not today » joshler [completed]

one

tyler sat quietly in the back of class, nibbling on his pencil due to the stress of taking an exam. he was a good student, he just didn't really like tests. then again, who did?

josh, on the other hand, confidently filled in the bubbles on the sheet of paper that corresponded with the answers on the test page. josh knew his stuff, he would just rather not voice it very loudly.

josh was popular. he had everything. a good reputation, a nice boyfriend, great friends, everything.

but tyler, however, only had a select few people that he actually felt close to. nobody really paid attention to him that much. not unless they were teasing him for being gay, even though the most popular guy in school, their friend, was also gay, but they didn't give a shit about that, did they?

they would do everything they possibly could to harass him. they would stuff him in lockers, they would yell unbelievable things at him in the middle of the hall way, they would even go as far as to spray paint his name on the side of the school with horrible things surrounding it.

but josh knew that what his friends were doing wasn't right at all. but despite his efforts, it would all continue.

but the exam was a physics test. tyler's worst subject. sure, he only had a b+, but in his mind, that didn't meet his standards. he was usually an a student on average, but apparently not in physics. but it's didn't bother him too much, all it was was a single grade, nothing too serious. he was cool with that.

josh, however, wasn't so lucky. yeah, he was good in sciences, but nothing else. he had an a– in physics, but his other classes all averaged out to a d+. nothing to be proud of. but he didn't care do much, college wasn't a huge deal to him. he didn't need to have an amazing job to hold him over, just a household where both he and his husband worked. as long as he had that, he would be perfectly fine.

but tyler was the polar opposite of josh in pretty much every sense. he actually really wanted to go to college and become something like a doctor or a lawyer or something really cliche like that. it didn't matter to him, as long as he had a sustainable career that would allow him to have a good amount of money.

once the class had completed the exam, everyone anxiously awaited for the bell to ring for them to finally go home and away from high school for a long weekend. but for josh, what was awaiting him at his house wasn't something to look forward to.

at home, he knew what he would have to do. it was a thought that wasn't very fun to him at all. after all, a loved one of his died. he was just in too much pain to be able to enjoy life. he shook the thought out of his head.

but he couldn't remove the fact that his beloved dog, dallas, had been put down while he was at school.

he didn't want to think of it, so to remove the trauma of the thought, he began drumming on his desk with two pencils, keeping a steady rhythm. it was soothing to him to hear the constant beat. it relaxed him. but it did annoy some people who were sitting around him. the people sitting directly behind, beside, in front of and diagonally across him covered their ears to drown out the irritating drumming. but that still didn't stop josh from hitting the wooden desk in front of him.

the bell rang and everyone made a mad dash out of the classroom. everyone except for tyler, who was smart enough to wait for the crowd to die down before walking through the door and to his locker.

he eventually did make it to his locker, which was three down from josh's. he usually avoided eye contact with anyone popular, since they picked on him most of the time, so he kept his head to the floor.

once he took his backpack and homework from his locker, he quietly walked out of the school doors and towards his house, since he didn't live too far.

josh made his way towards his car, clicking the 'unlock' button on his car keys.

by the time he had arrived at his townhouse, he knew that he would hear the words he was dreading for the entire day.

and sure enough, the moment he walked through the door, his mother just had to mention dallas. josh shook his head and sat down on the couch. it wasn't good news to him. he hated to hear that the dog that he had for years was gone. but it was for the best, he also hated to see dallas in pain like that.

it took him a few minutes to process that he was actually gone. josh tried to shake it off and just leave it alone. he went to grab a ramen packet from his pantry, tearing the wrapper open and just eating the noodles uncooked. that was how he liked them. his family found it odd, but he just continued to do what he did.

when tyler arrived at his house, he sprawled out across his brown leather sofa with an apple in hand, taking occasional bites from it.

tyler knew that not all the popular kids were terrible people, but he still avoided them, just in case. because you never know.

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this story is probably going to be as bad as the first chapter was. so don't be surprised when it turns out to be v cringy. but who knows, it might actually be good.
-wakeupcrybaby