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The morning after was akin to a hangover. Groggy, an attention-seeking pain in the head, the shrill alarm in his ear like it was taking a hammer to his brain, the attempt to recall what happened last night before regret washed over like a wave.
Tyler didn’t drink. The most he’d drunk most recently, that he could remember, was the small cocktail at Josh and Debby’s housewarming party which was four years ago. This pain on the side of his head, that he had to now acknowledge as caused by a ruthless migraine, was from the impressively total lack of sleep he’d gotten last night.
He blindly reached for his digital alarm clock and somehow managed to turn it off, the migraine blessedly lightening up the open fire on his neurones in response. He turned his heavy body to the side to get away from the light through the windows as much as possible, curling in on himself as if it could recede the pain at all. It did the opposite. Pain ripped through his stomach instead, and he squeezed his eyes tightly against his pillow against the sudden attack as he straightened a little instinctively. Silent tears dripped onto his pillow. He pushed his hand inside his shirt out of a sense of urgency. It came away clean.
He took his hand back out so he could bring it up to his pillow with his other arm. He was lucky Jenna let him sleep in, used to him sleeping in later than her, so the blinds were still drawn. She found her own sunlight by heading downstairs and pulling open all the curtains and spending a few minutes outside to start the day as part of her own morning ritual. Tyler liked to wake up to a room and walk downstairs to a house that strained his eyes as little as possible, and today in particular it proved helpful.
If they weren’t parents, Tyler would rest in bed until he could bother with moving either to down some medicine or find Jenna so he wouldn’t be alone. Usually that meant until past noon or Jenna would text him before then.
But they were parents, and it was a Monday as well as a school day. Tyler drove Rosie to school everyday except on the days that came after late nights where he spent them working on music. And sometimes even still.
Today was just too much. He only wanted to stay in bed and maybe fall asleep.
Tyler angled his head just enough to see the numbers on his clock. It was still early, but Jenna would come looking for him soon enough. If he didn’t want her loud voice to come through the bedroom door, he’d have to say something first.
If it was just the migraine, he probably would have. The throbbing pain wasn’t enough to stop him from thinking about last night. He still couldn’t reason to himself why he did that. Because his grandfather died? Because he’d already relapsed months ago? Because he’d been fighting the urge everyday since? Because he thought he’d get away with it? Because he figured nobody would care? There was a fundamental problem with it: that he hadn’t thought at all. He’d lost hold of that tether to himself and thrown all his worries out the window. He couldn’t remember much of the past few months, and barely any of last night. It’d just been about finally giving in.
He couldn’t give her anything close to a good reason, and it wasn’t fair to her. He might as well rot all the way to a corpse right here.
“Ty?” Jenna’s voice was muffled. It was clearly coming from downstairs. “It’s time to wake up! Go take a shower!”
The voices of his daughters followed her, too excitable and joined together to make out. He wanted to see them, but the thought of them swarming him and their high-pitched voices was intimidating. He pulled the covers more securely over his head, blotting out as much light and sound as he could.
Like he could evade responsibility just like that. School didn’t stop just because the parent had a migraine. He didn’t stop being a father just because he was ignoring his kids. Why was he still lazing around in bed? He could at least pop into the bathroom and take his damn pills and go downstairs and act like a father. He wasn’t checking how much time was passing him by, but he’d at least lost time on showering. If he didn’t get up soon, he’d have to skip everything and just run downstairs to the car.
Sure, he didn’t need to shower or brush his teeth. Even his pills could wait until he drove back home. But one thing he couldn’t skip was driving his kids, so what was he still doing here? He was being selfish and sensitive when he was supposed to just suck it up and leave his bed. He was such a massive failure that he couldn’t commit to either life or death. He should’ve known that he can’t handle this commitment to other people either, let alone children who relied on him to survive.
Just get up, get dressed and start the car. Was that so damn hard? It was, because he also had to fetch his sunglasses, carry both his gate key and his car key and put on his shoes— big fucking whoop. He could get it all done in ten minutes, which apparently was now taking at least twenty because he had to whine about it too.
The door opened not too long after. It came with a click, a slightly softer creak and another click. “Ty?” Jenna was whispering, her voice seemingly right above his head.
He hadn’t managed to gone back to sleep. He had been more than tired enough for it, but between the pain that tried its best to be unbearable and his thoughts, he’d managed to ward it off.
He couldn’t say anything before something gently tugged at the covers. He let go of his grip just a little to see her eyes. She wasn’t annoyed — she hardly ever was, even when she more than deserved to be — if anything, she was worried.
“Is it a migraine?” she continued whispering.
