Stutter (Chapter One)

Disclaimer: This story- in fact, most likely the entire series- may contain depictions of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and self hate. The main character suffers from many mental disorders, thus the voice in his head that is constantly nagging at him. Please read at your own risk.

Chapter One: Him

It was truly pathetic. The way that the only thing Tyler could think of is how badly he wanted things to end. How he wanted his brothers and sister to just disappear out of his room, leave him alone for once. How he just wanted to run outside and deep into the forest with nothing but a bag full of rope, a journal, and a pen.

How instead he lies in his bed and stares at the ceiling while his two brothers argue with each other and his sister just sat in the middle laughing. He just stares up into the white emptiness that hangs over him.

'Do it.'

A voice in the back of his mind encourages Tyler's dark thoughts. It nags at him all the time, but it's just another voice in his head. Just another voice he has to try to ignore for a little while longer.

"No..." He mumbles slightly under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut. "Why must you torment me all the time?" He throws his hands onto his head and pulls at his hair, in distress. But of course, his siblings do not think anything of their brother's behavior. He is normal to them and he is forced to suffer in silence in plain sight.

'You're nothing.'

The voice nags at his head. Tyler just squeezes his eyes tighter, as if that will block out the thoughts. "That's not true..." He feels a tear softly roll down his cheek. He honestly doesn't know if it's because he feels awful or it it's just because his eyes are shut so tight. He thinks it might as well be both, considering that they're both very true.

'Why are you always closing your eyes?'

Tyler opens his eyes finally, shocked at what he just heard. He sits up in the blinding light and looks down at his young siblings.

"Tyler, you're okay!" Madi, his precious little sister, throws her arms in the air happily as Tyler climbs out of his bunk bed. He was only sixteen and thinking of ending his life. It was kinda funny though...

He takes a look around the room. He sees Zack, his 14-year-old brother, sitting on the floor while Jay, his 6-year-old brother, is chewing on his finger. Madison is looking up at Tyler with wide eyes. He just cracks a smile and places his hand on top of her head. As he walks towards the door, he grabs his book bag and slides on his shoes.

'Loser.'

The voice in his head comes forward again and he hangs his head low as he drags his feet down the stairs. His mother pats his shoulder and pulls him into a hug, messing with his hair. "How's my little champion?" She talks to him in a low soft voice. The words she used always seemed to warm Tyler up just right. He just smiles wide as he walks out the front door. It was back to school for him.

The bus was very shaky the entire way to school. It drove Tyler mad, and to top it all off he was the only one not speaking. Everybody around him held their own conversations in front of him, behind him, and next to him. All around him he could hear everything people were saying. Two girls were talking about how they hated coming back to school. He could tell it wasn't their first year in the hellhole they call high school. He spent way too long thinking of how something could go wrong today.

The bus could crash, it could flip over, it could break down and get hit, you could have an anxiety attack and cause everybody to panic and stop the bus- then you'll be a joke, your bus driver could out...

The list goes on and on until the bus finally pulls into the schoolyard. It was the same school he ed, still old and in need of repair.

Tyler silently steps off the bus and looks around. He was surrounded by the dumb ones who somehow were more popular than him. Then, he saw a boy. Nothing was that special about him, his eyes and hair were brown, he was average height. Maybe it was his snakebites. Maybe it was his shirt and his shoes. He just stood so confidently while everybody around him stared down at their shoes. Something about the way that he just sat there with no expression on his face while still looking up at the sky, past the crowd that surrounded him just amazed Tyler. But it wasn't like he would be able to go talk to someone like that out of the blue.

He is so socially awkward, it's hard enough for him to talk to his siblings, how do you expect him to go up to a complete stranger who obviously was more superior than him?

'Why can't you be more like that?'

The voice mocks him, and he just shakes his head and looks down at his feet like everyone else.

The classroom smells like teenagers and sweat with a faint rose scent. Lots of girls and boys walk into the door, but he knows none of them. It was humid this time of August. Everybody complained to one another about the heat and nobody came to Tyler. Then, that boy walks in. He wasn't nearly as confident as before, which completely confused Tyler. His hair flopped into his face and his eyes wandered from person to person. He was trying to find his place, which reminded Tyler of himself.

"Hey," he is in front of Tyler, smiling awkwardly. Tyler looks up but says nothing. "I'm Josh..." His smile doesn't go away at all. Tyler opens his mouth to speak. Just say your name, he thought. His mouth hangs open, but nothing comes out. Josh...he thinks. It fit him well. Josh just sat there with a smile, reading Tyler's expression well.

"You don't talk much do you? I mean that's okay, I used to be like that too." He looks down at Tyler's desk and smirks. "Tyler, is it?" His eyes glance up at him, and Tyler feels his soul slipping through his toes. He just nods.

