miracles don't happen.
i. you're 29 and he's 28
It's cold and not just because half of her ass hangs out of this stupid hospital gown. Tyler Joseph doesn't hold her hand tight as he can and he doesn't cry warm tears on her chest. There have been months to get used to this and accept that cancer is killing her but she had hoped for at least sniffling on her deathbed.
"I'm sorry we couldn't have kids," she whispers, not looking at him. It occurs to her that she'll miss his birthday again.
he doesn't say anything for a minute. his throat doesn't clear itself and he doesn't creak in that chair. "I don't need kids at 28, Jenna." She imagines he's twisting the ring on his finger and tries to not think he's taking it off.
"Ty, it's just ... I know you want them and I do—did too," the truth is suffocating but she says it anyways.
his lips are cold at her cheek but she welcomes them anyways. he's thinking about his best friend and she has to be okay with that. Too much has changed for her not to be.
If it's out of love or pity, she doesn't know, but he stays at her side and twists their fingers together. It's the most affection they've shared in she doesn't know how long but that doesn't matter if it's the last. She had wanted the last to be a kiss to last for the next ten minutes, or the next ten lifetimes, or forever if that's how she died—with his lips on her’s.
They haven't kissed like that in awhile.
"Tyler?" It's soft and scared but so is she.
he rests his head onto her chest in reply.
"Kiss me, one last time?"
his head shakes and it feels like needles in her lungs. "Not the last time," he whispers. When was the last time then? A peck before cancer? Fierce lips in a fight? With another's taste mixed in their mouths?
They fell apart too fast to fix it.
"Ring power?" She pleads.
he sobs but not for her on her fucking death bed. "I love you," he tells her. It's her’s and her’s alone this time but she knows things are different now.
"I love you," she cradles him, "I loved you so hard, God, Tyler Joseph, I loved you so much."
(It's too late to tell him to be Mr. Tyler Dun.)
ii. you're both 28
he waited up in her head. (he went out with Josh in reality.) he left a sweet note with a heart in her head. (he left an ice cold plate of chicken and mashed potatoes in reality.) he fell asleep on the couch in his flannel in her head. (he's laughing with his best friend in reality.)
She wants them to be perfect again. She wants to come home on time again. Fuck. Why does she have to work all day?
The dinner plate is in the microwave, spinning and glowing, when she finds it. his wedding ring is on the coffee table. Suddenly, her appetite is ruined and the dinner, plate and all, is in the trash. Cancer couldn't kill her fast enough.
"Why? Fuck, Tyler, why?" She knows exactly why. Everything has gone wrong and he loves someone else.
They could've worked out in another life and in different careers.
She cries herself to sleep on the couch and all he offers her is a blanket before curling up in their bed.
iii. you're 28 and he's 27
"Oh." It's all he says when she tells him she has cancer. he cries later but all he can say is "oh." Five years married and that's the best he can give his now.
They cry together anyways, arms wrapped around each other like they're seventeen again.
No one else says oh. his parents cry and her’s hold him tight. Lynn clings on and won't let go because she can't lose her best friend, it's not an option. Josh hits her and dives into her chest, sobbing an angry fit of snot and hate. Debby drops everything and drives back from Texas without a word until she's right there, hugging her best friend in the world.
The best Tyler can do is look down at his feet and feel bad for not feeling bad enough.
"Do you love me?" She hangs her heart from her sleeve. he nods slowly, not breaking eye contact. They don't look at each other like that is the world and nothing else could be anymore.
It would mean more if his friendship ring didn't cut into her hand.
(Josh holds Tyler to his chest without need but that never matters anymore.)
iv. you're 27 and he's 26
She was drunk or sober but there's two warm bodies in a new bed. It's horrifying to see red curls and dark eyebrows under the sheet because she knows who that is. he looks like an angel but she knows he's the devil (or maybe she is now) and she's ruining her marriage without even trying.
"Wake up, get up, Dun, look what we've done," she begs, shaking him.
he stirs and his eyelids are too droopy for him to scream. There's a painful familiarity to the way he rubs his forehead. For a moment, he thinks he will call Tyler. Instead he pukes off the side of his own bed.
She doesn't want Tyler to know. After what happened, she can't have Tyler know. Rubbing his back gently, she whispers quieter than she ever has, "nobody needs to know ... We did this. Nobody would understand—I don't understand."
There's a moment where she thinks he will nod and agree. It's delusion, more than anything. "Get out," he tells her. "Get the fuck out."
she tells Tyler because she loves him.
"You slept with my best friend! he was drunk and you slept with him! After what happened to us, you—you think you can just run away to Josh!?" Jenna doesn't move from the doorway. he's screaming and red and angry.
She did this.
She did this.
Why did she do this?
"I ... I'm so sorry, Tyler, I love you, I don't know what—" her voice is breaking. Does she deserve to be this sad?
he throws a picture frame to the floor. Ivory dress, black tie, grey vest. They're hands and lips and love in it and now they're broken. She can remember everything that happened that day. He spun her and kissed her and loved her like they used to in their kitchen in that tiny apartment. It's a night she's written about again and again, trying to find the story to tell with it, but it always ends in him dancing with his best friend and not her.
Now he's broken it like she's broken them.
"That's bullshit, Jenna! You know what happened! You slept with him!" his eyes shouldn't be hurting this much over this.
(What kind of a wife is she?)
