A/N: You remember that life-explaining chapter I promised one of you? Here it is.
This is also the last chapter, because I don't wanna split it up. I wanna fucking cry, oh my god :'-) I'll post the last authors note later, and an important epilogue, and just be on the look out for that, because I've got a lot to say.
Also, please note I'm using a stupid ass computer, because my shit broke this morning, yay c: enjoy, though!!! Excuse any mistakes.
You guys, this is it. I can't believe this.
***
Now, it was quite possible that everything could go back to how it was when I was twelve years old, with dirty fingernails and gross hair.
When I pretended I was in love with this girl named Abby, (because everyone else was in love with someone of the opposite sex), and wasn't prepared to have my life irrevocably shattered.
I say irrevocably, because it's not a secret that actual love doesn't heal all. It just doesn't. Josh and I being in love doesn't make him forget about his Uncle Sean, and I don't forgot about my dad, or my cutting, or my depression in general. Let alone what caused it.
"We should get home soon, don't you think? I'm sure your mom wants to see you," Josh spoke lowly, disconnecting his mouth from mine, and spinning me around so that my back was no longer against his car.
It was dark out, almost midnight, and I knew he could feel me rolling my eyes, but he just smiled. "I wasn't done kissing you yet."
"I'm not gonna have sex with you against the hood of my car," he chuckled. "We're not in one of those stupid actions movies."
"Says who?" I asked incredulously.
But, I feel like I have somewhat of a family now, and that I am not by myself anymore, and that I have a group of people that would catch me if I ever dropped from a tall building. And, really, that's all I ever wanted. To wake up and know that someone was glad I was alive, and I got it, and maybe it didn't take away the severe pain of everything, but it numbed it.
Just like Josh was a bucket full of freezing cold water that slammed through the back of your shirt, and electrocuted your spine, but he was also something that soothed it. He was both a diaster and a miracle, and he was forever my biggest dilemma, and forever my biggest solution.
"Just get in the car, Ty," he laughed.
We were soaking wet again, and his soft fingertips were sifting through my wet hair, pushing it upwards. "Why?"
"Because I asked you to." He whined falsely, feigning annoyance. Slapping at his chest, I let go of him, walking over to the passenger side of his car. "Nicely, might I add."
"And I appreciate your patient tone."
In the end, Josh and I were both victims of a lot of things. Including each other. And I don't know if I can say that he was made for me, and I was made for him, but I hope that's the case. He was an oxygen tank, and I was just someone that couldn't breathe on their own, and it was sad, but it was simple.
"Are you going to walk into your mom's house soaking wet?" He asked, eyebrows raised. Throwing the keys into the ignition, he started up the engine, and let it rumble. "Is she gonna ask questions?"
My mom knows how Josh and I work now, because she met him a few days ago. It was an interesting time for the three of us, considering I could tell when Josh's expectations weren't met. He wanted her to be someone visibly evil and unreasonable, but that's not who she was anymore, and, somehow, she was something better. Not great, but better.
Her and I were forced to resolve everything soon enough, and, considering all of us are now drifting through March, we had three months to get it together. It was a difficult and humbling time period between the two of us, but if it hadn't ever taken place, I probably would have stopped speaking to her altogether. But that's just one more thing that heavily contributed to the renewal of my life, and why I feel better, in the first place.
So, I just looked at my absolutely glorious boyfriend, trying to control my extreme astonishment at the sight of him, and shook my head. "I mean, even if she does, what am I supposed to tell her?"
Laughing, he shrugged. "Lie, and say it rained."
"Im almost positive she'll know it doesn't just randomly rain, Josh."
"God, a guy can hope," he exclaimed. "You know, you're so pessimistic. Why am I in love with you?"
"Good question," I smiled.
Another thing that happened, was Murphy's dad discovering the fact that Murphy had a drug issue. He was on my porch the other day, crying to himself about having to go to rehab, and then, asked if he could draw a mustache on me. Honestly, he served as a prime example of what emotions do to you, considering I could tell he was trashed. He was told he was going to recovery center, and celebrated with more cocaine. Either way, addiction is addiction, and I tried to put myself where he was. In fact, it was Murphy who told me that you didn't know nobody 'til you walked around in their skin. Despite the fact that he's a drug addict, it made sense. A lot of the things he said did, if you considered it.
