Tyler looks at his index finger the same way he would look at a plane crash.
Astonished. Exited.
Zack tells him that love is what you give to replace pain. Tyler is not sure. Not like this at all.
He stares at his palm. He feels warmth, then tingling and light, that his skin radiates and gives to the world. This feeling is strange but extremely familiar at some point, somewhere behind the face and above the throat.
Tyler chokes right in the middle of winter.
"You okay?" Josh asks. He still hasn't woken up completely, his hair messy and the sight blurry. White T-shirt with an alien's face on it.
'Sure' Tyler nods cheerfully and stops staring at his hands. His head is spinning and he needs something to eat.
*
Maddison tells him that love is the songs you write to help not yourself but somebody else.
Tyler partly agrees, but doesn't know a thing. He's like a first-former, sitting at the slippery waxed desk in confusion, while a teacher talks about birds. While everyone is nodding and drawing their outlines.
He seems to miss some excellent joke, which everyone is laughing at, but he has no idea what it means. He's like a retarded boy among geniuses.
Tyler hates it. He is vexed.
He sinks into the scene — just before the great show — and lays his head onto the cold surface, putting his hands above.
He thinks: wow, this puzzle is too difficult.
He thinks: Joshua'd always know the answer.
Josh knows. It can be compared, probably, to his faith in other intelligent races in outer space. It can be compared, probably, to the fact that he remembers the whole train schedule from here even to a goddamn Ohio.
Josh asks only once, tangling his strong fingers into Tyler's hair.
"You okay?"
And Tyler nods, closing eyes.
Something burns his insides, making him swallow hysterically, making him feel lousy as fuck. Usual meaning, but the semantics is different.
The road is covered with snow, and the mind is too perverted to dig the way back.
i can't see beyond my own nose
*
Jay tells him that love is all Green Day songs mixed together and transformed into something sweet and sinful.
Tyler opens his mouth in confusion. He doesn't understand why his little brother is a metaphorical egghead.
Tyler masturbates in a filthy toilet cubicle in a mall. It's the evening before a big interview and worldwide popularity.
They choose to put on black T-shirts: Pete and Josh are always arguing about this.
Tyler still has five minutes left. Like, the actual five minutes before Dun comes to see if everything is okay.
You okay?
Joseph bites his lower lip, tightens grip on a pink tip and comes onto his pants. His eyes are empty and his cheeks are red. That's what makes him himself.
Tyler makes his way to the elevator, sighing, and there's a big wet spot on his hip, and an old janitor shakes his head slowly.
Everything is too fucked up.
