CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Happiness was a rarity in Tyler's life now. Like a stroke of yellow that separates two greys from one another, it was stark, and evident when it occurred. It was as if God had come down personally, and split the dark cloud that loomed over Tyler's head, shining a single ray of sunshine to warm his cold body.

Happiness was something he had taken for granted. Whether it was the last slice of pizza that was solely saved for him. The sight of a rainbow after a rainy week, or soft kisses on his face to wake him from his slumber. It was all something he had taken for granted.

This odd thing that forced him to look forward to the next day was akin to the nostalgia of yesterday. If there was a reason for humans to exist, he liked to believe his sole reason for wandering this planet was reminiscing yesterday.

How did we meet again? That one question was music to his ears. Five words that compelled him into a poetic state he tried to suppress as much as he could, though it was only his journal where he would abandon the masculinity that his father had beaten into him since he was a boy. A man does not reminisce, they do not let their words flow like honey, they do not garden. But this journal was not structured around the gender norms his father had adhered to, refusing to cry like Tyler when the dog died during an exceptionally hard time in a movie.

"How did we meet again?"

"You're druuunk..."

"No, you areee."

"Your gaze intoxicated me, this room is drunk on your aura. My heart is swaying like a drunkard on a road... I'm trying, Lillyyyyyy, but why does it only sway for youuu...my sweet Lilyyyy — Tiger Lily, that's what you are!"

"You're so drunk."

Tiger Lily. Synonymous with happiness. Synonymous with love. Synonymous with a lot of things that were no longer present in his life, just like sweet Tiger Lily herself.

If happiness was anything in this world it was a flower that bloomed during the brightest moments, and wilted during the gruesome winters, arguably when a person needed it most. It was a flower, with the softest petals, one that you could crush and make into tea. It was a flower that you could give to a lover, or a friend — perhaps a mother too. It was vibrant and soft, and everything in between. Happiness was a flower and Tyler was the thorn that struck malady in the person who tried to steal Happiness, the flower, from others.

Always so close to Happiness, but never the recipient of its love. Like a thorn, he remained until he was cut off by others. Like a thorn, he stuck out like a sore sight — a reminder of the sorrows that came before Happiness, the flower. A thorn named Tyler Meyers.

"Happiness," he murmured as he put the gear in park, "the flower."

Tyler looked over to the passenger seat of the car. Instead of a rider, a worn journal occupied the space. Its worn spine, cracked and frayed, was an indication of how long it'd been since a journal entry had been written in it — and how many were hidden away with secret names and dates unique to only two people.

His fingers grazed the initials engraved into the leather cover. For a moment, he thought about how long it truly had been since he'd left all of them. Tyler may have forgotten to count the days after his untimely departure, but there was one person who hadn't.

How long had it been since Venus left? It hurt too much to think about the days. He'd stopped counting at one-hundred-and forty-seven. The snow swallowed the fallen leaves, the warm air, and blooming leaves melted the snow, and now the summer air danced between the trees and flowers that bloomed in the spring. That was all he knew. Three seasons had passed since she last walked on the very earth he roamed.

Perhaps she was Happiness, the flower. He grimaced at the thought, as the conversation between Lily and him, exposing Venus for who she was, drowned out the nostalgia that blanketed him. Was it possible to hate and love someone at the same time? What hurt less than saying you hated someone? — That was what Tyler felt for Venus Wilson. Like the infinite between two numbers, he remained in this odd space between love and hate. Like a limit, he never truly approached either side.

Tyler's phone pinged in the cupholder ripping him away from his thoughts. The journal came back into focus, then slowly his gaze shifted to the phone itself. By the time his vision had focused on the name of the person, the screen went black. He didn't need to tap the screen again to confirm the identity of the messenger. Instead, he unbuckled his seatbelt that hugged his white-tee-clad body. Tyer grasped the journal with his right hand and got out of the car. His index finger clicked the lock button on the keys and he made his way into the cemetery.

A wave of guilt enveloped him as he walked past Venus' grave decorated with wilted bouquets and a single bouquet of fresh flowers. He wondered for a moment who had brought fresh red roses to her grave. The thought was almost powerful enough to pull him off his course. Stop, he ordered himself from within, hoping his own voice would pull him out of the intoxicating state Venus' grave was putting him in.

"Tyler!" His name rang in the clear skies, an echo gracing his ears after a while.

Tyler turned away from the direction of Venus' grave and towards the sullen boy, who looked a little too much like him. His hand was in the air, waving him down as if assuming Tyler was lost. There wasn't a sign of happiness on his face, just like Tyler's. Perhaps both of them were the thorns on Happiness, the flower, he thought to himself.

He hurried his pace until the two were a body apart, and between them the grave of Tyler's cousin, and the boy's ex-boyfriend.

"Hey," said Tyler as he settled on the ground in front of the grave.

He peered at the standard gravestone, his cousin's family was willing to give him as memories of the funeral loomed behind him, waiting for him to turn around and remember yesterday. The other man sat beside him, his hands adorned with little pricks where the thorns must have gotten him. Tyler's gaze shifted from his minor injuries to the flowers he'd ripped off someone's front yard and placed on his graveyard.

