Joshua Dun

You Are Not Alone

Josh and you had been the best of friends pretty much ever since you could remember. The two of you grew up in houses next to each other and went to the same schools together. For as long as you could remember, he had always been close to you.

You were 16 when your heart was broken for the first time. You had been going out with this boy from school for a couple of weeks when he stood you up and then later texted you that it was over. You had called up Josh immediately, crying, and Josh had come over to your place where the two of you had talked until 3 in the morning.

The second time your heart was broken was 3 years later. You were coming home from college for the holidays and had asked Josh to come pick you up from the airport in case your boyfriend, Clarence, would forget you. Josh had arrived at the airport an hour before you landed, Clarence never showed up. Later that day you got a text from him, saying that he didn't love you anymore, ending things.

This time, Josh was on tour with the band he and his other best friend, Tyler, were in. They called themselves Twenty One Pilots.

While you were on the way to meet with your fiancé, Kellan, you got a call from him. You put him on loudspeaker and kept driving.
"Hey babe, what's up?",you cheerfully answered his call. "I'll be there in 20 minutes and then we can go over the details for the wedding."
"Yeah, about that." Kellan sounded stressed. "I'm calling off the wedding. In fact, I am calling off this entire relationship. I met someone else."
You couldn't believe your ears. 3 years you had spent with this guy, next month should have been your wedding and he met someone else? You didn't reply anything and simply pressed the red button on your phone.

The next chance you got you made a u-turn and made your way to the closest airport. You parked your car and made your way to a ticket counter.
"I need to get onto the next flight to London, England, please", you told the lady behind the computer screen.
She checked the flight register and said, "The next flight departs in an hour and a half from gate B55 but there is only one seat in business class left."
"I'll take it", you said, handing her your credit card. You didn't care how much it would cost, you just needed to get to London because you needed Josh now more than ever and that's where he currently was with his band.
While making your way through security check, you texted your best friend to let him know that you'd be in London in about 10 hours. You didn't say why and immediately after sending the message, you turned your phone off.

When you finally landed in London and turned your phone back on, you had 10 missed calls and 5 messages from Josh. The last of his messages was just to let you know where you could find him and what to say to the security guards to actually let you backstage.

It took you another 2 hours to get to the venue that Josh and Tyler would be playing that night. Once you got there, you looked for the tour buses and found them really easily. Lucky for you the security guarding the back door knew you really well, so as soon as he saw you, he just stepped aside, opened the door for you and let you walk in. You walked around the backstage area for a while until you walked into Tyler.
"Y/N!", he exclaimed. "You're really here. I thought Josh was kidding when he told me you'd be coming." He gave you a hug. "Are you okay?"
You shook your head and for the first time since Kellan had called things off, you felt tears escape your eyes. "It's good to see you", you sobbed. "But...can you please bring me to Josh?"
It wasn't that you weren't happy to see Tyler, you just needed your best friend now and thankfully Tyler understood. He led you to a door.
"Josh is asleep, do you want me to wake him up and tell him you are here?", he asked you.
You shook your head. "No, I'll do it." You hugged Tyler again and as you opened the door as quietly as possible you asked him to give the two of you a few minutes and Tyler happily followed your request.
You entered the room and closed the door behind you. You saw Josh sleeping on a couch that would be big enough to fit you on it too. So carefully you lay down on the couch, wrapped an arm around your sleeping best friend and snuggled close to him. He seemed to feel your presence in his sleep and pulled you even closer. You hid your face in his chest and let your tears fall, silently crying into his shirt. Eventually after a few minutes of you laying like this, Josh woke up.
"Y/N", he mumbled. "What happened?"
"He left me", you sobbed into his tshirt. "We were gonna get married in 3 weeks and he just left me."
That seemed to wake Josh up fully and he sat up, pulling you up with him so that you were straddling his lap, facing him. "He left you?", Josh asked in disbelief. "What an asshole!"
You looked at your bestfriend and smiled, wiping away the tears from your face. "I've missed you, you know?"
"I've missed you, too, Y/N. How long are you staying?"
You once again wrappedyour arms around him and put your face between his face and his shoulder. "As long as you want me to."
Josh wrapped his arms around you again. "How about forever?", he asked, knowing very well that that wasn't possible. After all, you had a job in America that you couldn't just quit, even though being with Josh all the time did sound very tempting.
You laughed. "I'd love to but I have to get back to work at some point." You then got very serious again and looked him in the eyes. "Josh? Why does no one love me? All my previous boyfriends left me for other girls. Am I just really unlovable? Is something wrong with me?" Had you just stopped crying a minute ago, the waterworks were in full power again now.
Josh pulled you very close again. "There's nothing wrong with you, Y/N, you are a lovely, beautiful, amazing and fun person and everyone who doesn't see that is just stupid. All these guys are so stupid for letting you go. If you were mine, I'd never let you go."
"Thanks", you sobbed.

A little while later, Tyler walked into the room and quietly said, "You two make such a cute couple. Why don't you date already?", while sitting down on a chair opposite you. "We need to get on stage in half an hour by the way."
You never heard the part about them going on stage as your head was still trying to wrap around the fact that Tyler suggested you and Josh should date. Did he have a point? Josh was cute, sure, but he had been your best friend for as long as you could think. The two of you knew each other inside out. But if you were honest to yourself, you had a crush on him, you had just never acted on it because you didn't want to ruin the friendship you had.

You stood up. "I'm going for a walk", you said and left the room. You needed to clear your head. You had just opened the door to step onto the busy London streets, when you heard footsteps behind you.
"Y/N, wait", you heard an all too familiar voice say.
You turned around and sure enough, there he was, your red haired best friend.
"Hey", he said and walked closer.
You let the door fall shut again and looked at him questioningly.
"What Tyler said...Do you think we could...you know...give it a try?" Josh asked while looking at his feet.
"Dating?", you asked puzzled. "I've had a crush on you for the longest time now, I just never thought you'd feel the same way."
"I do", he said before leaning in to kiss you.