tyler wakes up when the sun coming through his window is too much to handle. he forgot to close the blinds last night. he tries to stop being sleepy by walking around his small room, grabbing his phone and checking if he has any notifications.
new message from awsten 💗
his heart beats faster when he sees that name. he smiles to himself, giggling like the ever so typical schoolgirl and opens up the message. nothing makes him happier these days than talking to his new crush. or boyfriend? well, they've only gone on one date so it's too soon for him to call awsten his anything.
awsten 💗: morning ty, i'm already at my grandma's house. i miss you
he rereads the text a million times, his heart beating faster each and every time. he quickly types up a response, trying to contain his excitement. after all, a new day means a new message from awsten.
tyler 🌈💝: i miss you too. the meeting today is gonna be boring without you
awsten 💗: i'll be back before you know it
awsten 💗: gotta go, mom's making me go last minute christmas shopping with her
tyler 🌈💝: have fun! ttyl
he locks his phone and puts it on top of his small dresser. he doesn't have as much space as he used to back in columbus, but he couldn't care less. all he really needs is somewhere to sleep in and somewhere to put his clothes in. the time on his phone reads 9:47 am. he still has some time left before he has to leave for the lgbt center meeting.
the routine he follows for these occasions is always the same: he showers and gets dressed, eats a relatively light breakfast and heads out. he knows that he can eat from the cookie platter his friend spencer brings if he feels hungry later on.
to be completely honest, tyler isn't sure where he would be without the new friends he made when he ran away from his shithole of a house. thankfully spencer and troye helped him out. they're the only real friends he's ever had.
he decides to walk to the lgbt center, not for any reason other that he doesn't want to spend money on an uber or the bus. he has to save up for the christmas presents he has planned. the cold isn't that bad yet. he can still tolerate it without much complaint.
"tyler! what's up, dude?" the voice of spencer brings him into reality when he gets to the building. he waves hello at his friend, seeing that troye is taking cookies from the platter on the snacks table.
"hey, spence. i'm not late, right?"
"no, you're actually early. simon is talking to some guys at the front desk. the meeting won't start until he's done with them, i think."
tyler takes off his jacket and puts it on the hangers that also hold his friends' coats. the three of them take their usual seats. "didn't notice you arrived," troye says at him and offers him a chocolate chip cookie, "here. got you some before they are gone."
the small boy takes the cookies and thanks his friend. he begins to eat them, his mouth watering at the great taste. spencer's mom is the done that bakes the cookies. her kind heart insists that the people at the meetings should eat them, saying that everyone deserves to have a pastry once in a while. no wonder she has a successful bakery downtown.
"you're not gonna believe this," troye speaks with a full mouth, "the guys talking to simon are so gorgeous. like, model kind of gorgeous."
"are they?" tyler raises an eyebrow, a flirty tone to his words. he trusts his friend's taste. more often than not, the guys he sees are hot and beautiful. that's how he first noticed awsten in the first place.
"totally. they seem to be around your age."
"i'm only 2 years younger than you. you don't have to talk like i'm a little kid, troye."
spencer joins the conversation; not because he has any opinion on the guys, more so because he likes messing around with tyler. "you're a little kid to us, ty."
"shut up, old man!" tyler jokes, getting out a laugh from both of them. he keeps snickering and talking with his friends, completely unaware of what's happening in front of him.
the infamous simon approaches the circle of chairs, many of them already taken, and starts to address the group. "good day everyone. i'm so glad you all could make it to our morning meeting. i have some very exciting news. we have two people joining us today, would you mind introducing yourselves to the group?"
"uh, hi. my name's brendon. i'm pansexual, and i, uh, i'm excited to be here."
the name and voice catches tyler's attention. he has never met someone in the town named that. he turns his face towards the front of the circle and sees...brendon? what on earth is he doing here?!
he closes his eyes, maybe he's imagining it. there is no way that brendon is here in youngstown. there is no possible way. he doesn't notice when the second guy walks forward and starts to introduce himself, "i'm josh. i'm pretty sure i'm bisexual. i'm also excited to be he–... tyler?!"
with that, tyler opens his eyes. he cannot believe it. he sees josh, his josh, staring back at him. there's what seems like tears in his eyes. the rest of the people at the meeting have their sight on tyler, including spencer and troye. they try to make sense of what happening. why is their friend frozen up at the sight of this guy?
there are many thoughts going through his mind. what is he doing here? how did he find me? is he here to hurt me again? oh god, did my parents find me? oh god, oh god, i'm so fucked. i'm gonna go to jail and die in there. oh god, oh god!
