when all else fails (i'll be here) | part three

[whisperdlullaby]

fall 2010

When I decided to throw a party, the last two people I expected to come walking through my door were Spencer and Brendon. I wasn’t aware they even knew where I lived.

Upon first glance, I planned on doing what any mature, responsible adult would do and hide out in my bedroom until they left. However, Brendon spotted me almost instantly from where I was half-hidden behind the doorframe leading to the living room. Without a moment’s hesitation he came marching up to me, a forced smile on his lips, as if the last time we saw each other wasn’t over a year ago while tears streamed down his face. Spencer lagged behind him, a classic scowl pulled tight across his expression. He still hadn’t forgiven me, and I doubted he ever would.

Brendon looked good, almost too good, and I had to stop myself from doing what was all too familiar.

“Hey, stranger,” Brendon said, casually. He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” was the first thing to come from my mouth. My brain was going too many places, still riding on those lines I had just done with Alex and a few others.

Brendon appeared vaguely offended, although not surprised.

I could imagine what I looked like to them; snot running from my nose, pupils blown out and eyes red with threads of veins, but then I remembered that it hardly mattered. It was nothing they hadn’t seen handfuls of times before.

“I invited them,” Jon answered for them as he approached from behind, Corona clutched in his hand.

While Spencer offered one of the briefest of smiles, Brendon launched himself on Jon, almost tackling him to he ground as he wrapped him in a warm hug. I watched, vaguely recalling a time when Brendon’s arms offered me more comfort than cocaine tries to now. I wished I could feel that again; a fraction, even. “Jon Walker! I’ve missed you!”

“I’ve missed you too, man,” Jon agreed, hugging him back just as tightly.

I watched in discomfort, arms pulled around my narrow waist as Jon proceeded to pull Spencer in for a hug after letting Brendon go. Brendon tried to catch my eye, but I looked away before he could. I didn’t want him there. I didn’t want to be reminded. Didn’t Jon know that?

It’s then that Alex came stumbling over, hair a mess and eyes too dark. He threw an arm around my neck, pulling me flush against his side while slurring into my ear. “Well, well, look who decided to grace us with their presence. I’m so sorry we weren’t able to roll out the fucking red carpet for you guys.” He held a strong, challenging gaze on Brendon, who stared back, even and just as fierce and ready for battle.

I refused to meet either of their eyes, opting to stare at the floor instead, but even then, I could feel the tension heated and lethal between the two of them. It was like someone had pressed rewind on a remote, bringing us right back to where we were over a year ago.

Drunkenly, I attempted to slip from Alex’s lock, but he held on tighter.

The other three remained silent, and I could only imagine the blood pooling in Brendon’s mouth from where he was biting down on his tongue. It might not seem it, but Brendon was always more civilized, more mature when it came to handling matters with Alex. There had been a handful of drunken fights between them in the past, all stemming from that day Brendon walked in on us in the backroom. Most of the time, Brendon was good at keeping his mouth shut and taking whatever drunken insults Alex lashed out. I never knew how he did it, and if it wasn’t for the cocaine fogging my vision, compiled with my blind infatuation at the time, my respect would’ve grown tremendously for Brendon.

In all the time I had known him, Alex never had any consideration for others, never any morals, sober or not. It was something I had once admired in him, but I could no longer remember why.

“It’s goddamn precious, you know?” he continued. “The whole gang back together.”

Flinching, I caught Jon’s gaze, long enough for me to see the anger flashing through. Even through my blurred vision I could read what they said, loud and clear. If you don’t get him to leave, I will and it will not be pretty. Much like Brendon and Spencer, Jon never saw the appeal in Alex like I did. From the start he was irritated by his arrogance, obnoxious comments and destructive habits. He was much better at hiding his dislike than others though; however, there was the times when not even he could keep it from showing through. Those times, much like now, I could hardly blame him.