The squinting must have made it obvious. The tiny light coming from the blinds was egging his migraine on and he shielded his face from it again without any further opposition. Jenna headed towards the bathroom, and Tyler felt a mixture of relief and disappointment in himself that led to him just staring after her.
She returned with a closed fist and kneeled next to him, knowing he didn’t need water. He reached out, quickly put them in his mouth and swallowed.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“I’ll drive Rosie to school, okay? You stay in bed and call me if you need anything.”
“What about Junie and Tommy?”
“I’ll send them to your parents.” Jenna stood up.
“No, don’t.” The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I’ll get out of bed.”
“It looks like that’s the last thing you wanna do,” she said. Something in his face apparently made her kneel back down and say, “Are you okay?”
Tyler hated this question sometimes. At some point, he’d reached an understanding with his loved ones where they’d slow down and ask it in a specific tone that left no room for a quick I’m fine. Most times he’d spend too much time overthinking his answer and didn’t even need to give it. And here he was, dancing on uncertainty.
He thought Jenna would let it go and just leave, but her gaze was too intense for that. “I can handle it.” The words carried more confidence than he felt. He quickly sat up just to prove his point, but he ended up wincing upon movement.
And that would’ve been fine, because Jenna knew about his migraine already, but he also doubled over and his hand moved toward his stomach on instinct and twitched away before he could even touch it, which was still far too late as he knew from Jenna’s soft gasp.
Tyler stilled, his heart pounded faster as if to spite him. The silence settled in for about half a second before it got unbearable, and he shot to his feet. He would’ve been halfway to the bathroom by now if not for the sudden nausea, causing him to bring his fist up to his mouth in fear that he would throw up right then and there. Jenna’s hands rose to his shoulders, probably to try to push him into bed, but he roughly pushed her arms away and just about ran to the bathroom, slamming it and locking it behind him.
Stupid. Shouldn’t have treated her like that. Shouldn’t have slammed the door. Shouldn’t have locked it. Shouldn’t have ran away. Couldn’t he just talk it out like a normal person, like the grown man that he was? This wouldn’t have happened if he had known how to hide it. He could’ve hidden it better. He’d hidden that broken leg so well during tour. He didn’t hide this so well this time because he wanted attention, didn’t he? Because the world had to revolve around him?
He gripped the sink tightly. Despite everything, he couldn’t help the disappointment that arrived like a ghost when he remembered that he didn’t keep the razorblades in here. Like he would’ve gotten away with it. What was he doing? He had to apologise. He should just leave and rush his daughter into the car. She was going to be late. He didn’t know if Jenna was still in their bedroom.
He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to face her. The bathroom was his refuge now. He was going to stay here until further notice. He didn’t deserve to run away from his mistakes. He couldn’t just leave.
Tyler’s eyes were adjusted to the dark. He hadn’t bothered turning on the lights. He couldn’t bear to look at himself anyway. He’d convinced himself that he would leave once he had everything done here. All he could do, in the end, was brush his teeth sitting on the floor to brace against the pain that was slowly going away, and lean his head against the door.
He’d taken so long to do one task. No other voices were in the house now, so Jenna and the kids were definitely gone. Now that the day had moved on without him, it was just easy to let it be. How long until his parents suspected something was up? They still didn’t know about his last relapse and the only reason he was sure about that was that he’d done it around his hips. This time, it wouldn’t take anywhere near as long.
He thought too much sitting on the floor. The more of the pain that left, the harder his thoughts beat down on him. He was half-heartedly considering his options, continuing what he did last night, or taking his car out and driving it straight into a lake. In the end, he just sat there and pressed down on his stomach.
There came a soft, faraway knock. Whoever it was knocked a few more times before the bedroom door opened. Footsteps thumped across the floor until they stopped right outside the bathroom door. The knock on this door retriggered his migraine.
“Tyler? It’s me.” It was Josh.
Tyler’s heart sank. He wondered where Jenna was and what she was thinking of him at the moment. And why was Josh here? He could be doing literally anything else than waste his time here. Tyler couldn’t drag anyone down with him, especially not Josh.
Josh tried the doorknob.
Tyler figured now that it was obvious that someone was in here that he should say something.
“Tyler.” Josh’s voice had a hint of panic and he rapped on the door.
The thought of Josh escalating the situation — ramming his shoulder into the door or calling the ambulance, for instance — finally coerced Tyler to take action. “Yeah,” he forced out, not knowing if it was loud enough. He didn’t know what else to say. The excuse that he was stuck on the toilet seemed pretty flimsy when his voice clearly wasn’t coming from there, so the idea left as quickly as it had came.
The rapping stopped. Josh appeared to exhale something in a relieved tone before his voice came back louder and seemingly perfectly calm. “Can you open the door?”
