to all the glowing eyes ✎ joshler

december 19 pt. 2

josh feels so tired. it's been a few hours since tyler and him came back from the bakery. it got really busy in the middle of the afternoon, so he worked extra hard then. mrs. smith gave them cookies as a reward for putting up with so many orders without telling them beforehand.

after dinner tyler and jenna go to their rooms to sleep, already so tired from all they did during the day. josh and brendon meanwhile are still at the dinner table talking about nothing in particular. he offers brendon cookies for dessert. cookies always go well after pasta, right? "i'm sure gonna miss these cookies when we get back home," brendon mentions while he finishes his second cookie.

"what?'' josh asks, brendon even mentioning the fact that this is not their usual life makes him feel weird.

''we should be heading back home soon. god knows if the road's gonna be blocked by snow. i don't wanna deal with that. besides, we're having christmas with your folks, remember?''

josh sighs and looks around at the place he's called home for the last few days. he hasn't said anything about possibly staying here to his best friend, no mention of what mrs. smith asked him. he knows that if he does say it, brendon might react badly. but he's his best friend, he should support him just like he did with this whole trip in the first place. it makes sense in his head at least. ''i wanna stay, though.''

''for christmas? we can't. our parents will kill us if we don't get home before christmas. and lily will come down with us, i don't want her to suffer any consequences. you can still talk to tyler after this, y'know? i'm not sure if you're aware but there's this thing called texting-'' he gets cut off by josh before he can finish his sentence.

"would it really be so bad if i stay here? i could work at the bakery, i could do online college, i could get an apartment near here. it's not the worst idea," josh takes a bite out of his cookie and gets confused when he sees the light go out of brendon's eyes. it's almost as if he stabbed him through the heart.

"you really mean it? you can't just stay here! what am i gonna say? your parents will blame me for kidnapping you! oh god, they'll keep me in jail and wait until i'm 18 to judge me as an adult and i'll spend the rest of my days in a cell with a cannibal cellmate.''

josh takes his hand and gives his a mini massage, grounding brendon from his imagination. ''dude, i don't necessarily mean right now. i meant to say that after we graduate i wanna stay here. mrs. smith offered me a job since spencer is probably going away for college. she says she could use my help at the shop.''

the cookie has lost its taste and greatness by this revelation. it's because of this cookie that poor brendon might lose his best friend in the entire world. it might seem stupid or ridiculous to everyone else, but to him he's already losing a piece of himself by just josh saying these things. '' what, what about our plan? y'know, going to college together, being roomies, drinking and playing smash all day? are you gonna ditch that, ditch me, for this?"

"i thought we were joking about that. we can't possibly be with each other forever, right? you must wanna do your own thing. i wouldn't want you to suffer through a degree in engineering or anything like that just so we can be together. we'd eventually go our own ways."

"right, of course. i just thought... nothing, forget it." the hurt in brendon's voice is more than enough for josh to take pity on him and give him a hug. he doesn't have the energy to hug him back, all he can do is stop the voice in his head from reminding him that jenna was right. things never go the way you planned.

"hey, we'll still be best friends. i'll call you every day and we'll see each other in thanksgiving." he gives the older of the two a weak smile, he can tell that his words aren't helping but what else can he do? ''b, you're my best friend, i'll always go back to you.''

brendon nods, not really processing what josh says. ''i'm kinda tired, i'm gonna go to bed.'' he lies and goes to the pullout bed, leaving his unfinished cookie on the table for josh to eat before he goes to bed. it's not even that late, but his body feels so exhausted from doing absolutely nothing. you can still be tired by emotional stuff, and brendon feels that way. today's so fuzzy on his mind. he just wants to go back home and play mario kart in his room and not a random bed, in a random apartment, in a random city.

while he gets in the bed, josh eats the remainder of the cookies. it's not the best ending to the good day he had, but maybe tomorrow's gonna be different. after all, every day's been a surprise so far. who knows what might happen next. one thing's certain, if tyler's there with him, that's all that matters to him.

{🌹💌🌹}

hi guys!! sorry it's been a while since i've updated. school kicked my ass this past month and i barely had time to even breathe. this chapter's short but the next one's are gonna be longer and so eventful

nanowrimo is upon us!!! finally i have an actual event pushing me to write. my goal is to 1. finish this book once and for all and 2. get to 50k words which so far i have more than that so it's possible for me to do that again...in the span of a month... i'm gonna die but it'll be worth it for you guys.

midterms were great, got 100 in two of them and then the other one i got an 65 but statistics is the worst so nvm that one.

idk what else to talk about rn, uhhh donate to teamtrees.org , i don't have a credit card so i can't but maybe you can do it. so, donate, do it for the environment.

that's it for now, see y'all next week (aka this upcoming week)

-alaska x