“Alex,” I said, feebly, tugging on his sleeve. “Come on, let’s go. We can - ”

“Well, it’s great to see that you didn’t change at all, Alex,” Brendon said, calm but with a sharpened edge. I closed my eyes, wishing I could sink into the carpet. “You’re such a fucking train-wreck that it’s quite sad, really.

Letting out a loud, sadistic laugh, Alex said, “Oh, yeah. Right. I must be. What was that you’d say again? Oh, right, that I ruined poor Ryan’s life here. Right, yeah. I mean, clearly I must’ve.” He turned his attention to me where I was still squirming uncomfortably in his hold, avoiding all eyes that I knew were on me. “Look how miserable I’ve made you, Ryan. You’re miserable. Completely fucking wrecked, aren’t you?”

I swallowed, all blood draining from my face. Brendon was looking at me now, but it wasn’t anger I saw in his eyes, it was pity, so thick and filled to the brim that I had to look away before it all came spilling out. “Alex,” I said, pointedly, more firm this time, heart feeling all too heavy inside my chest. “Come on. Let’s go find Bill, I think he’s hiding upstairs.”

His eyes lit up at the mention; I knew it was the one thing that he was never able to turn down. “‘Kay.” He moved his arm from around my neck to grip at my waist, possessive, watching Brendon as he did so, taunting him. Brendon didn’t even flinch. “You’re right, let’s go.”

I didn’t offer a glance of apology to Brendon, Spencer, not even Jon, as I allowed Alex to tug me away. I didn’t want to look at them, their thoughts and judgements and pity written out all over their faces in clear, angry writing. I could imagine Jon telling them, head hung in disappointment, who Bill really was. I wish I didn’t care, but I always did.

In my bedroom, the door locked securely behind us, Alex went straight for my dresser. I took a seat on my bed, feeling a bit shaky in the knees as I replayed the look in Brendon’s eyes, over and over and over again. It had been a year, and the only thing it showed me was that no matter what, Brendon would always have the same mind-numbing effect on me. No matter how many times I tried to banish it, lock it away in heavily secured vaults. It was unfair how easily he could do this to me without so much as trying.

Alex returned to me with a metal tray and a baggy, smirking as he said, “Oh, Bill, so much better company than those assholes.”

I offered him a weak smile, watching with hunger as he laid the tray on the bedside table, pouring white powder onto the surface.

It wasn’t until after, when we were sprawled out across the covers, flying high and floating somewhere in the midst of bliss, that Alex turned to me and stated, voice carrying no emotion or question, “You still love him.”

I closed my eyes, eyelashes fluttering over my cheek. I took a moment, then replied, as even as I could, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh,” he replied, hoarsely, cold breath against my skin, “but I do.”

*

The next morning, I woke up to my face planted into the sofa cushion and a heavy banging, that after a minute or two of disorientation, realized was coming from the front door. Groaning, a sharp pain shot all the way from my spine to my temple in a matter of moments as I peeled myself from the couch. It was my first sleep in god knows how long, and instead of feeling refreshed, I somehow felt even worse.

I was expecting to open the door to Alex, bitching about how he lost his key, or another one of my friends blabbering on about how they left their purse with a gram of coke inside. However, it was Brendon who was standing on my front step, looking surprisingly aloof.

The words didn’t travel to my brain fast enough, still hazy from the alcohol and drugs rummaging somewhere in my body. I figured last night was the last I’d see of Brendon in at least another six months. I was okay with that. I needed that. I didn’t want him showing up, sending me right back to the place I had been trying to forget for so long.

What I wanted to say was, ‘what the fuck are you doing here?’ but instead, it came out something along the lines of, “Uh. What - um. What the - ”

“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?” Brendon replied abruptly, pushing past me.