"Okay, I can work with this." Josh sits down at the desk next to Tyler's and pulls everything out of his bag. It wasn't anything serious except for the fact that Tyler has never interacted with another human being before. It wasn't as easy as people made it look, and Tyler had no idea how people could do that. Finally, he swallowed all his irrational fears and squished them down into his toes. He sat down and continued unpacking, slowly looking over at Josh.

"So, uh...Your name's J-Josh...?" He could feel his face fire up as soon as the word Josh extended its stay. Josh silently looks over at Tyler and just smiles and nods. It was crazy to him how he could just sit there and smile all the time. It seemed pretty unhealthy.

'Idiot...'

The voice returns to Tyler, mocking his embarrassing stutter. He just shakes his head and looks back down at his desk. "Whatever, shut up." He mumbles under his breath. When he looks up, Josh is looking at him. His expression isn't a smile anymore, but a slight sign of bewilderment. That's when he realized that he is just sitting and talking to himself in front of someone he barely even knows.

"I'm s-sorry, I-I just do that sometimes..." Shame fills his body to the brim of his head. He curls his fingers and toes and tries to squish all his fears lower into his tiptoes. Josh nods in understanding, that smile plastered right back onto his face. "I get it, I do that too." Tyler freezes and looks at him. "Y-you d-do..?" To his surprise, Josh's smile turns into more of a frown as he nods. "More often than not..." His eyes meet Tyler's, who can feel his cheeks start baking.

"W-wanna eat lunch together...?" Tyler tries to look him in the eyes, but it was hard not to get lost in them. "Yeah, I'd like that. You can sit with me and Debby." Josh pats Tyler's back. He feels something in his chest die. He wasn't exactly sure why he was feeling this way, but he was. It felt like as soon as he agreed to sit with him it felt like a joke.

First period sucked.

Tyler tripped over his name during attendance, stuttering like a fool. Josh sat near him and for some reason, it comforted him to the point that he calmed down. He had already managed to ruin his clean slate with last year's reputation. Moving schools was supposed to be a good thing, and staying at the same school for two years was also supposed to be a great thing because people him. But last year, Tyler sat in the back of the class just like this, but he never spoke like he tried today.

Second period sucked even harder.

Tyler was all alone in a corner of the room. Josh was on the other side of the classroom, where all the talkative teens hung out together. He didn't even bat an eyelash when they called him over to sit with them. He just left Tyler sitting by himself on the dim lit side all alone with nothing but his thoughts. The teacher tried an icebreaker activity. He handed us all a paper with questions on it and everyone had to walk around the room and get people's signatures. It was miserable and humiliating when Tyler had to sign papers. It wasn't that his handwriting was horrible, it was that everyone else's was. His handwriting was a beautiful cursive font that was perfectly slurred together to spell his name. At some point, Josh signed his paper Joshua Dun. It was very feminine the way he wrote it, and Tyler caught himself giggling at the letters.

Third period wasn't as bad, however.

Tyler met a girl. A girl named Jen, some girl he's forced to sit with in his algebra class. This was also the only class him and Josh didn't share. He and Jen just sat there, laughing about almost nothing. She seemed pretty nice in the long run, but something felt off about her. Now, Tyler has experienced being the pity in a friendship, you know that one friend you pretend to like cause you sorta feel bad for them? Well, he was getting a pity vibe from her. Still, he laughed with her and her friend. A girl with red-orange hair and an attitude. Now she was very upfront about how she felt towards Tyler. The first thing she said to him was that he seemed hopeless. It didn't hurt as bad as he thought it would but it still stung a little.

By the time free period came, Tyler had forgotten what he had learned for the past 3 hours. He just wanted to relax. He just wanted this day to end. But, of course, he had to endure another 3 hours of meaningless things being spoonfed to him by the underpaid adults that have nothing better to do. It just felt like free period was gonna do nothing for him today, tomorrow, forever. It was just a time to rest our brains and shake out our knowledge and fill up with stupidity in its place. Just as Tyler finally closes his eyes, finally enters a state of mind and peace, a hand softly taps his shoulder. His instinct is to jump and squeal, and when he opens his eyes, Josh is looking down at him.

"I should've guessed you like quiet places under the shade of a nice oak tree," Josh sweetly cracks that signature smile. Tyler lets out a sigh and nervously laughs. Then, he notices Josh didn't come alone. In his hand is a girl's hand- the girl from third period.

"Tyler, this is Debby." He happily motions towards the red-orange haired girl with an attitude. She looks at Tyler, scanning him. Her expression is indifferent as she holds out her hand to shake his. "His girlfriend," she lately remarks. Tyler shakes her hand, and the sentence lingers in his chest.

Girlfriend...? He thinks to himself he should've known.

Why not? Of course, he'd have a crush on a straight guy.

Author's Note:

Hey there! I am so sorry if this story sucked or made absolutely no sense, I actually wrote this a long time ago...maybe two years ago? I just ed I liked where I was going with it and wanted to kind of recap with myself and then write more. So, again, I apologize for its poor quality. Anywho, thanks for reading!

#CuratorReview