GONER

32 • Towel Questions

A/N: Understand that I refuse to have this story go over fourty-five chapters, because I'm scared that I'll never let it go if I do c:

Also, come on, guys. I wasn't going to go through this entire story and not have this happen. And, no, Josh isn't going to just automatically heal Tyler with his magical love. That entire idea is bullshit, ugh.

Stay safe while you read it, though, and please don't do anything idiotic/harmful. Just message me first, alright? I'll answer you. Ask anyone. Talking to you guys is very important to me.

***

And, very suddenly, a month went by. Josh and I remained close and careful and undestined, and my mom went back to what I was prepared for her to to back to. She eventually gave me my phone back, but I didn't even consider touching it right now. In fact, I kind of wanted to throw it somewhere very very very far away, or drop it from a tall building. In fact, I wanted to do that with everything in the world, and I never wanted to see it again. It, being the world.

I felt like I've been standing in the same spot for years, unyielding to the wind and the turmoil being whipped around me, and I never tried to block my face, or shield my eyes. Maybe it's because I felt that it hadn't mattered, but now, it kind of did. And I don't think I've ever thrown up this much during the entire time I've lived, and I don't understand how I could be so repulsed by the thought of myself, when I was okay a few days ago.

I understood the fact that relapsing was a part of recovery, but that didn't mean I had to be happy about. And I knew my mom was going to be very upset when she discovers the fact that I haven't attempted to move from this very spot in two hours. I don't know what she's going to think when she sees me, but I didn't care, and I needed to care, but I didn't. I didn't I didn't I didn't-

Seeing as I knew what was going to happen, I rolled over the toilet again, the contents of my stomach lurching out of me at a ridiculous speed. I hated this. I hated this because it felt like choking, and that's one of the worst ways to die, and I'm not dying. I am sad and bleeding and puking and I just relapsed after five and a half months, but I am alive, and I should probably keep it that way. Sometimes, I don't want to, but I am aware of the fact that I have to. That's one of the things I have to constantly think in order to make sure I don't end up dying because of something careless and dumb. And I applied it now.

Because red liquid was smeared over the tile of the floor, I had blood in my hair, but I physically couldn't bring myself to care. I didn't have a shirt on, knowing I was going to make a mess, and I folded my shaking arms on my flat, pale chest, trying to catch my breath in the silence of the bathroom. My house was at that deadly quiet again, but I didn't have a television to break through all of that, and I didn't need one. I just wanted to be able to walk around like a normal person and live like a normal person and not freak out on the inside when I see knives or scissors or anything potentially dangerous, and I didn't understand why that couldn't happen. I think I deserved it.

I haven't actually allowed myself to even look at blood since the last time something like this happened, and so it felt like such a foreign thing to me now. But just because it was new, doesn't mean it wasn't comforting. And because I care about you, and the story you're receiving, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I didn't miss it. I did.

It's like having your best friend move away, and missing them, but thinking you're over their absence, only for them to show their face again. Either way, you feel both happy and sad, because you're getting to see them, and it feels great, and you missed them and everything, but then you're going to have to deal with the healing process all over again. The reappearance makes the entire thing so much harder to suffer through a second time, and you might start to lose your patience, and tell them to go away. But then they come back, and your best friend is forever carved into your head with the force of a moving car, and it sucks.