“Uh…”

“We haven’t seen you in over a fucking year, and let me remind you, in case you just so happened to have forgotten, Spencer was your best friend since you were six fucking years old. And, I’d also like to remind you, that no matter how hard you want to pretend it never happened, I was not only your best friend, but your fucking boyfriend. The guy you screwed around for years, and you don’t even have the decency to get off your high fucking horse that you created with your drugs and god knows what else, and at least pretend to be civil? Instead, you go off with your fucking low-life, loser boyfriend who is so coked up he can’t even tell his head from his ass, never mind have the heart to care about anything but himself, including you,” Brendon snapped out all in one breath, face red and splotchy, pulled together like a ripe tomato. He took a deep breath, regaining his train of thought, and started up all over again, somehow, appearing even more enraged. “Fuck you, Ryan. Fuck you so hard. You’re so unbelievable. All we’ve ever done is tried, the whole time we’ve known you all we’ve done is try to make you happy, do what you wanted, and this is how you repay us? By completely writing us out of your life like dirt once something new and exciting comes along?” He waited, and then as an afterthought, just to add insult to the injury, he said, “Oh, and you look like absolute shit.”

My headache had spread to my entire body by then, thrumming in my veins, my insides feeling like they had pulled out and drug through gravel. Never in all the time I had known Brendon, fucked him over and pushed him down and hurt him, had he ever said things in even half the degree that he had just now. I was caught between feeling proud, and wanting to curl into a corner to nurse my wounds.

Judging by the sunlight pouring in through my window, my last fix had to have been at least four hours ago, drowned out by sleep and my fingers ached for more. I knew it would be next to impossible to get through anymore of this without at least something there, helping me through it, holding my hand, before I hurdled myself through the glass door and off the porch into the never-ending canyon below.

I blinked, picking the scab on my elbow. “Uh. I’ve gotta go to the washroom…”

Brendon was at my side so quick, grabbing onto my arm, tight enough that I was surprised it didn’t snap. “No,” he hissed, eyes flaring. “As long as I’m here I’m not going to let you take a goddamn thing. I’m not making that mistake again.”

I tried to yank my arm back, rage swelling inside of me, but Brendon only held on tighter. “Fuck you. That last time I checked you had no say on what I do or not.”

Brendon ignored me, fingers digging tighter into my pulse point until I was sure he was drawing blood. “Tell me, Ryan, when was the last time you were sober? Completely and one hundred percent sober?” I stared back, defiant, not saying a word, but I knew the answer was written clearly across my face. Brendon sneered, pulling at my wrist. “What are you trying to hide from? The fact that you’ve turned out exactly how you hoped you never would?” He stopped, eyes flashing over mine as he says, voice thick with venom, “That you turned out exactly like your father?”

With that, I reeled back so quick that I had barely seen it coming myself. One minute Brendon was standing there with rage hot in his eyes, teeth barred, and the next he was clutching his cheek, fine skin reddening underneath his fingers. I kept my fist at my side, clenched in a tight ball, mind racing with more thoughts than I could handle. I had done a lot of things to hurt him over the years, but never had I hit him. “Fuck you!” I yelled. “How fucking dare you, you goddamn fucking asshole!”

Brendon rubbed at his cheek before looking up, meeting my gaze, eyes cold and heavy, unapologetic. “What, Ryan?” he hissed through clenched teeth, cheek turning a harsh mixture of red and purple. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it?”

I wound back for another punch, but he grabbed onto my wrist and pulled it back, causing pain to shoot up my arm from the angle. “You’re fucking weak,” he spit, laughing callously.

I went to yank my hand back, return with something just as cruel, but Brendon cut me off before I had the chance, teeth biting down onto my bottom lip, hard. Hissing, pained, I pulled away only to see him staring back at me, expressionless. A second passed, not even, the both of us glaring and puffing angrily through our mouths, before I dove back in for a bruising kiss. I shoved him by the shoulders, causing him to hit the wall with a thud, our teeth knocking together.

We had our fair share of angry sex over the years, and while it offered us some of our greatest sex, intense and hot and always topped with a mind-blowing orgasm, that was before. Back when we were still a band, still friends, and despite the fact that our relationship didn’t always prove to be the most normal, most healthy, we were still together. It was different now, this argument wasn’t about Brendon leaving his dirty socks on the bathroom floor or that he sung that second line in Mad as Rabbits wrong. This was a year - longer, even - of hurt and spite and resentment all rolled into one. This wasn’t something that could be resolved over an intense and dirty fuck, and we both knew it, but, of course, it was something we’d try anyway. And keep trying, keep trying.

