nymph ⚣ joshler

one

the best thing about summer was always the annual trip to the cabin my dad owned.

this year i was going with my best friend, brendon, and his boyfriend, dallon. we were going to stay for a month, and we had the entire cabin all to ourselves. it was a pretty good sized one, too.

not to mention the location. it was in the middle of this forest. i can't remember what the place was called, but it was gorgeous. my dad always told me stories about how that forest was filled with magical creatures and fairies whenever we would go down there in the summer.

i always loved going to the cabin with my dad, he was one of my best friends. we would fish and walk through the forest and make s'mores. i remember always trying to climb the tall trees, although i failed every time, much to my dismay.

this wasn't the first year i'd gone with friends, especially brendon. he was my closest friend since we were little, and even when we went to different schools we remained as close as can be. i always loved when it was just me and dad, but it was a refresher when me and brendon got old enough to go wander the forests alone.

now, i was twenty-two, as was brendon, and dallon was freshly twenty-one. my mom agreed this year that we could go on our own, "just be careful! check in with me every morning, okay?" being the one task she pleaded us. multiple times.

i was really excited to be going again, it was an annual trip we took and it was the highlight of every summer. the one thing i was apprehensive about this year was that my dad wasn't going with us.

i mean, if i knew everything at home was okay, i'd be fine with his not coming. mostly. but, the main reason my dad wasn't joining us was because he had come down with an awful bug a few weeks ago.

at first we just thought it was the flu, we didn't really pay too much attention to it. we gave him cold medicine, and soup, and blankets for his fevers. but as the days passed, he wasn't getting any better. we thought maybe it was the whole "it always gets worse before it gets better" thing; maybe it was part of the healing process. but when he kept getting worse, my mom decided to take him to the hospital.

as many times as i told my dad i would stay and take care of him, he refused every time and then some. he kept pushing that i was to go to the cabin still, and he even arranged for brendon and dallon to come, behind my back.

so, come time to leave, which is now, i'm still feeling worried. what if something happens while i'm gone? what if he di-

"yo, josh!" i was cut off from my thoughts by the voice of brendon, who came walking up to me with a fist raised. i held out my own towards his, colliding my knuckles with his before grinning at him, mentally shaking negative thoughts from my head. the was supposed to be a fun trip; a break from the worry at home.

"hey, dude," i started. "where's dallon?" normally those two were attached at the hip, but today brendon came alone. well, if you're not counting the multiple cases of beer in the passenger seat of his car.

"he's on his way, he told me he 'wanted as much time away from me beforehand' so we 'wouldn't get sick of each other at the cabin.'" he quoted with his fingers in the air. "i dunno, i think it's ridiculous, but i don't want to wake the beast. unless it's in bed, of course," he winked and flashed a toothy grin.

"until then, will you help me load all these bitches into your truck?" brendon motioned over his shoulder to the beer cases piles up on his passenger seat.

🌿

twenty minutes later, almost all of mine and brendon's things packed into the truck, including the excessive amount of beer brendon had bought. i'm sure that had to have been at least a hundred dollars worth of the stuff, and that's just if it was cheap. i'm no expert on beer, according to brendon, but i knew that much.

brendon had said that most of dallon's stuff was packed along with his, so we were both waiting, with ever lessening patience, for him to arrive in his "shitty ass volkswagen" as brendon had so kindly put it.

i hummed along quietly to the song playing on my truck's radio as brendon scrolled through his twitter, both of us engulfed in a comfortable silence until a car honk had us looking up to see dallon pulling up in his old, clunky volkswagen bug. he'd had the thing in his family for decades, his father passed it down to him when he turned sixteen and he hasn't gotten a new one since. granted, it's only been a few years, but to that old thing, it was more like a few decades; the car was practically falling apart.

"hey, josh!" he greeted as brendon pulled him in for a tight hug. the younger boy huffed from the contact, hugging back before pulling away and ruffling brendon's hair. brendon nuzzled his face in the crook of dallon's neck before pulling away as well.

"you fuckers ready?" brendon pumped his fist in the air.

a small chorus of agreement followed, the three of us cambering after one another into my old faded truck. brendon immediately grasped the aux cord and plugged it into his phone. a soft sound of piano followed, gradually getting louder until a voice started singing.

"dude, is this you?" i questioned as i backed out of my driveway.

brendon smirked and nodded. "well, not to sound full of myself, but i sounded really, really good on this take,"

dallon chuckled and set his hand on brendon's shoulder. i smiled when i glanced at the two; they were so happy together. i wish i had someone like that in my life. someone who makes you feel calm and protected and just happy. i guess i just feel like everyone has that except me.

maybe things will change.

eventually.

🌿