It's December 31st. Snowing, and only strokes away from midnight. Strokes of the clock, strokes of hair...either way, we'll end up in a new day, new month, new year.
I try to drown out Ryan's sobs with any other source of sound. I can try and try and try but I still can never find any band, any sound heavy enough...or serene enough...to keep his crying out of my head. I shake just as hard as he does, knowing that my fingers long to run through his brown hair and tell him it's okay. Until he lets me...it never will be. I'll never be okay knowing that he cries alone in his bunk night after night because of her.
I couldn't possibly tell him to let her go. If I ever did, I'd be letting him give me up as well. He lives for that girl. She hurts him every single time they speak. I don't know what she says to him. I don't know what she does to him while he's away. I certainly don't know why she would do this to him. But she does. She does.
Spencer and Jon escape when Ryan goes into his nightly fits of hysteria. He and I are alone...but apart. He doesn't want anyone to see him cry. And sometimes I get the feeling, especially me. He's carrying the world on his fragile shoulders and I know he doesn't want me to see it all collapse on top of him. He's carried the world as far as he could, and now the damage has taken its toll.
He doesn't give much anymore. He doesn't sing with me on stage. He jerks my hands off his shoulders when I'm trying to keep him standing at 11:00 at night, signing autographs, no sleep in days. I get the feeling he wants nothing to do with me, and I can't blame him. He knows I want to be with him. He'd be stupid to not know how much I want him, how much I want to kiss him like I used to. I used to have him exactly where I wanted him, and now he's so far from me. Further than I'd ever feared.
I momentarily pause my iPod, to check on Ryan with my ears. I'm devastated to hear that his sobs have only crescendoed. I close my eyes, trying hard to not let my own tears fall. I can't break down. If, in some alternate universe, he does pull back the curtain of his bunk and come right over to me and ask for my help, I have to be able to do that. I have to be able to look straight into his puffy eyes with clear ones. I have to be able to cool down his flushed cheeks with my stable ones, whispering all the while into his ringing ears with my surreptitious lips, opposed to his trembling ones.
For now, I can only dream of that ever occuring. I can only dream of being so close to him ever again. So that's what I do. I set my iPod down and go to lay down. As I draw nearer to his bunk, I hear Ryan's cries grow quieter with each of my footsteps. And by the time I'm laying down on my side, facing his bunk, he's silent, as if he disappeared.
I endure the silence for several moments, almost enjoying it. Then I know I have to say something. I'd be disrespecting everything I ever felt toward Ryan if I just let him lay there, lifeless and alone. "Ryan?" I say quietly and scared.
And he takes in a deep breath, straight through his teeth, resulting in a sharp gasp.
"Are you alright?" I persist.
I hear movement in his bed, the sheets twisting and turning around his figure. Finally, the curtain opens. He pulls it back slowly, torturing me, knowing that the longer he waits, the more words will spill out of my mouth before I can control them. I just want him to be happy. I just want to see his smile again, rather than these tears that leave stains over everything he touches.
The curtain is pulled all the way back and he ducks his head to step out. I do too. We're now standing in the hallway, pressed close together by the very narrowness of it. The very feeling of his breath so close and jagged makes me want to hold him and kiss his skin and sing to him and rock him to sleep. His breath smells like nothing. It smells like nothing but Ryan's breath, straight out of his chest, out of his quickly beating heart that I know I could be able to feel if I were one inch closer.
So I move closer. I trace my finger over his chest that is slightly wet from his own tears. It's true; I can feel his heart beating like he's been running laps. He brings his hand up to mine and stops my fingers from moving, ending all movement, and Ryan says, "I'm gonna leave her tonight."
And two years...those two long years have finally ended. The worst is over. Finally, sweetheart...we can ring in the new year together.
"Are you sure?" I ask, not quite sure why. I'm only giving him another chance to take it back. That's just about the last thing I want.
He nods quickly, and I sigh, unable to keep a smile off my face. He doesn't seem so elated. He has this look in his eye like he's being forced to leave Christa. Like he doesn't really want to. And that's when I feel my heart begin to break again, for the umpteenth time this evening. For these past two years. My smile fades. 11:51.
The years have been unkind. And I no longer have control.
Ryan, he starts to lose it again. His lips fight back his tears ominously, the corners of his lips falling downward, painfully. "Ryan..." I whisper sympathetically, and he collapses into me. I feel his heart pounding against my own, his eyes pouring tears onto my shoulder, and I hold him there. I stroke his hair faster than I would have preferred, but I'm desperate to fix him. "Sh, calm down..." I say softly, wrapping my arms tighter around him so we are one.
"Brendon..." he chokes out, lifting his head from my shoulder to look in my eyes. I raise a piece of wispy brown hair out of his eyes, desperate for a connection between his and mine. "I wanna love her so bad..." Ryan says in a multitude of pitches, crying harder than I've ever seen. "I've led her on so long..."
He falls apart again, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing me tight. I just want him to love me. I want him to want me as badly as every night I wanted him. Every night that Ryan cuddled with his phone to his ear, I wished I could be on the other end, no matter the distance.
"It's okay," I say assuringly, brushing away his tears and makeup with my fingers, then letting my hands rest on the sides of his face.
"No, it's not," he says stubbornly. "I didn't love her, Bren. This whole time...I've only been falling in love with the boy I knew." He touches my face now as my eyes grow wide. Both of us are on either end of the leash now. "My Vegas boy...my everything...my Brendon..."
I don't know what to say. His voice is like a freshly-tuned baby grand, pouring out only the very notes I've been dying to hear. All the days and nights...The years. They finally paid off. 11:57.
"I love you, Ryan," I say clearly, making sure every syllable was heard off my tongue. "God, I always have."
And Ryan moves closer to me, his fingers caressing my face so lightly that it gives me goosebumps. He knows I want this. He knows we need this.
He places his lips on mine, kissing me so gently that I can barely feel it, but it feels so perfect. I take the initiative to deepen the kiss and I pull him closer to me. Ryan breathes deeply onto my lips, turning the air around us hot and humid. Then he bites my bottom lip as he pulls away slowly, and when he lets go, it's different. Different than it's ever been in the past two years. Ryan's eyes are lit up with happiness. His radiating smile has returned to his lips that had lost their luster long ago.
And right when I smile back at him, there's an explosion from outside the bus. Midnight has struck. Ryan giggles a little bit and he lays his head back on my shoulder, leaving tiny kisses and bites along my neck. This is perfect. We were in love in high school, and we got older, but we're still young.
He was gone, so alone.
And I'm ready to wash away all of Ryan's helpless sounds that haunted the nights in this bus. I'm ready to ring in the new year.
->
rate/pick/cbox/message! ily.