I knew it was a bad idea, but what did it matter when I couldn’t even remember the last time I had made a good one? And this was Brendon, and this was me, sober, and it had been too long since I was able to experience his skin against mine, appreciate every inch, without substance fogging my brain and making it less real than it was.

Brendon shoved his hands up the front of my shirt, pushing the fabric to punch at my armpits. Into my lips, he grumbled, “Fucking skinny,” while I threw my arms up, allowing him to yank it off the rest of the way, tossing it onto the floor. I could taste the blood from where he sunk his teeth into me.

I grunted in response while Brendon yanked off his own shirt, discarding it along with mine. When he fell back to meet my mouth, he took my already wounded lip back in between his teeth and bit down, causing a stronger taste of metallic to fill my mouth.

Hissing once more, I stumbled back towards the staircase, pulling him along with me. I scraped my fingernail along his hip, teeth and tongues still fervently attached. I had missed his skin over the year. Warm and creamy, like velvet. I wanted to spend the next day running my fingers over every last expanse, every crevice, burning it all into my memory like a brand.

In my bedroom, we took the fast, less personal way, settling with ripping off our own pants and kicking them to the floor next to us. I was still trying to decide whether I wanted to kiss, or punch him instead. I compromised by pushing him down onto my bed, biting onto his Adam’s Apple just as hard as he had done to my lip.

A small yelp escaped him, but his hips bucked at the same time, his already stiff cock sliding against the cleft of my ass. I choked out a moan, pressing the nails of my thumb and index finger into the curve of his bare shoulders.

Before he had the chance to cause me any more physical harm, I stuck three fingers into my mouth, soaking them with saliva before manoeuvring them between his legs. Roughly, I pushed two fingers in past the tight ring of muscle. They went in easier than expected, and the realization struck something hot and ugly inside me that I hadn’t felt for years.

Growling from the back of his throat, Brendon thrashed his head against the pillow, exposing a long strip of pale skin along his throat. I eagerly bit it, teeth nipping the sensitive skin, lighter this time.

I spent less time prepping him than I should’ve, my mind blurred with lust and want and need. Impatience was taking over the better part of me, and I could tell Brendon felt the same by the way he was spread out underneath me, hot and writhing, hair stuck to his forehead in sweat. I spit into my palms, all too anxious to feel Brendon around me again to search for proper lubricant.

He didn’t protest as he hooked his legs tightly around my middle, and I aligned myself, pushing in with one go, breath strangled against his jaw. Brendon rolled his hips up, pushing closer into me, mewling as he did.

I choked back the noise struggling at the base of my throat, and clutched harder onto his hip, fingernails digging to the bone. Three thrusts in, and I was already wondering how I had managed to go an entire year without this. Without Brendon, hot and tight and fucking amazing around me, underneath me, above me. Everywhere.

His fingernails scraped along my back, peeling off a thin layer of skin as I pushed in harder. I was in as far as I could go, but I held on tighter, the need to be closer to him thicker than craving inside my veins.

Reaching down to wrap my hand around him, Brendon’s eyes fluttered shut, cursing underneath his breath. I strained to hear my name, even the beginning of it, sitting on the tip of his tongue, but nothing came. I knew he’d missed this just as much as I had; he had started it after all, hadn’t he? He must’ve known this was coming the moment he pulled into my driveway. This was how it always ended with us, no matter how many times we swore never again.

Brendon made a small, strangled noise from the back of his throat, something that resembled my name but not quite, when he came, all over my hand and his belly. He thrust back into me, hips lifting off the mattress as he rode out on his orgasm.

I came not longer after, shooting inside of him, the back of my eyelids pricking with color. It had been a while since I felt an orgasm like that; no drugs or alcohol fogging my sight. I had forgotten what that felt like.