Tyler had no intention of doing so, now also because he didn’t want Josh to see him. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll be out in a minute, so you can go back home now.”
“I’m not leaving,” Josh said firmly.
Tyler had expected the answer. “I’m fine, go home,” he repeated, this time curtly.
Something that sounded suspiciously like a sigh came from the other side of the door. “I’m not leaving until I’m satisfied. Are you safe in there?”
He felt trapped. “Yeah,” he mumbled.
Josh didn’t grace him with a reply. Tyler somehow managed to slip away again until the doorknob right above his head clicked. The door opened incredibly slowly, pressing against his body so he had to shift across the floor. From what little he could see of Josh’s pants, the bedroom was still mostly shrouded in darkness. Tyler wasn’t too surprised at Josh being able to open the door, they shared house keys and Tyler had pointed out where he kept the keys to the other rooms.
For a good moment, Josh stood over him like a disappointed parent and Tyler stared at Josh’s shoes like he cared about Josh tracking dirt all over his house. Sometimes he wished if he acted like a statue, people would just treat him like a non-living thing and leave him alone. Sometimes he wished that they wouldn’t actually do that. Sometimes he wished he knew what he really wanted.
Josh slowly dropped to his knees before him. Tyler still wasn’t looking him in the eye. “Can you stand?”
Tyler nodded.
“Can you walk? Do you want me to give you a piggyback ride?”
Tyler had two different answers, but he only shook his head.
“Do you want me to help you stand up?”
Instead of answering, Tyler made to move by lowering his hands to the floor. Josh held out a hand and he grabbed it, Josh using his strength in a way that left him a manhandled doll. Despite keeping his head down when he started walking, Josh held onto him firmly, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand gripping Tyler’s arm, supporting him all the way to the bed. Tyler hated it, feeling like a hospital patient, but still didn’t stop him. At this point, Tyler was sure Jenna had told him about the migraine.
As if reading his mind, Josh asked, “How’s your migraine?”
Tyler sat on the bed instead of lying down, his head hanging so he could still avoid looking Josh in the eye like a petulant child. “It’s gone,” he murmured, just to convince Josh to leave. He couldn’t do much for him in this respect anyway.
“You should get some rest anyway,” Josh said.
Would you knock me unconscious? Tyler was tempted to ask. Instead, he laid himself down and curled up facing the blinds so he wouldn’t be facing Josh. His stomach stung in protest, and, hidden under the covers, he brought his hand up to it. It came away clean.
Something brushed against the top of his head, through his hair. He froze. Josh’s voice was soft and very close to his ears. “Goodnight. Love you.”
Light footsteps slowly moved across the floor towards the door, and it closed behind Josh. Tyler’s sudden tears fell the moment it did, and he didn’t bother wiping them before falling asleep.
When Tyler woke up, the sun no longer shining brightly through the blinds made it clear that it was late in the afternoon. The memories filtered in slowly. He was going to have trouble sleeping for a while.
The house was still quiet. At this point, Jenna was really worrying him. He’d gotten fed up with himself all too many times before; there was no knowing when that point would come with Jenna and Josh. So he worried about the day he’d wake up truly alone almost as often as his mental health sunk.
The remnants of a migraine lingered. It was so miniscule by now that Tyler picked up his phone, barely noticing the glass of water sitting safely in the middle of his bedside table. There were texts from Jenna and Josh, among texts from his mother, his youngest brother and their family group chat.
Jenna: will be home soon. how are you feeling?
Jenna: I think we’d both appreciate some time taking care of just you today. No expectations.
Jenna: if you have any ideas for dinner that’d be helpful
Jenna: ily ty
Josh: I’m still here
Josh: if you don’t wanna see me, just tell me. I’ll send Jenna over though
Josh: Mark’s free if you want him, perchance
He felt somewhat lethargic and unaccomplished from the long nap, but a lot more awake and better too. He texted Jenna, I’m good, anything simple’s fine, sorry about everything, ily too, and swung his legs around so he was sitting on his bed again. He wanted to go downstairs just to feel human, but he wasn’t keen on facing Josh. But not wanting to face him was a decision that felt more than just rude.
Tyler got up, cleaned his face and went downstairs. He caught Josh in the living room watching Netflix on his TV. It made him feel kind of happy.
Josh’s face lit up upon seeing him. “Good morning,” he chirped. “Did you sleep well?”
“Morning,” he said just to match him. “Yeah. Kinda sucks I slept through the whole day.”
“Your voice sounds scratchy,” Josh pointed out. “Didn’t you drink the water I got for you?”