"Kidding, I remember." I rolled my eyes at his words, because, now, he was going to go on and on about how fantastic I supposedly was, and I had to pretend I hated it. "It's because you're the most incredible human being that's ever walked the earth, and because I almost kicked myself in the hallway on your first day of school, because I didn't grab your arm and tell you to kiss me like I should have."
Teasingly, I scoffed. "Oh, please."
"You think I'm kidding?" He responded, disbelief saturating his words. "Because, I can assure you, that I didn't know you were even real the first time I looked at you."
"Shut up," I whined, embarrassed.
"No, no," he disregarded, waving away my words like mosquitoes. "And it wasn't that ridiculous love at first sight stuff, because I never find that to be genuine, but, like, fascination. You just looked so unbelievably fragile and captivating, and-"
"You never told me any of this."
"Most likely because its humiliating for me to admit that I kind of wanted to spend every living moment with you when we first met," he snickered sarcastically, shrugging again.
"No one said that you had to spend every moment with me."
"But I want to. I love you."
At this point, I don't think I could ever get tired of hearing him say that. It felt like being boiled alive, and shot in the heart, and hit by a plane, and saved just in time. God, he was like a vaccination. To ensure your safety, you had to inject a bit of whatever was dangerous, directly into you, and the lethal thing was very obviously him.
We've been together for nearly six months now, and I haven't died. If that's not a good sign, I'm not sure what is.
"Hey, want to know something I've always wanted to do?" He asked, suddenly, excited. I didn't get a chance to answer before he was speaking again, hands disappearing from where they should have been. Panic seared through me, showing on my face, and he laughed. Raising his eyebrows, he tilted his head to the side, motioning. "Grab the wheel, Ty. You can drive, right?"
I shot him a look, rolling my eyes at his question. But then, he was rolling the window down, and unbuckling his seatbelt, and the terror was crashing through me, once again. I was watching him shove his entire upper body out of the car, and I was supposed to be able to drive, in the dark, on a road I should have been familiar with, but really wasn't. Beside, the glistening of my ring in the moonlight, and oncoming headlights, constantly threw me off.
He was screaming, too. It sounded like laughter and freedom and happiness, and he threw thumbs ups to the other cars, and waved to people he didn't know, and totally forgot that he could fall and die, and that police existed for things like this. Forcing my hands to keep steady, I kept my eyes on the road, and kept myself unbelievably aware of his presence, making sure he didn't fall. At one point, he started teetering back and forth, and I instinctively put my hand on his leg, fear and adoration lacing through me. Somehow, though, I managed to keep control of the vehicle that was suddenly in my possession, and I could smell the wind on him when he fell back in. The seat groaned with his weight, and he laughed loudly, shaking his head.
"That was ridiculous. I'm sorry," he apologized, squeezing his eyes shut. "I just needed that."
"It was funny, if anything. Your hair looks even worse."
~~~
Surprisingly, Josh and I have had sex numerous times since Christmas. I was much more comfortable with the general idea of intimacy, and I don't know what to think of that, and I don't even know why I felt so much better about it, after the first time. I always thought I was going to be someone to just never be as fond of intercourse as everyone else is, but, I found myself to be wrong. A lot of the time, I was.
When I moved to Ohio, I never imagined doing half of the things I've done. Like, for example, making out with someone in the backseat of their car, and going to football games, and jumping into lakes, and dancing in the rain, and letting my mom know about my issues, and meeting someone that actually cared about me. Every single one of those things was such a long shot, it was ridiculous, but, somehow, they took place.
"I'm so tired, but this is so fun," Josh muttered against my neck, hips lips warm and comforting. I could feel his tongue brushing over the sore spot he'd created, and the sting of his teeth, but just threaded my fingers in his hair even further.
"Go to sleep, then," I breathed, eyebrows raised. "I can go inside. We're in my driveway, Josh."
He huffed, pushing his mouth back on mine. "I really don't want you to go, for numerous reasons."
