#br(otp)

“I’m so sorry, Ty, I just am.”

The words echoed in his mind, words spoken three years ago by his best friend. He remembered the cool day, the same air that had brushed against his healing wounds, the feel of cool metal on his hands hours before. It had been the only speech that Tj had ever prepared for, the only one that he had ever had to run through a hundred times and still, now, to this day, he wondered if maybe he had done it wrong. Perhaps, there was some possibility that if he had just used different words, different phrases, been less intense, things would of gone differently. He knew he was kidding himself, more, he knew that he had sabotaged the best relationship he had ever had with the one thing that he could not stop himself from doing; Loving.  

It had not been easy. Tj had allowed his heart to be trampled, broken, crushed, a thousand times but this one had been different. It had taken a certain amount of his strength. His Mother had left him, she had made the choice to leave this world and with her she had taken a piece of him forever, a piece of innocence that was lost from blue eyes a long time before she had eventually killed herself. He had started to believe that her death had been a gift. The wrapping paper had been ugly and scary to touch but she had done it for him, it had taken him half of his life and a run in with death to understand that. Stephanie had broken his heart out of fear, she was not the person she thought she should be and so she had crippled him in an attempts to find herself. He could understand that. Jessica had used him as part of a game to fight a Father that was angry and vicious, who she could not control. He had loved her too much and she had crumbled beneath the pressure of a love she did not believe she deserved. That too, he had accepted. Carlie had loved him, or so he liked to think but she had also been stubborn, afraid, more in love with her vices than a boy who stood in her way. It had hurt but he had understood and moved on. Even Rose, who had torn his perfect world apart, who had been a hurricane that tore through every single part of his life and left him in a sobbing pile of ruins weighed down with the guilt of having to let her go, had not hurt him as much as Justin had managed to in one moment. He would of taken any of those pains a hundred times over before he would take hearing those same words. There had been no explanation. There had been no follow up. One moment Justin and Tyson had been best friends and within three weeks they had became strangers who would never talk again besides awkward three word email blasts and texts that seemed like they were to entire contact lists to cover up a growing need for words in the silence.

He had tried to be happy. He was happy. Just not as happy as he had been when Justin was still in his life. He didn’t know if people saw it, if they could sense it, if they questioned why there was still a wedding ring on his finger, a sign that he was committed to something that no longer existed, a sidenote of love that even in it’s most subtle years had been much more than he could explain. The tragedy had not been the failure of a marriage but the loss of a friendship. Maybe his love had always been too great but Justin had not said that, he had said nothing. If he had spoke to him, if he would of said a thing, if he had given Tj any hope at all then he would not of spent the last three years as he had. He would not of gone to Africa and never looked back... Not if there had been something for him to look forwards to right here, right where he started. 

He opened his eyes, hand reaching out towards the mirror he had covered upon his arrival that stood tall on the same desk he had spent years of his life sitting at. Even this room was haunted by memories of the friendship he had once been in possession of, a reminder of everything he had lost. Every corner reeked of emptiness, every engraved initial within wood an awful reminder of how simple things had been. It almost made him want to see himself. For the first time in three years it almost made him really want to see himself, to look the person he now was in the eye and tell himself to move on with his life. Let it go. His hand wavered ready to pull the towel from the mirror, fear twisting his guts -- who would be staring back at him? What if it was not him anymore? 

It was halfway between his thoughts that he considered that perhaps, the ring on his finger as pristine as it had been since the day he first put it on, should not be there. It had found a home on his finger and he had never removed it, not even once since the very day it had made it’s way there. Only in the midst of madness had it ever slid or became lost from the owner, himself who thought o fit as his most prized possession despite how rich he had became how much he owned. It would always be worth more. Justin would always be worth more. More than him. He had to breathe to remember that it was just a piece of metal, that years had passed and their marriage, it was void. It was nothing. You could not consider a joke a joke after this long, after every other part of a friendship had turned to dust. He had promised to always be Justin’s husband, in sickness and health and Justin had promised him the same in return and they had stuck to that, both saving one another from some sickness, both caring for each other until health returned. Maybe this was where death parted them. Not literal death but the death of who they had been, who they were meant to be. Three days earlier Tj had seen Justin, or whoever he was now, a strangely empty vessel of the boy he once knew, a person with a new life that did not include him. Justin did not want him in his life and he would not fight for that chance, even if he wanted to, this ring  was a just a reminder of his unwillingness to let go of a school boy love that he had once thought he knew. A love that he was now sure had been but a figment of his imagination when he needed it most, to believe that someone could possibly love him as much as he loved them. Twenty one years old he now stood and it was almost enough to make him laugh, lighting up his features for a split second before he realised that he was no longer laughing but crying instead. The tears did not fall, they simply sat in resignation as they had a million times before. He was all cried out.

The ring had wedged itself where it wanted to stay and it took three attempts to finally manage to push it upwards and off, like twisting a coil that had been tightened far too many times. He had not taken into account that he may grow over the years as he had continued to wear it and now, as it finally clattered onto the counter top, he felt some sadness over the loss. It was just a thing. He told himself that every day, but that did not mean it was any less awkward to run into someone still considered your husband wearing your wedding ring. His breath was short, relief tainting his features.

It was then that he looked again.