"h-hi, josh."
„"„
josh wakes up in brendon's arms again. the hotel only had rooms with one bed available, so they had no other choice. it's mere coincidence that they decided to spoon. the room was really cold, they chose to share their body heat to keep warm. besides, they used to do this all the time when they were kids. josh used to have nightmares that only brendon seemed to help get rid of.
"bren, wake up. we have to go," he yawns, stretching his arms.
his friend only growls in response, "no... i'm so tired."
"you wouldn't be tired if you hadn't been awake until 4 am looking at twitter," josh retaliates, getting off the bed. he puts a similar outfit to what he had on yesterday, he's given up on looking semi decent.
"i'm sorry, but was doing important stuff, y'know. i needed to go through all of harry styles' tweets." brendon sits up on the bed, his hand reaching for the espresso shot drink he has on the small nightstand.
"why?"
brendon takes a big gulp of the coffee and looks at his friend dead in the eyes, "because why the fuck not?"
all josh can do is roll his eyes and start eating oreos as breakfast. they're only an hour away from their final destination: good ol' youngstown, ohio. they could have actual breakfast at an ihop there, meaning that josh can survive without oreos until then.
they get their bags ready and check out of the hotel by 9:47 am. by 9:50 they're on the road. brendon tries his best to focus on driving, no matter how much he wishes he could sleep right now. not really thinking, probably because it's 9 am and he hasn't had a drop of coffee yet, josh grabs brendon's hand like yesterday. he's too distracted picking a playlist to notice.
but brendon does.
he quickly lets go to take a bottle of water and drink some of it. he's so out of it, but it's okay. they still have to get to youngstown.
„"„
"okay, everyone, we're done for the day. the next meeting won't be until after new years. so have a nice holiday season!" simon says with a smile.
the people start to get up and clean. tyler is still stuck on his chair, his eyes have a glaze over them. he doesn't even dare to look at his friends. he feels so exposed. this was his haven, his safe space. for once in his life he found a place where he could be himself without panicking, and now it's been breached.
"ty? are you okay?" spencer taps on his shoulder, genuinely concerned for his wellbeing.
tyler nearly jumps at the touch. he sighs, "y-yeah. i'm fine. i-i'll text you and troye later." he isn't fine, not even close. he gets up from the chair and rushes to grab his jacket before he feels a hand on his shoulder. he turns around, a little bit pissed. he just wants to get home and cry for the next 17 hours. "i told you, spence. i'm fine– oh, josh."
the older boy takes his hand off tyler's shoulder, "hey." he doesn't know what else to say. honestly he never thought he would make it this far.
"hey."
"i can't believe i found you. i-i've been looking for you all over the place. you're really good at hiding, heh."
tyler doesn't give him a pity laugh. he just looks at the floor. all the memories from home come back, they make him angry again. he's so mad. he wants to punch josh. he wants to slap him. "what are you doing here, josh? why the fuck are you here?"
the cursing is something josh didn't expect at all. in his eyes, tyler could never speak like that to him. where did his sweet boy go?
"i came looking for you. i wanted to make sure you were okay. ever since you left i-i needed to find you."
shaking his head, the younger boy takes his jacket and puts it on. "you should've left me alone. i left that shit town for a fucking reason, joshua."
and that was to get away from you, josh thinks to himself.
"i... can we please go somewhere else? i just need to talk to you for a while. please? i'll pay for your food." he doesn't want this trip to be in vain. he doesn't want to come back empty handed and with a broken heart.
tyler curses to himself and gives in. josh really came all this way for him. it's the least he could do, right? "fine. is brendon coming with us?" he nods towards brendon, who now opted to wait outside the building next to the car.
"he is. is that alright?"
"i guess it is. let's go."
and with that the three of them end up going to the ihop. this isn't what any of the boys thought their morning would look like.
„"„
josh and brendon order coffee, pancakes and scrambled eggs. they're so hungry, now josh regrets not having one more oreo on the way here. meanwhile, tyler orders a glass of orange juice. he sits alone on one end of the booth, he would rather not have brendon here as a witness but it's too late now.