She's quiet because he won't let her be anything but while he screams. It's not just sleeping with his best friend. It's missing his birthday for her career and the men who want her to read their manuscript. It's coming home late for an entire month. It's choosing to work overtime. It's drinking too much. It's everything wrong with them.
With his.
"Tyler—Ty, you're acting crazy, I—" it's the wrong thing to say and she realizes that after it falls from her lips.
"No, I'm not! I'm not! Goddamnit!" he's crying now. he won't take her arms around his or her lips upon his and she knows why. he wants red hair and brown eyes, not his. She shouldn't have lied. Why the fuck did she lie?
(Is she trying to ruin her own marriage?)
She watches him cry because she can do nothing now.
v. you're 26 and he's 25
Their hands are linked throughout the ultrasound with matching smiles on their lips. "We're going to have a child," he laughs, kissing her forehead.
"I know. Josh and Debby will be the godparents, and you'll pick the middle name, and Daddy will be so happy for us, and everything will be okay," she whispers, holding his face, "I want to remember this moment forever."
He presses his forehead against her’s and tells her he will. That nothing could be more perfect than this. This moment is theirs, forever and forever, until the world burns up around them.
Jenna is wrong.
"Hang on," Dr. Hiatt whispers, "I have to check this little one's heartbeat and then we're done."
(Tyler wishes so much that Dr. Hiatt never checked the heartbeat.)
It's a moment. It is fleeting and gone as quick as it comes. It is the worst moment of his life. It is the worst moment of her life.
"I .. I'm sorry," he whispers, "Mrs. Joseph ... You're child is—is dead."
Neither of them scream. Neither of them cry. They are silent. "What?" She can see Tyler's world shatter around him, hear his heart stop, like their child's.
"Mrs. Joseph, I ... There's nothing I can do. I—their ... Their heart stopped beating." This wasn't supposed to happen. Not to them. Not to their first child. They'd bought the new house, they'd looked at cribs, they'd announced it to everyone.
Fuck.
She wanted to give piggyback rides, wanted to go to Disney World as a family, wanted to film firsts, wanted to tie little shoelaces, wanted to help pick out backpacks, wanted to help with homework, wanted to make shitty jokes, wanted to embarrass their child together, wanted to make photo albums with him at 2 am, wanted to have to pretend Santa is real, wanted to get homemade mother's day presents, wanted to have fourth of July barbecues, wanted to step on Legos, wanted to complain about their friends, wanted to be a family. She wanted it so fucking badly.
They walk home in the sun without touching each other once.
(he and Josh are inseparable again the next time you all have lunch.)
vi. you're 24 and he's 23
So maybe they can barely afford their home but at least they have each other. They have slow dancing in the kitchen and telling stories over TV dinner and her sleeping in his flannels. She knows they can pull through this, he'll stop loving Josh in time and they'll figure out their finances and they're going to be okay.
They're too in love to not be okay.
Except Tyler just lost his job and she needs to get published soon if they want to keep their tiny apartment. She wishes she had stayed with her original major or that she had gotten a job at a better school. But everything is going to be okay because they're Tyler and Jenna and they're golden.
She's right and she gets the call as they're eating dinner. She's going to be published and she's going to finally make money.
Everything is wrong but everything is finally right.
They dance in the kitchen and she steps on his toes to be taller than him. She knows who he wants her to be but it's okay because he swears he loves her. She believes him.
he wouldn't lie to her.
vii. you're almost 24 and he's still 23
Bills are worse than he'd expected for them. Neither of their jobs are any good for this city and he's worried they'll need to move away from their best friends.
They can figure this out.
("I believe in us," he tells her between kisses.)
If anyone can stay strong, it's them.
("We'll come out stronger," he murmurs between her collar bones.)
The bills stack up and the pay doesn't.
("You'll get published soon," he swears to her shoulders.)
No school will take his full time.
("You're going to find a good school," she promises into his hair.)
There's a tapping at their window and their moment is dead as a dark eyebrow is cocked at them. Shit.
viii. you're both 23
She's heard before that your wedding is the most magical part of your marriage. So far, it has been. She could almost swear it was a fairy tale. From the fizzling in his lips when they kissed to the way her dress spun out when he twirled her, she couldn't make it more of a fairy tale.
At least, not until she hears her mothis-in-law's voice.
Tyler asks her what love feels like—doesn't he know? Aren't they in love? He just married her, he must know what love feels like. They must feel like love, love must be something in the way they kiss and dance and look at each other.
"It feels hopeless."
"Oh."
She wonders if maybe they're hopeless. (Could they be hopeless?)
Kelly leaves with sad eyes to Elisa and Chris and Patrick and Josh’s mom. She watches for a minute, all the while not wanting to breathe. There's a quiet sort of anger in her bones.
Then, she hears a sob. No. No. No. Tyler wouldn't cry on their wedding night. Tyler loves her. Tyler has loved her for so long. They will not fall. They will not lose, not this early into their marriage.
he mumbles something.
"Josh."
he loves Josh. But he must love her. he must love her. At least a little. he married her, he said yes. She had Josh's blessing, she had his father's blessing, she had his mother's blessing, she loves him so goddamn much. he must love her.
How could he not love her?
No. It will be fine. They will be fine. he will not love Josh forever. They will be fine. he loves her too. They will be fine. He loves her so much. They will be fine. She knows they will be fine.
She knows it as he holds him tight to her chest and kisses the top of his head and she knows it as she takes him inside her to consummate the marriage with whispered words of love and tenderness.
"We will be fine."