He felt guilty. “No. I’ll go—” He kinda pointed behind him and moved to go back up the stairs.
Josh was up and heading towards the kitchen before he could even take a step. “I’ll grab some more water, go sit in the living room and watch Superstore.”
Tyler could only watch him go. “Isn’t this my house?” he asked Josh’s back rhetorically.
He headed towards the kitchen, and didn’t make it there before Josh was out again and pushing him towards the sofa. They sat down on it with Josh completely uncaring of personal space and letting their arms press up like they’d been glued together, and Tyler finished off the glass in one shot. Josh got to his feet again to get more water, Tyler groaning after him.
“Jenna’s bringing dinner from your parents later,” Josh told him in between episodes.
Tyler nodded. It was such a simple statement, but the lull along with it made him worry that he wasn’t going to be able to ignore everything today. He was still running, maybe, but facing it all in one day seemed a feat that he didn’t think anyone could really do. It was also bad to be shameless, anyway. He knew that from experience.
“…Do you wanna talk about it?” Josh had lowered the volume.
He really didn’t. They’d been around the Tyler-relapse block too many times for him to ignore the stipulations. The ramp up of Josh checking in on him, the disappearing sharp objects, the persuasion to go back to therapy, the random initiation of uncomfortable conversations that felt like unskippable cutscenes like right now, let alone himself trying to force aside all pride and instinct to start them on his own terms.
But there was no playing dumb as an out when Jenna already knew and Josh was already distrusting of him. And if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t want to play dumb. Maybe he’d already spent too much of himself to bother. And he currently probably wasn’t thinking straight, but when was he really?
He was getting ahead of himself. He wasn’t even sure if they were on the same page yet. “I… last night.” He stopped entirely and tugged his shirt downwards. “I have to wear undershirts on stage now.” It was a piss-poor attempt to make light of it with the absent punchline and accompanying tone that was reminiscent of trying not to disturb other people at a funeral.
Josh nodded. His head moved slowly like it took him a lot of effort. “We can call it lore.” His voice was devoid of any excitement.
If Tyler had felt any sense of accomplishment in the confession, it was gone now. Now he wished he could take it back just to wipe the look off of his best friend’s face and be able to go back to pretending. He had to explain himself. Did he have to explain himself? He had nothing to give.
“It wasn’t that bad at the time,” Tyler settled on saying. “It felt like it was a decision like any other.”
“What does it feel like now?”
“Like it was a stupid decision. I regret it.”
“So would you do it again?”
It felt like an unnecessary question until Tyler found he couldn’t immediately say no. It would’ve been so easy to lie, theoretically. Now he only had himself to blame for not being able to escape the pressure. A combination he’d created of choosing to be best friends with Josh, choosing to become honest with the people he trusted after years spent in adolescence trying to bear it all on his own and failing, recognition of his own limits and the flicker of a will to live was probably why they were able to have this kind of conversation in the first place.
He did really want to say no, though. Even if it would’ve been a lie, he would’ve at least succeeded in building up some kind of façade. Did he really need to tell Josh anything right now? It wasn’t a need so much as a want. He hadn’t really given it a try to stop relapsing on his own yet. Wasn’t letting Josh help already admitting defeat? Even if he’d already lost the moment he slipped up with Jenna.
“If you regret it now,” Josh finally said, “then that means you understand it’s not a decision to make lightly.”
Yeah, now. Tyler couldn’t find a suitable replacement for his thought.
“I’ll say it again,” Josh continued, “call me anytime you have to. I’ll say it on behalf of Jenna too, don’t keep it to yourself. Whatever went down last night — you should’ve gone to either of us.”
Tyler continued to struggle conveying his thoughts. Even if he had actually given it some thought last night, he would’ve continued with the unearned, yet persistent belief that there was no point in bothering Jenna or Josh or anybody because he would’ve had an overestimation in his ability to refrain from doing it until the very last moment where it was too late to pull back and to just go for it. Or he would’ve just not done it because he didn’t overestimate himself. So Josh was practically rattling words off a script for all the good it was doing.
But what would he be saying in Josh’s position? Probably the same thing. So the problem lied in him. Why was he so hopeless that he was in his thirties and with children and still dealing with this anyway? Was there really a point to this song and dance anymore? He’d gone over this enough times and the outcome was largely the same. It didn’t take a scientist to know that regardless of how he crawled his way out of this that he’d be here again, no matter how far in the future. The plotted points were far too consistent for that to not be the case.
He knew people around him still cared, he just wished he knew why, because at this point people giving him the time of day probably meant they were looking for their own way to punish themselves or just having fun watching a living trainwreck. The unfortunate news for them was that he’d apparently learned to be a little selfish as well.
