day, a saturday, sitting down beside his boyfriend. "we... need to talk."

yes, it's that phrase, the one that inevitably leads to the 'we-need-to-break-up' line. but that's not coming. no, not yet. or possibly not at all. who knows how it'll go?

"oh man," josh laughs, "is this what i think it is?"

tyler allows himself a small smile. "i'm not breaking up with you, that's not what i meant. i, uh..." he takes a deep breath and the joking look on josh's face vanishes. 

"what's wrong?" he asks, and his voice is 100% serious. tyler's tiny smile disappears slowly. 

"a lot of things," he starts, and immediately starts crying.

josh starts in surprise, reaching out to comfort the boy, before remembering how he feels about contact and quickly drawing his hand back. "tyler," he says quietly, urgently, "tyler, what's wrong?"

"it's such a," tyler whimpers, "such a useless fucking relationship."

"what?"

tyler pulls his knees to his chest. "i've got problems. you've got problems. and i could help you- and you could help me- but we're so caught up in being nice to each other that..." he shakes his head. "we need to work things out."

"like, have a therapy session? between the two of us?"

the boy's tears slow. "yeah," he says, smiling softly. "just like that, josh."

josh rests his hand on tyler's arm. "i love you," he murmurs, "so much. so fucking much."

and tyler swallows the stupid lump in his throat and answers, "i love you too."

//ew wattpad stop with the weird formatting it's fucking g r o s s//