Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 1785

November 19th, 2015

You sighed and set your pen down in the corner of your desk, deciding that it would be best to give your brain a rest before you tried to finish the rest of the chapter. Everything you had written so far felt forced, and you weren't really sure if you liked the direction your book was going in yet.

Your mom was downstairs cooking dinner, so you decided to go help her cook to take your mind off of things. She smiled as you walked into the kitchen.

"I was wondering if you were ever going to come out of your room."

You smiled, "There's been lots of ideas floating around in my head. I wanted to get them all written down somewhere before they decided to run off again. Writing a book is hard work, you know."

"I can only imagine," she said, cutting up a pepper. It appeared she was making some sort of soup for dinner.

"Do you need any help?"

"I suppose you could cut up some vegetables if you wanted."

"Sure," you said, grabbing a small stack of veggies to chop up for the soup.

"So how is the book coming?"

"I'm getting stuck in the middle. I mean, I guess I'm still stuck in the middle, if you consider how long I've been working on it."

Your mom made a quiet humming noise, signaling that she understood.

"I'm getting close to finding my way through it, though," you continued. "I can feel it."

"Well that's good," she smiled as she tossed some ingredients into the pot. "I know how invested in that book you are, so I'm glad that it's going well for you."

"Could be going better," you muttered as you grabbed another pepper. Your mom didn't seem to notice.

You hummed quietly as you continued to cut up vegetables. Without realizing it, you had started humming one of Tyler's songs that you had heard on the radio the other day. You had to admit, it was catchy even if it reminded you of him. Maybe that had been the point, he was reaching out to you through the radio.

No, that was dumb. It had been years, he probably hadn't even thought of you recently.

"Are you humming Tyler's song?" your mom asked.

"Huh? Oh, I guess I was."

"It's a catchy song. Oh! That reminds me, I have this news article to show you after dinner."

"Ok," you said as you gathered all of your chopped vegetables into a neat pile.

"Well, I think that's everything. Should only be another twenty minutes or so until dinner is ready."

"Alright, I think I'll go sit in the yard for a bit."

"Take Fergus with you, would you?"

"Sure."

You walked into the living room where Fergus was passed out on the couch. He had gotten so big in the last year, it was hard to believe that he had ever been a puppy. You walked over and gently scratched his head to wake him up. He quickly perked up and began to wag his tail, creating a thumping sound on the couch.

"Hey, bud. Why don't we go outside?"

He rolled up to a sitting position and happily hopped off of the couch. A large pile of hair was left behind on the couch where he had been sitting. Your mom probably wouldn't be too happy about that.

A gust of cold air hit your face as you opened the sliding door that led to the backyard. Fergus ran out past your legs into the grass and began to do laps around the edge of the yard. You closed the door behind you and took a seat on the edge of the porch. It was cold outside, but not unbearable.

The sun had set a while ago, meaning that the stars were already visible as you sat on the porch. You couldn't resist leaning back and looking up at them. Once Fergus got tired of sprinting around the yard, he came over and joined you by curling up into your side. If nothing else, he was a good heat source.

It was nights like these that you missed Tyler the most. You hated to admit that you still thought of him, but it was undeniable that he still had an influence on your life. There was nothing you wanted more than to just see him again, but without a way to communicate that just wasn't an option.

"Y/N, dinner is ready."

Fergus got up and ran inside. You hadn't even heard her open the door. How long had you been outside? Your hands were cold, and it hurt just a little bit to move them. It was probably a good thing that your mom had called you inside. Who knows how long you would have stayed outside, sitting spaced out in the cold.

"Coming," you said, pushing yourself back up to a sitting position.

Grabbing a bowl of warm soup proved to be a fantastic way to warm up your hands. You took a seat at the table across from your mom, who was already happily enjoying her own bowl of soup.

"You look cold," she commented. "Your nose and cheeks are bright pink."

"Yeah, I kind of lost track of time while I was outside."

"Something on your mind?"

You shrugged. Your mom had always been able to tell when you were upset.

"Tyler, I guess. It's hard not knowing what he's up to or if he's ok."

Your mom leaned back in her chair for a moment, appearing as if she were thinking hard about something.

"I was going to wait until after dinner to show you, but I don't see the harm in doing it now. Wait just one second."

She got up and walked off, looking very determined. You sat and stirred your soup a bit, taking the occasional bite. It was good soup and was helping to warm you back up, but you just didn't feel very hungry.

Your mom walked back into the room a few moments later, carrying a small piece of paper in her hand. She sat back down and carefully unfolded it before sliding it across the table to you.

"Tyler's mom gave this to me the other day. She thought you might want to see it. I meant to show it to you earlier, but it slipped my mind."

The piece of paper turned out to be a newspaper clipping. A picture of Tyler and his bandmate Josh were right below a big, bold heading. It read "Up and coming band Twenty One Pilots breaks into Billboard Hot 100 Chart". You didn't bother to read the article beneath it.

"Wow, the Billboard Chart," you said. "That's pretty impressive."

"Isn't it? And to think that it all started here," she beamed.

You nodded. Your mom had shown you the clipping with good intentions, you knew that, but it had only served to make you feel worse. You knew that you were supposed to be proud of him. The Billboard Chart was a huge deal, and it meant that his career was surely going to take off. Unfortunately, that's not how the situation felt.

Instead, you couldn't help but think about how successful Tyler was. He had made it out of your small town and created a name for himself. It was something you could only dream of. All you had managed to do was write half of a book, and not a very good one at that. Sure, songwriting and book writing were completely different, but you had obviously done something wrong if you hadn't achieved success in the same amount of time as Tyler had.

"Who knows, maybe Tyler will come back here one day and we can go into town and watch him perform," your mom said. She was obviously much happier about this situation than you were.

"Yeah, that would be fun!"

You did your best to fake happiness, not wanting to have to discuss this situation with her. She would feel terrible if she found out that she had upset you. All you had to do was make it through dinner and then you could disappear up to your room and hide away until you felt better.

"Can you believe you were best friends with someone who is now a famous musician?"

"It's crazy," you said, stirring your soup a bit. "Maybe one day he'll say the same about me being an author."

"I have no doubt that he will."

You quickly finished your soup and washed out your bowl. Your mom was still finishing hers as you headed upstairs and into your room. It was a relief to finally be alone, able to express your emotions without your mom feeling like she was personally responsible.

You stomped over to your desk where your writing was spread out across your desk. Scribbles and messy notes covered pages upon pages of blank paper, but that was seemingly all you could create. After all, you had been working on this novel for years and the only think you had to show for it was just over a hundred pages of terrible writing.

You grabbed a stack of papers and threw them at the wall, letting them fall to the floor in unorganized heaps. You were upset. In fact, you were beyond upset. You were furious. Furious about how your life had played out. Furious about Tyler leaving you behind. Furious about him being able to live out his dream while you worked at a job that was leading you nowhere. It wasn't fair to you.

You grabbed another sheet of notes and crumpled it in your fist before tossing it at the wall. There was a small part of you stopping you from destroying your work completely, but you needed to get your anger out somehow.

You continued to crumple and throw papers until the anger eventually subsided into sadness. The entirety of your bedroom floor was covered in papers that you knew you would have to spend ages reorganizing. Frustration was still overwhelming you, but making a mess of your hard work was no longer helping it go away, even temporarily.

You made a small clearing among the mess and sat down, pulling your knees up to your chest so that you took up less space. It was hard to tell if you were more upset by the frustration or the mess that you had made. Either way, you hoped that your mom wouldn't come upstairs and see the mess that both your room and you were.

"I need to make a change," you mumbled to yourself.

The only problem was that you didn't know how.