I pulled out, Brendon lying quiet and boneless against the sheets. Falling onto my back next to him, our shoulders pressed together. I expected him to curl against me, rest his cheek against my chest, comment on my heartbeat like he always had, but it never came. Instead, we lay silent, only our breathing between us. My orgasm barely had a chance to pass me before Brendon was suddenly jumping out of bed, cursing as if waking from a nightmare.

I watched the pale expanse of his back, the curve of his ass as he bent down to retrieve his jeans that were among the mess carpeting my bedroom floor. Panic was laced heavily with his curses as he slid them on, and I pressed my hand to my forehead, breathing in deep, running over in my mind what had just happened. Again.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he cried, and I turned my head to look at him, feeling boneless and not all there. I watched as he began to pace around the room, fingers tugging harshly at the ends of his hair. “How the fuck - shit. I am so fucking stupid! Fuck! I mean - What the fuck?!”

Drawing my lips together, I waited for the punch line.

“I can’t believe I just let you fuck me without a condom! And god only knows where the hell you’ve been lately. I can’t even - fuck! Why would I - How could - Why would I even let this happen in the first place?! How fucking stupid am I?” He searched the floor, presumably for his shirt until he gave up, realizing it was sitting somewhere on the hallway floor downstairs.

“Hey, fuck you,” I said, suddenly defensive, sitting up straight. “I don’t have any STI’s!”

Brendon stopped, and stared at me, eyes narrowed and hands on thin hips. “And do you know that for sure?” he demanded.

I paused, and lied, “Yes.”

“When was the last time you got tested?”

I looked away, lip in between my teeth, guilty.

“You’re unbelievable,” Brendon snapped, coldly.

I picked myself off my mattress, snatching my boxers sitting in a pile at the end of my bed. “And what about you?” I hissed, face reddening as I slid them over my feet. “Don’t try to tell me you’ve been all pure and virginal for this past year. It’s bullshit.”

Brendon sneered, folding his arms across his heaving chest. “I’m not the one that binges out on coke and alcohol and posts it all over the internet like I’m fucking proud to be some washed-up, junkie rockstar.” Brendon’s scowl broke, as if momentarily wishing he could take the words back, but it disappeared after only a moment, the scowl returning, becoming something harsher.

“Fuck. You,” I hissed, fists clenched at my side as rage slammed through me. I took a step forward, towards him, knuckles turning white as I prepared to punch him once more.

Brendon rolled his eyes and pushed past me, heading towards the door.

“So, what?” I demanded as I followed after him, down the hallway and staircase. “You think you’re all fucking high and mighty, and above me now? If you feel that way then why did you come here? It wasn’t just to yell at me, was it? Why did you kiss me in the first place? Don’t try and act like I pinned you down and fucked you without a condom without your consent. Don’t pull your bullshit drama with me, Brendon. You were just as into it as I was.” Face burning with anger, I took a deep breath before continuing, voice cold and demeaning as Brendon picked his shirt up from the ground and slid it over his head. “That’s the problem with you, you always treat me like I’m the scum on the bottom of your shoe and - ”

“And what do you expect me to do, Ryan?” Brendon yelled, turning to face me, eyes burning with heat. “Just sit there and wait at your beck and call for when you finally decide that you want me? Just like I had done for those five fucking years that I knew you? You left me, Ryan. You treated me like shit for years. I let you use me and hurt for years because I was this stupid, naïve little boy and I actually let myself believe that somewhere in that cold fucking heart of yours that you loved me. And then you left because drugs and your pathetic friends were more important than we were, your fucking family, and I told myself it was over, and that I wasn’t going to let it happen ever again. You were out of my life, and I didn’t give a shit about you anymore. And now look at me, I show up here and I let you toss me around all over again!”

Clearing my throat, I stared down at the floor, kicking the bench with my foot. Not a word came to mind, and I felt pathetic. I felt like a dick, an asshole, the worse I had years. I’d never meant to treat Brendon like I had, at least I never wanted, and it killed me that he felt that way. That for five years, all I ever did was hurt him. I thought for the most part, it was okay. You pushed the girls aside, and later the drugs, Alex, and we were good. Weren’t we? I thought he knew that I loved him, but I guess I’d been wrong.