If only he could play dumb. The nagging thought that he was being melodramatic was impossible to shake. After all, last night hadn’t put him in anywhere close to danger.
“You’re not a failure for this, alright?”
Even though Josh made a correct assumption, even though he was clearly comforting him, and even though Tyler was telling himself he shouldn’t say it, he still said sharply, “I didn’t say that. Don’t assume things about me.”
And there he went doing another thing he immediately regretted doing.
Josh barely even reacted. Tyler swore at some point in their friendship, he would’ve flinched. It would be a long time ago at this point, because right now it felt impossible to pinpoint. He didn’t know how to feel about that. Disappointed in himself for being so damn predictable and never kicking any bad habits, or grateful at Josh for taking his shit and still not leaving.
He couldn’t even say sorry. What was so hard about that? Was he really just unable to do even a single thing?
“I’m sorry,” Tyler blurted out, finally noticing the cyan shirt Josh was wearing. “You should leave. I’m okay here, I won’t do it again. Just go.”
Instead of scrambling to his feet, Josh just gave him a pained look. It, on top of everything else, made the tears well up in Tyler’s eyes again and he tried desperately finding the patterns in Josh’s pants that would distract him from losing it.
Josh continued to sit and watch, so he gave up, pulled his legs up and cried silently into his knees. Josh’s curls tickled his arm as he shielded him from his own living room, and the warmth wrapped tightly around his body along with the soothing sounds somewhere near his ears made him feel safe and loved.
Josh had handed Tyler a pillow to curl into, so he did that and stared at the TV while Jenna and Josh stood near the doorway.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Josh called to him. “See you, Tyler.”
“See you.” Tyler watched him head out into the night.
Jenna locked the door and headed back to him. “Ty, I missed you so much,” she said playfully, leaning over the back of the sofa to peck him on the cheek.
“Missed you too,” he said, a lot more reserved than her.
“Time for dinner,” she announced. “Go pick a movie.”
Jenna noisily took apart the packed dinner in the kitchen and was able to set the living room table before Tyler could decide on something. Once she picked up her spoon, she looked at the TV and beamed at the fact that he had hovered over a classic comedy.
They finished their dinner that Tyler, for a second, noticed that it was one of his favourites, and Jenna forced him to pause the movie. She quickly rinsed and put everything in the dishwasher and he barely got his hands washed before she rushed him back and they resumed watching it with Jenna latching onto him.
When the movie ended, Jenna breathed, “Wow. I didn’t expect it to be that good. What do you think, Ty? Good?”
Tyler hummed. “Yeah.”
Tyler didn’t even realise they were just staring at a movie that had long finished its credits until Jenna sat up from him. She rubbed both her eyes before she got up and turned to him, smiling. “You smell. We’re taking a bath together, okay?”
Might as well.
They headed upstairs together and went straight into their bathroom. Jenna ran the bathtub somewhat warm and then stripped facing him, him doing the same. She looked at his stomach for what felt like five whole seconds, the shirt tangled around her arms long abandoned, and it made him wonder if he should change the bandages first. They were old and there was blood seeping through. But she just climbed in, so he followed.
It was only when they both settled in that Jenna was a lot more subdued, silently scrubbing her legs and making eye contact with the bubbles. Tyler focused on cleaning his own body, leaving his torso for last and ducking his head to reach behind his back. Jenna crawled over to him then, forgoing any warning and washing the inside of his navel thoroughly.
“You always forget that spot,” she muttered.
She didn’t stop there. She scrubbed the rest of his torso and went around the bandages, her hand seemingly lighter when going across old scars, scars that had been there before they’d ever even met. He followed an itch to look up at her then, and almost like she noticed him, the tears in her eyes immediately fell onto the water, causing it to splash onto his face. The only acknowledgement she gave it was a quick swipe across her eyes.
When they got out, Tyler barely got his towel before Jenna pulled him towards a chair and reached for the first aid kit. She changed the bandages and cleaned the cuts for him.
“Is it too tight or loose?”
“It’s perfect, thanks,” he said quietly.
Jenna just nodded. She shakily got to her feet and turned around. Her back was shuddering.
“I’m sorry,” he found himself saying. “I love you, Jen.”
She heaved a loud sob in response.
Tyler wrapped his arms around himself and dug his nail into his side, directly into a scar that had long been etched into its surface.
Jenna handed him his toothbrush and they soon got into bed. The glass of water was still on his bedside table. They’d gotten into bed far too early for how few hours ago he’d been asleep. This realisation was far too belated.
He lied in bed and Jenna sat up against the headboard to read a book.
Tyler wondered what he was going to do tomorrow.