"Very romantic," he commented, which earned a chuckle from the other party.

This felt nice. It didn't feel like happiness nor did it feel like sadness. It was that odd space, just like the space between love and hate. He relished in the feeling. The only dark clouds were the ones that loomed above them in the skies.

"You remembered the day," he commented earning a nod from Tyler.

"This day is more important than my birthday!"

"May... the fourth?"

"May the fourth be with you!"

"Oh my God. Please, Raj, let me hit him."

"May the fourth be with you," Tyler's words were only slightly above a whisper as he failed to ignore the memories.

Since that day, Raj and Tyler's lives only intersected on one day. May the fourth. It was the day they came to his gravestone like blank canvases and waited for the memories to paint them anew. No tainted presents or futures were allowed on May the fourth because he was no longer part of their presents and futures. He was like the distant thought that brought upon a faint smile identical to one another.

He smelled like this, he looked like this. His eyebrows were furrier than what you remember. No, that's not how he used to smile. The dimple is definitely on the left side not right! Those were the strokes that painted the two canvases and once the painting was complete, the two left it there until the next May fourth.

"And to you," Raj remarked before looking down at his red palms.

"And to you," the two spoke in unison as they looked at the gravestone.

WILLIAM JAMESON HENLEY

August 15, 2000 - October 31, 2016

"It's been two years..." Raj trailed off, picking at the dead grass that surrounded the area. "Do you remember how he smelled?" He looked up at Tyler for the first time since they'd sat down.

"I'd like to imagine he smelled like lavender,"

"Why's that?"

"Our moms bought the same detergent," Tyler chuckled as he played with the laces on his shoes. "And because I plant lavender flowers for him in the garden," he added.

The garden was a secret between four people. Well, it started as three, then Will met Raj, and Raj met Tyler, who met Venus, and suddenly there were two dead bodies in the ground and two lifeless bodies above-ground.

"Do you remember anything else about him?" Raj egged on, ever so slightly leaning into Tyler as if he were trying to view the memories engrained in Tyler's mind. "My dad took everything you gave me after the funeral. He burned it all and Will didn't have social media..."

Tyler turned towards Raj, whose eyes brimmed with tears, too afraid to fall, as if his tears touching the ground where his dead lover laid would cause too much pain to Will. The pain he refused to give to Will even past the grave. As he stared at Raj trying to decipher what the rest of his expression meant. His lips were contorted into a frown, yet his eyes held a longing he felt for Venus against his will. This was an expression Tyler had adorned for some time now, this was an expression he still refused to label.

"Here," His eyes fell to the journal in his lap, his hands grasping it, ever so gently tracing the WJH on the cover. "His parents moved away the other week. I found it in the piles of garbage bags they gave my mom. Those fuckers," He hissed. "He was still their fucking son!" Anger swallowed the sadness, the longing, in him, bit by bit, until sweat touched his tee. "H-he did nothing wrong!"

"Even you were shocked," Raj looked at him angrily. "I remember you told us we were going to hell!"

"Raj," Tyler's expression softened. "I unlearned all of that bullshit,"

"Why didn't you unlearn the rest then?"

Silence.

There was no excuse for his actions. There was nothing but guilt. Guilt that had consumed his exterior and slowly ate away at his insides like a parasite.

"I'm sorry," said Raj a heavy sigh following the empty apology, "It's just that,"

"You blame his family and I'm his family."

"I blame myself too. But I especially blame her," there was a bitterness to that last word as if even mentioning her name was a poison he refused to swallow. Tyler looked away from Raj as the guilt made its way into his heart.

"I'm sorry for her," he whispered clenching his jaw. "—Why didn't you tell me?" He gritted his teeth. "How could you let me be with someone who did this to my best friend?!"

"Because," Raj looked down at the journal too hesitant to look inside. "I wanted her to suffer." When the two met eyes, a chill traveled down Tyler's spine. The smile on his face made him uncomfortable. Like a mannequin in a mall, it looked so human but it wasn't. At that moment, Raj looked so human, but at the same time, he didn't. "I knew about you and Lily. I knew about everything. I wanted her to find out about you two, but I guess she didn't really care in the end. I guess she didn't really love you. Or maybe," he hesitated, as he stared deeper into Tyler's eyes. Every hair on Tyler's body rose because of that stare. He was a deer caught in headlights. "She needed you for a reason."

"W-what?" Tyler choked out trying to make sense of the situation. He exhaled the moment Raj turned away from him, surprised that he didn't realize he was holding his breath. As the air flowed in and out of his lungs, he gathered himself together, this time, refusing to meet his eyes. "What do you mean, Raj?"

"You'll know what I mean when the time is right." Raj chirped as he flipped through the pages in the journal.

Tyler's heart pounded as he sat across Raj trying to make sense of everything. He didn't push for anything else, he didn't want to make this about Venus, not today, so he let it go as best as he could. He waited for Raj to speak up with another question. He waited so desperately for the two to fall into the same pattern each May fourth brought along since Will's death, but Raj didn't stick to the script.