We stood in silence for minutes, dragged on like hours, and when Brendon spoke again his voice had dropped significantly, raw and torn to shreds as he said, “Why can’t you just let me go, Ryan? Why can’t you just stop messing with me and let me live my life? I’m lost in this hold of yours, and it’s so fucking pathetic because no matter how hard I try it’s still always you.” He paused, and I inhaled sharply, something stinging inside my chest. “I’m so sick of always being alone. I’m so sick of waiting for someone that’s never going to come.”

My whole body was throbbing with heat, and somehow, from the dark expanses of my mind, I managed to get out a small, “Brendon, I - ” but it was stopped short. I didn’t know what I was planning on saying, anyway. I did love you? I still love you? Neither was what he wanted to hear, neither was it what he needed.

“No. Don’t say anything, okay?” Brendon choked out, all anger now turned to despair. “Just please. I’m begging you, will you just let me go? I can’t sit here anymore, giving myself all this false hope. I can’t sit here and watch you ruin your life anymore. I can’t, Ryan. I can’t. It’s fucking killing me. So, please - just please. Let me go. Let me move on.”

“I - ” I floundered, throat closing in. Blinking, I took a shaky breath, and said, defeated, “Okay. Okay, yeah.”

He sniffed, looking in the opposite direction from me as he took a quick swipe underneath his right eye. I couldn’t stand seeing him cry anymore, not because of me. He said, “Alright. Well. I guess that’s it.” Clearing his throat, he headed towards the door, hands in his pocket and head tilted downwards.

“Yeah…” I bit onto my lip, and attempted to block out all the thoughts forming too rapidly inside my head.

I thought, please stay.

I thought, I’ll change.

“Bye, Ryan.” Brendon looked over me, biting his lip, as if considering going back in time and taking back everything just said. We could pretend none of this ever happened; we could be happy together. For once.

I swallowed, and lifted my hand for a single, pathetic wave of my hand. “Bye,” I croaked.

With that, Brendon slipped out the front door, closing it behind him with a resounding snap that echoed in my brain for days afterwards.

For the next three hours, I curled up in my room, snorting rails off my bedside table until my nose was so raw that I could no longer breath. I couldn’t let myself think about Brendon, driving down the highway with tears streaming down his face, or how he’d show up at Spencer’s where he’d wrap him in a warm hug, just like he had once done to me so many years ago.

It was then that I closed my eyes, sinking into my covers, tainted with Brendon’s scent and though, what the fuck did I let myself become?

*

“You fucked him.” Alex traced his finger over the long, red gash, still fresh and one of many, decorating the pale skin on my back.

I swallowed and looked away, cheeks burning. It’s not like I hadn’t fucked other people before, and it’s not that Alex ever cared, but this was different. I knew it, and I didn’t have to look into his eyes to see that.

“How was he?” he asked, voice hissed into my ear.

I shuddered, and shrugged.

Alex stayed there for a moment longer, body pressed over mine and cool, sour breath in my ear. His fingers dug into the cut on my back, and I tried not to wince. Finally, he pulled away and slid off the bed, closing the bedroom door shut behind him.

I closed my eyes, and breathed out through my nose.

*

The next week there was a message on my answering machine from Brendon. It said, “You gave me syphilis, you stupid fuck,” before the dial tone cut in.

I had nothing left to do but laugh, tears sliding down my cheeks.

fall 2011

I get in the car, and drive. I don’t know where I’m heading until I’ve been driving for over a half an hour and the streets begin to look all too familiar to me. There’s a vial in the console next to me, filled to the brim with brown liquid. I can practically taste it, my hands shaking against the leather steering wheel.

It was one thing to try it, but now I’ve bought it. Now it’s all mine, and I can no longer use the excuse that it was only a mistake while drunk at a party. I had called up that kid with the red, frizzy hair, fully aware what I was doing, where exactly this put me on the map.

