Anklebiters - Joshler

11. Bird

Josh slowly started to lose track of time the longer he stewed over himself and Tyler. He would lay in his bed with the eyes of his teenage heroes staring at him, their eyes burning holes into his conscience. He felt guilty for blocking Tyler out like this, but he just couldn't face him.

He wasn't necessarily scared of Tyler, but more or so afraid of what he could become. He has seen what addiction had done to his parents, he'd seen them choose drugs over their own children. So who was to stop Tyler from forgetting about some random guy he spent a couple days with and had sex with only once?

Josh had spent hours on his phone, supposedly reconnecting with the world after his break. Truly, he was desperate to find something to look at that wasn't his posters since leaving his room felt catastrophic at this time. He went onto his favourite news page to catch up with the world around him, but as he stared at the front page it felt like his world was falling apart once more.

In the past week where Josh had been working on overdrive to make up for the two weeks, he was gone and feeling too sorry for himself to do anything else, Tyler had managed to make headlines in their local news.

After reading the headlines, Josh only felt exceptionally worse.

"Star Tyler Joseph spotted entering ex-girlfriend Jenna Black's home this morning with hints of another fling." Josh read aloud.

As much as he didn't believe it, the more he read the more it seemed true. He didn't know that Jenna and Tyler dated, and apparently it wasn't just a summer fling either. Josh felt sick to his stomach, he should have seen this coming. The guy was Christian, like he would turn gay just for some guy he took to New Jersey.

Josh felt exceptionally worse when he realised that it was in fact a Tuesday, the one day where he would have to face both of them. To say Josh was dreading work would be an understatement as he began to get ready, forcing himself to go clean up his appearance first. To the outside world, Josh was fine and that was the way it was going to stay.

So, he stepped into the cafe with a brave face on. Today was going to be just like any other working day, and Josh would be damned if he let some fling of his ruin that. When he got there Tyler and Ryan were already seated, the bad mood surrounding their table like a fog. The first thing Josh noticed was not how sickly Tyler looked, but the fact that he no longer wore Josh's hoodie.

Tyler was dressed in his usual Tuesday attire, and while it hid his appearance it did not hide his oddly pale skin and sunken cheeks. Still, as Josh watched Jenna stalk passed him and over to the pair's table, all pity he had was gone. He noticed the way that she leaned in close to Tyler, the way she lingered for so long and of course the way she gently kissed the top of his head.

Josh tried to ignore the fact that his suspicions were confirmed, that he was just an experiment to Tyler. The young boy was no stranger to the no-strings-attached lifestyle, but he finally felt like he had something good with Tyler. He knew how selfish he was being, being mad at Tyler when the boy was obviously struggling but for once in his life, Josh didn't care. He was sick of obsessing over someone that obviously didn't care about him and with that thought, Josh had a plan.

Work droned on endlessly until Josh got his break, going into the crew room and digging his phone out of his pocket quickly. He had added this number out of pity and pity was all he felt for himself as he sent the message.

'Hey, this is Josh'

'Who?'

'I got you kicked out of a concert. Soz abt that'

As the conversation went on passed the awkward introduction, Josh found out that though Tori (the name he learnt during the conversation) was from Columbus too, she didn't live there anymore. She had gone to the concert with a friend from school in hopes of reliving their adolescence in the all too familiar basement. Tori actually lived pretty close to LA, finishing college on the edge of town.