"what do you want to say to me?" he starts the topic with no looking back. he just wants to get this over with and go home.
brendon takes it as a cue to go to the restroom. he's been wanting to pee since they got here anyway. he gets up, leaving the two former love birds alone.
"oh. well, there's so much i want to say.." the ihop is starting to seem like the worst place to confess his deepest feelings and thoughts to his crush, "i'm so fucking sorry i read your diary. i shouldn't have done that. at first i only wanted to know who the diary belonged to. but i kept reading because i wanted to know more about you. i sound like a fucking creep, i know. i'm legit so fucking sorry. when you left, it fucking crushed me.
"i thought you were hurt or something. your parents never seemed to care about it. i wanted to punch your fucking dad so bad. he's an asshole. and everyone at school pretended to be so worried about you. i hated going to class every day and hearing people say how much they missed you and shit. it was disgusting. when i messaged you on your birthday, i didn't think you would reply. but you did. and i couldn't take my mind off you. i needed to find you. just to see that you were okay. you're more than allowed to hate me for invading your privacy. i deserve it."
tyler doesn't exactly know how to respond. "how did you find me?"
"i follow your tumblr blog... i stumbled upon it by accident. from there i put some pieces together with brendon about where you could be."
this time, tyler stays silent. his brain can't comprehend any of this. he really thought he was safe here. "so you just came all this way to tell me that you're sorry?"
josh scratches the back of his neck. when tyler says it like that, it sounds so crazy. he really lied to his parents, went to a city 4 hours away and made his friend waste so much gas and food money for him. it's all for him. everything. "i-i... i guess so. you have no idea how much you being gone has killed me."
"i don't know what to say. you shouldn't have come here. this is too much."
"okay, maybe i over exaggerated. i know i should've sent you a message but i wanted to see you in person. i wanted to tell you all of this in person."
tyler purses his lips together. the waiter gives them the drinks and leaves immediately after to clean a table. he takes a few sips from his orange juice, his eyes trying to avoid making direct contact with josh's. "you made me really fucking pissed about the diary thing. i won't forgive you for that yet."
"that's okay. i was a dumbass for doing that."
"you were, but you apologized. that's more than any other person would've done," he takes another gulps of the orange juice and curses himself for what he decides to say, "how long are you gonna stay here?"
josh shrugs, putting sugar in his coffee and brendon's, who just so happens to come back from the restroom at this point. "not sure. probably a few days. we weren't sure we were gonna find you, we didn't plan this far ahead."
"we can rent a hotel room. we'll be fine," brendon inserts himself in the talk, as always.
"oh no. the hotels around here are full this time of year, that's what my friend troye told me. you can stay at my place. it's small, and my roommate might be against it, but you can share the pullout bed."
the two friends look at each other and then back at tyler. they didn't think tyler would have a roommate. his housing situation was so mysterious they just assumed he lived with a foster family or something. "roommate?" brendon asks on behalf of them.
"yeah. she's at work right now. she's a bit overbearing but you'll like her."
"thank you," josh says, his eyes having a lovestruck sparkle to them.
tyler smiles at him. it feels like it's been forever since josh has seen him smile. it's familiar, it feels right. "welcome."
they make small talk for the rest of the meal, josh and brendon eating with their mouths full most of the time. the pancakes and scrambled eggs taste like the best thing they've ever had. during that, josh can't get his eyes off tyler. he can't believe he's here! the love of his life is sitting in front of him.
it all seems like a dream. a very good one.
tyler even forgot about awsten for the rest of the day. all is well.
{🌹💌🌹}
hi!! this chapter is so long holy shit. and it's late too. i'm sorry, had some breakdowns while writing it. i talked myself out of them, dw
they finally met again!! yay!! the ending's a little rushed and weird but the next chapters are gonna go deeper into some issues
thank you guys for 20.8k reads!! it's so surreal,, also!! this book was #2 in the joshler tag for like a day!! i cried when i say it, thank you thank you thank you ilysm @ every single one of you
i saw someone added this book to their favorites list and i cried for 15 minutes straight. it means so much to me you guys like this book as much as masterpieces other people have made
sorry for any mistakes btw!!
get ready for the next chapters. they're,,,, something else
idk what else to say, i'm going to bed now
see you soon,, hopefully with double update for the week
-alaska xx