True to his word, Josh arrived at Pete's doorway in under five minutes. He really was getting good at driving at the highest possible speed without crashing. It was impressive, in a way.
He knocked a trifle too hard on his best friend's door, unable to control the nervousness that was whirling around inside him. Was it too much to ask, having everything go well? He just needed this one thing to work, he just needed the confession to scare Chris and nothing more. He just needed to kick the last few skeletons out of Tyler's closest, and then everything could be okay. Anything could happen and Josh would still be okay, as long as he had Tyler.
Pete opened the door in an instant, a wall of bright red anger nearly knocking Josh off his feet. He hurried in, wincing as Pete's anger and irritation attached the back of his neck like knives. He was about to walk into the living room when Pete yanked on the back of his shirt, pulling behind the corner.
"Who the hell is this person?" he hissed. "No, don't answer that. I'm already developing ulcers from everything that happened with Tyler, I don't need anything else. Just..."
Josh bit back a smile. "Just what?"
"Get her out, please." Pere tightened his grip on Josh's wrist. "She's eating all my food, Josh, all of it!"
"My condolences, Pete." Josh rolled his eyes and shook Pete off, making his way into the living room. "In my defence I've only met her once, so I didn't know she had such a penchant for taking stranger's food."
Pete just snorted and flopped down on the couch, his cloud of anger swirling around the matching one above Mel's head.
"Hey, Josh." she smiled at him, a little tense. "Glad you could come. Your friend over here seems a little on edge..."
Josh ignored the fact that Pete was rapidly turning the same colur as his emptions and focused his attention on Mel. In her hand was a small leather file.
"Is that it?" he asked, his voice growing quiet. Even Pete's anger dissapared, replaced by curiosity as he moved closer to where Mel was seated, now toying with the file in her hands.
She nodded, dark blue swirling around her head, the feae rubbing off on Josh. He didn't know ifnhe wanted to see it or not. The obvious hesitation on Mel's part wasn't helping. Something was up.
"Is there...is there anything wrong with it?" he asked tentatively.
Mel looked sick.
Josh's heart dropped ten feet doen into the ground. Pete's eyes narrowed slightly.
"What's the file?" he asked Josh, blanking Mel. What scared Josh even more was that she didn't even react to Pete's cold shoulder. Her eyes were shut and she looked on the verge of nervous collapse, greenish yellow battling with the blue-black in her mind.
"It's a murder confession," Josh said slowly, eyes still on Mel. "From Tyler's father, confessing to the fact that he killed his son, the crime Tyler's mom was sent to an asylum for. We, Mel and I, thought it could be used..."
He trailed off, eyss boring into Mel, ripping past the layers of emotions to reveal what he was dreading to find. Maybe she was just nervous, she was probably just nervous.
"What, like blackmail?"
Josh nodded absently, still staring at the hunched girl. "It was gonna stop him from taking legal possession of Tyler again."
"Was?" Pete asked incredulously. He turned to Mel, suspicion written all over his face. "I thought the whole point of this meeting was so that you could exchange the file, chitchat about what Josh was gonna say, that stuff."
Mel orned her mouth, but no words came out.
"Mel," Josh said softly, the unasked question bursting in his voice. "You have the confession, right?"
And there it was. What he had been searching for, buried deep, deep down, in an area so hard to get to Josh could feel himself physically growing tired from keeping the colour visible.
"Pale orange..." he muttered aloud. "You're lying."
She looked up at him, and to Josh's vicious horror, her eyes were filled with tears.
"The confession isn't real."
Just like that, every single hope and shred of confidence he'd had in the fact that things would go well exploded into dust.
"It's a lie?" he heard himself say.
She nodded miserably, not meeting his or Pete's accusing gazes. Takng a deep breath, she began.
"When you met me, it was obvious you were desperate. I knew that physical fear wouldn't work with Chris, I knew that man. I hated him, I still do. And you were there and you were so desperate to do something to stop him, it got me thinking. What if I just forged a confession, a confession for the murder of that little boy all those years ago. We could take it to court, say that I found it on a private server. He could be convicted. Both parties would be happy. And if it failed..."
She paused.
"And if it failed, well...it-it wasn't me who was gonna suffer, that's what I thought. It wasn't me..."
Her voice wavered to an end and Josh felt a suffocating swell of anger burst in him.
"So not only did you lie," he said slowly, his voice shaking. "But you did this all to get back at a man just because, what, just becquse he fucking fired you? From your post as a secretary?"
"It was more than that-"
"Oh, please, tell me!" Josh hissed, voice oozing sarcasm. "I'm dying to hear!"
"He was making moves, he was hurting me! Don't you see-"
"The one boy I love is currently at home, thinking that everything will work out tomorrow. If it doesn't, he will be going straight back to hell. And I dont know a lot, but I know he won't last long."
This time she stayed silent, and the quiet was almost as bad as the arguments.
"You lied." Josh growled. "You lied, bitch."
Mel tried to speak this time, but Josh ploudged ahead. His hands shook in his lap.
"And now Tyler might eat shit because of it? That's real fucking classy of you, I commend you. God, what a wh-"
"Josh." Pete said gently, bringing him down to earth. Josh exhaled forcefully, feeling the waves of anger roll off his shoulders. He exhaled again, rubbing a hand through his silver hair.
"There's no point in getting angry, I guess." he muttered at the floor. "I'm sorry."
Mel just inhaled shakily. Pete got up and hurried into the kitchen, returning with a cup of water for Mel and a coke for Josh. He grunted his thanks and drank deeply.
"What's gonna happen now?" Pete asked, shattering the tense silence.
Josh could feel both Pete's worried gaze and Mel's fearful one on him as he chewed his lip. There really wasn't anything they could do. What's done had been done. As far as Tyler knew, they had concrete evidence.
And it was going to stay thag way for him. It wasn't going to be hospital, the sequal.
"We don't tell Tyler."
"He has the right to know-" Mel began but stopped at the looks both Josh and Pete threw her.
"He has the right to remain safe for as long as possible." Josh said pointedly. "You fucked up, and it's on you, Mel. I'm not letting Tyler suffer until there's simply nothing left I can do to stop it, understand? He doesn't find out it's a lie."
Pete nodded calmly. "And are you gonna play along with the evidence throughout the meeting too?"
Josh sighed deeply. "I mean," he paused, banishing the hopeless note from his voice. "What can we do?"
"Maybe he really did kill Jay," Mel muttered.
"Hopefully." Josh said to himself. Hope was a terrible thing to balance everything on, but at this moment it was the best they had.
"Chris won't take Tyler, right?" Mel asked fearfully. Josh shot her a furious glare and a flash of blue-black darted actoss her emotions.
She was afraid of him.
Josh relazed his tense arms. He hadn't even known his hands had been clenched, and he winced at the line of deep fingernail marks on his palm. Looking up, he shrugged helplessly. He wished he had something else to give, but he didn't. The confession had been his last hope to offer, but even that was gone.
Only luck could save Tyler now.
//ONE MORE DAY THEN I'M FREEEEEEEE also does anyone really like this story cause I feel like no one does lmao//