I pull over before I get too close, on the side of a quiet street. It’s late, the green numbers on my dash reading six to midnight. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I have heroin to my right, and I’m a block away from Brendon’s. I barely feel like I’m in my own head anymore.

My hands are shaking as I reach into the console, so much that I can barely take the vial and needle between my fingers. I close my eyes, feeling the needle burn into my skin as I clutch onto it. Red, the dealer, gave me careful instructions on how to prepare it, how much to take. He doesn’t want the chance of a new, prime customer dying his first buy.

I have enough to do me over, right here. All I have to do is inject just enough, and wait for it to slowly take me over, numbing me until it can’t any longer. It’d be quick, painless. A good way to go. Someone would find me in the morning, cold with a needle sticking out of my arm. I could make the magazines, my last minutes of fame as the washed-up, junkie rockstar. I try to imagine Brendon at my funeral, Spencer and Jon, but can’t.

In the end, I don’t take enough to kill me, but I take enough. I melt back into my seat, head lulled against the headrest. The rush is instantaneous again, the same numb, warming feeling it had been last night. The same thought is running through my head as the first time I tried cocaine; I know it’s bad, but I can’t understand why, not when I feel like this.

I wait until I can feel my hands again, my heart jumping from nearly zero to a hundred in a single moment, as I turn my key in the ignition and slide into drive. I wasn’t actually planning on showing up at Brendon’s, but now I feel as if I have no other choice.

It’s funny that I still know how to get there like back of my hand; that it’s been over a year, and I can barely, barely breathe, but I can pull up at his house like this is where I’ve been meant to be all along. The house is dark, except for a single light on upstairs and a flickering blue light that comes from the living room.

By the time I reach his doorstep, my heart is beating so rapidly, the drug causing my blood to zip around my veins at an uncontrollable speed. Maybe I had taken too much, after all. I’m barely aware that I’ve pressed the doorbell until it’s Brendon who appears in the doorway, blinding light flooding in from behind him. I try to sink into the wall, wishing it would absorb me.

He says my name, eyes so wide they nearly take up his entire face, but I can barely hear him over the loud buzzing sounding from somewhere above. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me now. Does he still think I’m perfect? Because I think he is.

“What, Ryan? What? I can’t hear you - you. You’re mumbling. What?” He’s freaking out, I can hear it in his voice, see it in the way he looks at me. And I know he’s thinking about how much easier it would be to just close the door on me, lock me out, it’s been so easy for everyone else, after all. Instead, he pulls me inside, checking over my shoulder first, as if scared the neighbours will be able to see over his twenty foot hedges.

“Christ, Ry. What are you doing here? Why - Why - ” He swallows, eyes huge behind his glasses, crooked on his nose. Those glasses, those stupid fucking glasses. “What are you on?”

I fall back against the wall, knees buckling and heart racing away, in my ribcage, everywhere. This doesn’t feel like it did the first time, this feels like too much.

“Ryan,” Brendon’s demanding, sharp and hoarse. Everything seems fuzzy and distorted, his face, his voice, the way he looks at me. It’s not supposed to be like this. “Tell me, Ryan, what are you on? Tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, but the words feel too foreign on my lips, thick and heavy like tar. “I can’t - it’s all the same. All the same.”

He pushes his hands through the front of his hair, further knocking his glasses. I’m sinking into the wall, towards the ground, and I struggle to keep myself up. If I fall anymore, I’ll be nothing. I won’t be able to stand again.

“Do you feel sick? You’re turning white. Shit, Ryan. What the fuck.” He grabs onto my wrist, so frail it nearly breaks under his hold. As if he can feel it too, he suddenly loosens his grip, and pulls me from the wall. I let him.

He leads me down a black hole and into the washroom, and when he flicks on the light, it’s all too much, too bright and blinding. I sink to my knees in front of the toilet, back against the porcelain tub, and I watch his back as he leaves. He leaves. Of course he does. Everyone always leaves.