"And what are they?"
He groaned. "Um, you're kind of hot, and I'm majorly turned on," he started, and I laughed obnoxiously, shaking my head. "Also, I love you so so so much." There was that painfully beautiful pang in my chest again. "And I just don't want you to go, because then I have to go home and tackle Oskar for the last bag of Hershey kisses, and that kind of sucks."
"W-why do you have an entire bag of them?" I stammered, trying to focus around his fingers reaching up my shirt. "Most people don't own full bags of Hershey kisses."
He pulled back, so that he was sitting on my hips, with a flushed face and light eyes. "You want any? I probably have some in here somewhere," he offered, and climbed off of me. I whined at the loss of his body weight, and shut my eyes lazily, tilting my head towards the seat of his car. Somehow, everything in here smelled incredible, and it reminded me of how Josh glorified, and ruined, everything he came into contact with.
"Do you even eat anything that's not candy?" I asked, sitting up. "I mean, you sneak into the teachers' lounge every day, for god's sake."
He rolled his eyes at me, throwing open his glove compartment, and fished through it. Seeing as he wasn't looking, I took it upon myself to stare at him like I'd never get to see him again, and memorize everything he was made of. Soft skin and gentle eyes and careful words and sarcastic stares and spontaneous run-away sessions and Indianapolis and tears of pure laughter and sadness, and I didn't really want to go either.
~~~
That night, I couldn't sleep, and it was finally for a good reason.
There's a feeling that comes over people in the middle of the night. Whether or not you find it to be positive, or negative, it's there, and its the nice kind of choking that always rushes over me, and the thing I always attempt to describe. It drives me absolutely insane every time it happens, but I can't help to love it, because its a brilliant thing, in my opinion.
It was knowing that Josh was alive somewhere, in this big, terrifying world, and it was knowing he gave me this ring, and knowing he promised me our small lifetime, and that was always difficult to get over. Not to mention that I managed to keep the second bouquet of flowers that he's ever given me, alive on the top of my drawer. It sat near the window during the day, and sat where it was during the night, so I could look at that them. They were daises again, because he knew how much I liked the last ones.
I pulled my blanket up to my nose, and screwed my eyes shut. Taking a breath so deep, it tickled pain into the center of my chest, I rolled over, pressing my nose to the wall. I understood I was alone in my room, but I was still smiling like I wasn't ever going to stop. My lips were pressed into a thin line, trying to suppress it, but it grew anyway, and, eventually, I had to give up.
But, oh my god, I never knew this day would come. And its not like I wasn't still a mess of depression and scars and anger and remorse, but I was working on it, and Josh was helping me.
I feel like Josh was just trying to understand what was happening during the time of everything else that happened before Christmas, and I can't blame him for not knowing what to do. Over and over, I tried to indirectly tell him that I wasn't worth all of the things I continuously put numerous people through, but he didn't listen to me. Yes, he believed every word I said to him, but didn't bother to put it into practice, but, I know he's glad he didn't, mostly because he told me he was.
If I had left you alone the countless times you told me to, he had said, then I wouldn't have ever gotten to know who you were, beyond everything visible. And I wouldn't be happier, and neither would you. And we also would have never fallen in love, and that would suck so bad.
And he's right. He's one hundred percent correct about everything, and I wouldn't debate that.
But we have to consider everything I went through. He disappeared on random all the time, kept tremendously significant secrets from me the first month and a half during the formation of us, and he was the reason Dennis and I had any issues in the first place. At the same time, the both of us, being Josh and I, try not to think about all of that, because its over. His uncle was gone, Dennis found other things to be furious about, and he promised not to run off anymore, because he's aware of the fact that it terrifies me.
So, in the end, the impulsive, secretly damaged, breath-taking, alive mess, that Josh was, (which is what I called him) fell in love with me, a concoction of lies, and depressive behavior, and deep eyes, and gorgeous facial structure, and hope.
And, if you couldn't guess, that's what I was to him.
Also, if you didn't know, it didn't matter what happened from here, and beyond, because he was beyond worth the motherfucking risk.
FIN.