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The phone in Josh's pocket is making him feel uneasy. 8th of May reads big and bright on the top of the screen below 9:49AM. The morning run has been completed with Jim as his faithful partner, Debbie has kindly made breakfast while little Felix still naps after a long night of uneasiness… The world is awake, and Josh only hopes Tyler is too even if the possibility is low.
So he fumbles with the phone a few times. Left hand to right hand. Pondering. Shall he call, shall he wait.
As many other times, Tyler doesn’t let him take the initiative: his name glaring back at him on Josh’s screen as an incoming call.
Josh doesn’t say hello.
‘I was thinking about calling you.’
‘Were you?’
‘Of course, happy…’
‘Don’t say it yet. I need to ask you something’
Silence, Josh will always allow the silence to settle Tyler’s nerves. Is an art at this point, the way he knows the space Tyler is going to need to express whatever is eating him alive.
‘Do you miss it?’
He is not talking about doing music, that is for sure.
Josh does miss it. He misses them. The youthful ignorance of what the years have in store for them. The blatant arrogance of getting on stage to an empty field and still knowing it was worth it. He certainly envies the Josh that doesn’t know how fucking hard is going to be but is excited nevertheless.
He misses the van.
He misses getting high and looking at the stars while Mark tries to explain constellations.
He misses the rush of running to the back alleys of small venues after concerts with Tyler, kissing his skin under the summer rain of early July.
No responsibilities, no repercussions.
Josh looks around his house before he dares to open his mouth. Nostalgia is such a beautiful and deceitful mistress. If he could tell Josh from 2011 where he is right now, he would have laughed and called himself a lunatic. What’s worse is the sad realisation that, out of everything that seemed impossible back then, being alive 15 years after all would be the least likely of the outcomes. Especially Tyler. Mostly Tyler.
So young and shattered, still covered in laughter that didn’t feel like theirs. The realisation hits him like a thunder across the chest. Before he answers he bites his lip and looks down at his feet taking a breath.
‘We are still here, Ty’
And Tyler must understand, because he doesn’t reply, doesn’t bite back. It is easy to wonder where Tyler expects these conversations to go when he launches questions for what his head has formulated the right answers to. So Josh plays devil’s advocate as he always has, challenging and fearless against Tyler’s prefabricated demons.
‘Sometimes I… Sometimes I still listen to the song, you know?’
‘Tyler…’ He doesn’t mean to make it sound reproachable.
Shit.
Transatlanticism will always be their song. The yearning was left behind the moment they gathered the courage to say I love you in between moans of desperation and the humid hotel sheets of Indiana in the summer of 2017. And still, the song held meaning they couldn’t explain or replicate in any melody of their own. It brings back the moment of them together, stage side on Death Cab’s concert in 2019 with their pinkies brushing while the song blasted and some girls on the first row screamed and cried through the chorus lyrics.
‘Sorry, yeah. Happy anni…’ Tyler's voice sounds like Josh has broken the spell, and it kills him.
‘No, don’t say it’ Josh pauses, bites his lower lip. ‘I will always need you much closer, Ty…’
Silence again. but different. On the other side of the line Tyler softly plays the piano: one, two, three chord progressions that sound familiar, but foreign. Josh knows Tyler won’t be able to speak anymore, or maybe he will choose not to.
‘Go finish the song…’ Josh whispers, removes the phone from his ear and hangs up.
Tyler might call later when the weight of the memories has lifted its mighty foot from their windpipe and it allows them to breathe again. Sometimes Josh wishes they could be free of the restrictions of their own history.
The phone vibrates in his hand: Four texts, less than a minute in between each of them. Consecutive, piercing, real.
Tyler: You will always be the best decision I’ve ever made.
Tyler: I love you.
Tyler: Forever.
Tyler: Happy 15th band anniversary, nerd.
It would be useless to try and hide the tears that form and fall rapidly to his phone screen. He doesn’t need to anymore, not afraid of feeling, of pouring his love into the world and not only into the beat of his drums.
Texts stay unanswered. Josh would rather wait until he gets the chance to kiss Tyler again.