"In this one my name is Rani," Raj giggled, a hint of blush present under his tan skin. Tyler tried his hardest to smile, though if he were to look into a mirror he knew he would have looked crazy. "That means queen in Hindi." He remarked and Tyler nodded, making note of that.

"He loved you a lot," Tyler commented as Raj read through the journal entries. "He loved you like the sun loves the moon like the stars love the sky..." His mind wandered to Lily.

"Did he say that?"

"Yes," Tyler lied.

"I love you,"

"How much?"

"Do I have to prove that to you?"

"Love is something that must be proven, you idiot."

"Then I love you like the moon loves the sun."

"Like the stars love the sky too?"

"Something like that,"

"Prove it."

"-Trevor really likes her, right?" Tyler went against the rules for the first time today.

He hated himself for it.

Raj shut the journal an expression of shock painted on his face. His eyebrows carried much of the shock, so deeply furrowed, an indent appeared in the gap between the two brows. Tyler laughed sadly at his visage before looking back at Will.

"Does Will know about her?" Tyler asked as if he were still alive. "I'm in love with a girl named Lily!" His laughter echoed in the skies above, as Raj's mouth fell to the floor.

"Tyler," Raj's hand wrapped around his making Tyler laugh even harder. Soon the tears followed and the laughter was replaced by sobs. "It's okay," he whispered enveloping Tyler in a hug so tight, he almost melted in it.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed into Raj's shoulder, gripping the fabric of his shirt. "I'm just so happy she has someone now! She deserves the best, she's just a friend. I'm so happy for her." He repeated the three sentences until his erratic breathing softened into calmer breathing just like Raj's embrace. "But I'm so fucking selfish," he whispered, as his nose brushed Raj's neck. His scent was intoxicating. Being this close to someone, being held like this, the warmth, the care, it was all so intoxicating. "That I hate to see her move on." Tyler sniffled, allowing his forehead to rest on Raj's shoulder. He stifled the panic that settled momentarily before disappearing as fast as the thought itself — his father would hate to see the sight of his only son being embraced so intimately by his nephew's ex-boyfriend. "You smell..." He pondered, or perhaps got drunk on the scent that transformed into the smell of Lily's signature perfume, "like a home I got lost trying to find."

"Are you hitting on me?" Raj choked down a round of laughter. "This is really not the place for all this, Tyler."

"Shut up," he grumbled, detaching their limbs from one another. "I would never hit on someone who dated Will. I could never compete with the man! He wrote sonnets about you or something in that journal — and yes I did look," He cut Raj off. "Weirdos," he added as an afterthought.

"They both like each other," Raj addressed the question after the two had gotten tired of the silence between them. It was only today the two could act like friends without any animosity between them. This was for Will after all, and Raj couldn't disappoint him after all that he had done already. "But the universe is against them. I don't want to give you false hope, though,"

"What is false hope to a hopeless man?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing,"

"You've changed since she"

" — I didn't change, I just got tired of pretending."

"Pretending?"

"Yeah," Tyler exhaled the word. "Pretending has become too much. I don't need false hope because I'm not going to pursue Lily."

"Why's that?"

"Because she deserves happiness."

"You don't seek happiness in others, you seek happiness in yourself."

"No," Tyler looked at Raj. "We're humans, we're greedy. What we don't have we look for in others. Trevor found happiness in her and she found happiness in him."

"She doesn't even know he likes her."

"I could tell when I met him yesterday,"

"Everyone can tell they like each other besides them."

Tyler snickered, "I guess you're right."

"After this," Raj muttered, placing the grass the two had pulled out beside the flowers as if it were an offering to Will. "We should still hang out,"

"Really?" Tyler bit his tongue as he voiced his thoughts. "I mean, why?"

"Because all else is forgiven."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're no longer Venus's puppet."

"Oh,"

"How's your uncle doing?"

"Why are you bringing him up?"

"Venus really liked the Fosters,"

Tyler nodded. "He's fine. I haven't seen much of him lately."

"— Why did you give this to me now of all times?" Raj changed the topic to what he truly wanted to ask.

"Because his parents moved away, I told you," Tyler clarified, slightly alarmed by the sudden change of topic.

"You're lying," he said, making the facade Tyler had worn to the cemetery crack before shattering.

"You need it more than me," Tyler rushed out.

"Liar," he panicked as Raj accused him, searching desperately for a feasible excuse. "Don't do it," Raj whispered. "I'll be your friend. I'll be there for you the way you were there for Will."

"I don't understand what you're talking about," Tyler feigned ignorance, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Had he stopped pretending for that long that he somehow forgot how to do it altogether? Why could he not buy the facade? Irritation ran rampant in his mind. "I'll leave first," he hissed under his breath. "And I don't need any friends. We do this only for Will!"

"Tyler," Raj started though before he could finish Tyler abandoned the cemetery and dashed towards the car across the graveyard.

Thunder crackled in the skies above as Tyler disappeared from Raj's gaze.

Raj turned to stare at Will's gravestone, the journal wrapped protectively in his hand, ready to shield it from any rain that threatened to drop. He tried his hardest to not think about the raised lines he felt when he'd pulled Tyler in for an embrace. He tried to ignore the way he talked like Will on October 30, 2016, but he couldn't.