rich & sad ↣ joshler ✓

36. Chrysanthemums

Josh walked onto his floor in an alright mood. He hasn't cried himself to sleep the night before which was improvement.

He was about to reach his office when he stopped, realizing something. He had fucked up with his employees. He needed to fix things with them.

He turned around and cleared his throat loudly. "Can I get everyone's attention?" He began.

The small murmuring that was occurring instantly ceased and Josh's heart dropped when he saw everyone watching at him with scared looks on their faces. He didn't want them to be scared of him.

He continued, hoping what he was going to say would help. "I uh," he began. "I realize I've been kind of rude to everyone the past two-ish weeks and I wanted to apologize. A personal matter came up and I took it out on the wrong people and that wasn't okay. I'm sorry."

No one said anything so he took that as his cue to continue back in his office. He opened his door and was about to enter when someone spoke.

"Thanks, Mr. Dun."

He turned and saw Sarah looking at him with a small smile on her face. He smiled back and went into his office, shutting and locking the door behind him. He needed a minute to decompress.

Sighing, he turned around and was about to go to his computer. However, he froze when he saw a pile of things sitting on his desk.

His office door had been unlocked... but he swore he locked it before he left last night. The only other person who had a key to it was Hayley. She must've put it in there.

Josh hesitantly set his things down on the floor by the door and walked over to his desk. Upon closer inspection, he saw what the three things were.

His old sweatshirt.

A bouquet of flowers.

And an envelope.

His heart began to beat faster and faster as he sat down in his chair, never taking his eyes off the items. He also saw a sticky note next to the pile.

I brought these in for him, sorry
- Hayley

Josh felt himself start to freak out. Tyler had been here?

Forcing himself to take a deep breath, he started with the envelope. His name (Joshua, not Josh) was written in beautiful cursive on the front. Just his name. Nothing else.

He grabbed the envelope with shaky hands and opened it, sliding out the paper that was inside. He noticed the words on it were typed and not handwritten like the envelope had been.

He began to read it.

Josh,

I know I don't deserve your time, but a small part of me hopes you'll give it to me. Just enough to read what I'm about to type to you. I tried writing it but my hands were shaking too bad and there's a trash can full of wadded up paper right in front of me.

Josh couldn't help but smile.

Anyway.

First of all (and I know I've said this more than once) I am so incredibly sorry for what I did to you. I don't expect you to forgive me but I want you to know that I feel bad for what I did. I've spent the last two weeks beating myself up over driving away the one person who loves me unconditionally. Key word: loves. Hopefully you weren't playing me when I tried to play you and got over the love that quick. That would've been kind of funny actually.

Sorry. Off topic. Again.

Second of all, I am sorry. Like genuinely sorry. I'm not going to lie to you, the first time you said you loved me I only said it back so I didn't lose your money. Not you. But as time went on... I truly fell in love with you. I think a part of me loved you before then and I was in denial about it. As soon as you kicked me out of your house and dumped me I realized how empty I was going to feel without you. It's shitty that that's how long it took for me to see it but that's how it happened and I'm sorry.

I miss you. I hope you miss me too. Or maybe I don't. I at least hope you're not hurting over this. You shouldn't be hurting over some demonic twink.

Josh let out a watery laugh and that's when he realized he eyes were filled with tears that threatened to spill over.

He blinked to get them to go away and watched a few droplets fall onto the paper.

Thank god I'm not writing this anymore because tear drops are falling onto my phone screen. I don't even think it was possible to cry this much in your life. Then again I used to never cry for anything other than attention so maybe actually developing feelings and not being a heartless monster is confusing me.

What I did was terrible. Cheating isn't okay. I've always known that. This isn't like a coming to Jesus moment for me. (I don't have those I'm atheist. surprise!) I guess I just didn't really care about the consequences. I didn't think I would get caught for that. I excepted you to realize I was trying to take all your money and I'd move on to another rich guy.

That's not what happened.

Obviously.

Jesus fuck I'm rambling.

I figure you want answers. Or maybe you don't. I want to tell you in person that I'm sorry and own up to mistakes either way. If you'll let me.

I'll be at the diner tomorrow night (Friday, if all goes well with the delivery of this letter. You might be getting this on Friday if I decide to be even more of an asshole by not being punctual) at 8 pm.

If you want to come and talk to me you can. If you don't I'll take that as your final answer and be out of your life forever.

Once again I'm so fucking sorry, Josh.

I love you.

- The idiot who broke your heart

PS: I washed your sweatshirt and am giving it back. I usually keep my ex's hoodies but I already stole your money so I might as well stop taking things that aren't mine. Theft isn't cute.

PPS: I hope you like the flowers. My favorite are tulips so I got you chrysanthemums. I'm trying this new thing where I don't make everything about me.

Josh set the letter down and as soon as he eyes landed on the sweatshirt and flowers, he was crying again.

A part of him doesn't want to get hurt again. Tyler doesn't deserve a second chance. He doesn't even deserve to see Josh again.

But the other part of him is so hopelessly in love with Tyler. He misses him so bad it hurts.

He doesn't know what to do.

All he knows is that he has until tomorrow night to figure it out.