Lily sat there, her best friend kneeling across from her. His eyes were bright and looking straight into hers. He was looking for some hint that she was lying. He had been lied to so many times before. He really, truly, wanted this time to be different.
"You promise?" he asked her. Lily smiled and let out a small laugh. Hearing the sound of her laughter, he couldn't help but smile.
"Cross my heart and hope to died," the ten year old said to her two month older companion. He nodded curtly at her and took her hands into his. "Forever it is then."
He nodded gain at her. Then spoke the words again, no doubt in his mind that they were true. "Forever and always."
"We must re-invent love." As he sang the words, he couldn't help his eyes drift over to the girl sitting in the fancy comfortable chair feet away. Years it had been since had seen her in person. Of course, she was always on TV at 3:00 every day for the past three years, a part of the new wave of female talk show hosts.
He knew, too, that she had seen him on TV. There was no doubt about that. She was sure that time and time again she would have heard his band and him on the radio. Maybe she even owned one of the two CDs they had produced. But as he looked at her, there was some small part of him that had wished neither of them had ever changed.
"High school." Her voice shook as she looked over at her best friend. "Who knew it would be such a hell?"
Ryan laughed at her comment. "Um, just about everyone that had been in before?"
Lily glared at him. "Well, yeah, sure, but then why didn't any of them warn us? I think I'm going to die!"
Ryan laughed again. "You still have me," he said, hoping that his comment would make some difference. He wasn't sure how big of a difference his friendship meant to her.
"You're right, Ryan." Of course, right as she said this, Ryan spotted Spencer, Brent, and Brendon waving him over. He looked up at Lily, asking with his eyes for permission to go. "Just go, loser."
He smiled and laughed and ran over to them. She slammed her rusty green locker and started to walk out of the dreaded school. She needed high school to be over so she could leave. She needed something else other than this horrid life she was living.
She sighed, throwing her brown hair up into a messy pony tail with the hair band that was always either on her wrist or in her hair. She stepped out of the school, excited for the weekend.
Suddenly, her little sister ran up to her, almost tackling her to the ground. "Lily!" she screamed right in her ear.
"What do you want, Michelle?" she asked, utterly annoyed. Although they had there really great and close moments, the two normally ignored each other when they were outside of the house.
"I have a party I need to go to and mum said you have to come, too."
"Fine, whatever," Lily said, not in the mood to argue with her sister. Despite their year difference, so many people thought they were twins and Michelle had just failed a year of school.
Michelle let out a small squeal and thanked her sister, running off into the other direction.
Lily wasn't sure why she had allowed Panic at the Disco to come on her show and play. She knew, though, that she had to have been crazy or drugged to agree to sit down and actually talk to them. There had to have been something that overpowered her to be so stupid.
They all sat down on the couch and chair because the normal couch only fit three and Lily's eyes automatically danced over to Ryan. She couldn't help it. He had changed so much. She wondered if he was as funny as she remembered or as sweet.
She remembered the last time they talked. It was a couple days after Ryan's dad had died. Lily's mum told her about it. Although it had been a few years since they had last talked, she couldn't leave her friend alone at this critical time in his life. They ended up talking for five hours, his father only mentioned once. He was just so utterly easy to talk to, no matter how long they had been apart.
"So Jon," Lily said, snapping out of her distant thoughts, "how did it feel to actually record your first album?"
Jon's face lit up, a smile bright on his face. He started talking about it, stumbling over every few words. Brendon, Spencer, and Ryan would interject, saying things that had happened while recording, all of which sent everyone in the audience and Lily into fits of laughter.
The whole rest of the show they never ran out of anything to say. Lily only asked a few of her perfectly choice questions, most were just based of something that the other had said before.
Half way through, Brendon, the lone man on the chair, told everyone to stand up off the couch, saying that he had something important to say that one could only truly understand if he stood on the couch as he spoke. Of course, Brendon didn't simply stand on the couch; he was jumping all up and down, ruining the leather.
"I love Daryl!" He both shouted and sang the words a few times. Lily looked over towards the back entrance onto the stage and saw this girl standing there, hunched over in laughter. Not knowing who she was, she assumed she was the Daryl that Brendon was speaking about.
The show was slowly coming to an end. The guys calmed down a bit, their voices returning to the inside voices volume. And Lily returned to staring at Ryan, trying to remember why they had lost contact.
The party was lame. Michelle had left Lily all alone and she didn't know a single person there. She couldn't help but think every single bad and down thought about herself that her brain could think of. There was a lot.
Michelle, arms locked with some guy Lily didn't know, walked past and handed Lily a drink. "You need it." Then she was gone. Lily looked down at the drink, not sure what was in it or why Michelle thought that Lily needed it.
