not today | joshler

Five

Five

"Tyler, those girls were interested in you. Why didn't you talk to them?"

"I don't like them."

"How would you know them if you never talked to them?"

"They don't know me."

"That's what relationships are for."

"I don't want another relationship."

"Listen, Tyler, Josh has been dead for over a year, okay? There's nothing you can do about it except for dropping the whole thing. If he were still alive, and you two never had your little fun time, you would've been all over those girls. Josh didn't do anything to you, he did it for himself. Tyler, whatever you had, or thought you had, it's gone now and has to stop it–"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! You don't anything about what Josh and I had. We loved each other. We cared about one another. You don't understand what he was going through. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't his fault. If he was alive, I'd still fall in love. And I'd fall in love with him over and over again forever because he meant so much to me, Brendon. I won't like those girls because they're not Josh. They don't have rainbow hair colors or a swirl of tattoos on their arm or chocolate eyes and just pure perfection."

"If you and Josh loved each other, then why did he take his life away from you?"

"Brendon, man, just stop..."

There was a sudden move in Brendon's garage, it was hard to tell what was going on in that second because it was unnecessary but fitting to the situation.

Smack!

Brendon's right cheek showed a red handprint. It was like a huge bruise had started to spread out over his face.

Tyler had slapped one of his best friends and left seconds after like he'd done nothing at all.