But, then he returns, a cloth in his hand. I can’t understand why there are no doves this time. Where are the doves? The ocean?

Brendon wets the cloth, and gets down on the floor with me, crawling over my outstretched legs and pushing the freezing fabric into my face without warning. He’s so close that I could touch him. Taste him on my tongue. My fingers brush his leg, and he feels hot, burning at the touch.

“I didn’t leave,” he says, but I barely hear it.

I can feel beads of sweat pricking up underneath my skin, like weeds in soil, and the cloth that Brendon pushes so desperately into my face soothes me. Everything in here is too fucking white. Too bright. Too fucking hot. And that buzzing. That goddamn buzzing. How does he live with that?

“Ryan, stop it. Stop,” he demands, shaking as the cold water soaks into the tips of my scraggly hair. “There’s no buzzing.”

He drops the cloth onto the tile, now too hot, but he doesn’t move. I keep my eyes closed, feel him against me, warm and everywhere. Why couldn’t I have kept him as my drug? Why couldn’t he have been enough?

Fingers are at my wrist, fabric pushing up my skin, and I lay their boneless, trying to remember what it’s like to breathe. Brendon makes a choked noise, his fingers on the soft, fleshy part of my arm, where the purples and yellows blend together like an oil painting, tarnished with age. I turn my head, eyes opening in slits, enough to see a single tear, clear as glass, slip down his cheek.

I reach forward, fingers against his jaw, his tears burning down the tips. “I always hurt you.”

He shakes his head, soft lip in between his teeth. He’s the one that’s perfect, why couldn’t he ever see that? “Only when you hurt yourself.”

I close my eyes, head rolling against the hard porcelain. Things are coming and going, focusing and then becoming fuzzy like the contrast on an old television. I don’t know what’s real or not anymore, whether I’m even really here or if this is all a dream. If Brendon’s a dream. Whether I’m thinking, or speaking. Or if this all my dying. My last moments on a bathroom floor while Brendon cries. I always make him cry.

Brendon slides down onto the tile next to me, taking my cold hand into his, too hot, and my head falls onto his shoulder. He smells like warm summer days and salt and like everything that makes me feel okay.

“What happened to me?” I murmur. His shoulder feels wet. Had I been crying this entire time?

He says nothing, having no answer himself. Or, maybe he does, Maybe he doesn’t want me to know. Doesn’t me to know that it’s all irreparable. He takes a breath, and into my hair, he says, “You just fell down.”

Fell down? How easy that would be if it were true. If you fall, there’s always a way to get back up. “Why weren’t you there to help me up?”

He swallows, so loud, and it soaks into me, reverberating against my cracking bones. “You didn’t want my help,” he replies in a whisper.

I press my face into his chest, trying to melt into him, my forehead brushing against his skin. The skin I loved so much. Love so much. I sink into him, hand pressing at his belly. “I do now,” I say, so quiet, I don’t even feel it myself.

His lips brush against my forehead, warm and soft, as I feel a tear splash against my skin, cleaning me. I cling tighter; I won’t let him go this time. I can’t. I need him here. Even though none of this is his responsibility, none of this is his fault, I need him to pick me up. I need him to nurse my wounds, kiss me where it hurts.

Softly, he says, “I’m not going anywhere.”

*

When I wake up, I’m still on the bathroom floor.

The room is dark, except for a single ray of sunlight that trickles in from the blinds, covering me, covering Brendon, like a warm blanket. Hope, it feels like, maybe.

Brendon stirs from behind me, his hand on my stomach, arm secured around my side, like armour. I rest my hand on his, my fingers slipping through the spaces that hold them so perfectly.

Against the back of my neck he breathes steadily, his fingers fluttering beneath mine. I can hear birds outside, singing, the crash of the waves against the shore. I feel his heart against my back, listen to his breath, as he says, “I never left.”

Nose brushing against the beginning notches of my spine, he says, “I’ve always been here.”

I close my eyes, knot our fingers together. “I know,” I say, and breathe.

soundtrack