Maybe she did need it. Maybe it would get her happier. As she looked down, swishing the liquid around in the plastic cup, she thought of all the trouble it had caused Ryan and the rest of his family because of his fathers drinking.
Ryan. There was always Ryan. But where was he now, she thought. Not here. Despite their promise of forever that they made seven or so years ago, she knew that he would be gone one day. Off with his band to make it big. Off to be married to some girl that deserved a great guy like him.
Lily, with almost no thought, drank all the contents of her cup in seconds, the liquid burning her throat.
Lily soon became addicted. She went to every party that Michelle did. At every one she would get so drunk that she couldn't remember anything. When she felt she really needed it, she would get into drugs, doing whatever was available. She wasn't sure when or who with, but she knew she lost her virginity at one of these parties.
And what about Ryan? The guy that actually wanted to lose her virginity to, the guy she actually cared about. Well, if you asked her, she wouldn't have been able to answer, their falling out slowly coming since her first drink. By the time Ryan left to go record Panics first album, they weren't even on speaking terms. Lily had to hear from her mum that they were leaving.
It was then that Lily finally realized how stupid she was. She entered rehab three days after she had heard they left. If he was going to become famous, she would have to, too. She needed some way of seeing him again.
Once the show was over, everyone filled backstage. The girl Lily had seen before backstage ran over to Brendon, tackling him to the ground with a hug. The two of them laughed as they just lied there. I smiled, finding a small laughing escaping from my lips, too.
"They're cute, aren't they?" I turned around and saw Spencer standing there. I smiled at him and he smiled back.
"That they are. I never imagined any girl would go for Brendon."
Spencer laughed. He grinned and said, "Don't tell me you were thinking that men more specifically Ryan were the ones falling for him?"
Lily laughed as did Jon, who suddenly appeared next to them. "No. But you remember high school, Spencer. He couldn't hold a girl for more than a week."
"Yeah, he would cheat on them and they would all run to Ryan for comfort," Spencer added. Lily nodded. She was always jealous of all of every single girl that would get to be held in Ryan's arms, complaining that Brendon had done it again. And Ryan would say the sweetest things, she was told.
A small silence crept over them, the only sound coming from Daryl and Brendon on the side of the room, laughing at something random.
Then, all of a sudden, someone yelled, "Spencer! You look like a wolverine!" Everyone turned around and saw Michelle running into the room. She ran up to everyone, smothering them with hugs. Even though she wasn't that good of friends with any of them, she couldn't help herself. Before she hugged Jon, she said, "I'm Michelle," and then hugged him.
She hugged Ryan last, hugging him longer than anyone should have. She seemed to be whispering something to him, but Lily wasn't sure. Once they parted, Ryan had a real concerned look on his face. Michelle, smiling, rushed over to introduce herself to Brendon's girlfriend.
Ryan, walking slowly, made his way over to Lily. "Can we talk?" he asked. Lily nodded. As they walked to Lily's dressing room, out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Michelle winking. Lily was right; she had said something to Ryan. And Lily did not want to find out what.
There was only one chair in her dressing room and that one was for doing her make-up. So the two simply knelt down on the ground. Ryan grabbed Lily's hands into his own. It had been eleven years or so since the last time they had sat across from each other like this.
"What do you want, Ryan?" Lily asked, trying not to sound rude in the slightest, but ending up with a rude tone anyways.
"Michelle told me about the parties and the rehab." It was just one simple sentence, but Lily's whole face dropped, her heart sinking down into the pit of her stomach.
"Oh," was all she said. She removed her hands from Ryan's and ran them through hair, nervous.
"I never would have guessed." He, too, began to run his hands through his hair nervously. There was silence for a few moments and then Ryan asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"
Lily looked at him. She had asked herself the same question time and time again. She couldn't understand why she hadn't. It wouldn't have been hard. She knew that he would have still loved her, that he would simply want to help her through it all. And so every time she thought of it, the same answer would arrive.
"I don't know."
Ryan nodded, biting his lip. He pulled her into a hug, holding her for almost as long as Michelle had held him. "Ive really missed you," he whispered in a sigh.
"Ive missed you, too," she said, wrapping her arms around him.
He looked up at her, breaking apart the hug for a moment. "Remember? All those years ago? The promise?"
"Of course I do, Ryan," she spoke, a small chuckle leaving her lips.
"I guess," he said, pulling her back into the hug. He then whispered into her ear, "That even forever has its mishaps."
Lily laughed. "But, you know, those mishaps are small compared to forever."
"Forever and always," he corrected and just continued to hold the thing he held dear.Hey moon, please don't fall down.
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