Another amazing banner by maps.! =] She's made me several, and they're all great, but I think this one might be my favorite of hers. I don't know...it's hard to say.
"Hi, Kelsey," said Spencer, a little too pointedly, as I sat down at our usual table at lunch on Friday.
Maybe I wouldn't have thought anything of it anyway--but then Brendon shot him what was clearly a warning glare, and I wondered what I had just stepped into and what it had to do with me.
"Hi, Spencer," I greeted him in return suspiciously. "What's up?"
"Nothing," he replied, but his smirk insisted otherwise. "Are you coming to band practice tonight?"
I glanced nervously at Brendon, who was biting his lip and frowning (though it was hard to tell, seeing as how he was staring down purposefully at the untouched food on his lunch tray). "No. I didn't know there was a band practice tonight."
"Really?" said Spencer, and he didn't sound surprised at all. "I would have thought that Brendon would have told you." He stared right at Brendon as he emphasized both words.
"You're an ass," Brendon muttered almost imperceptibly out of the side of his mouth. Then he straightened up and turned to me, saying, "I forgot all about it, Kels, Ryan just called last night."
Behind Brendon, over his shoulder, Spencer mouthed what looked like, "He's lying."
I frowned and shook my head at both of them, investing my attention in my food instead. "I don't know what's going on between you two, but I'm not going to be part of it."
Spencer sighed and leaned back in his plastic cafeteria chair, idly pushing the remains of his bright green jello around on his tray. "Oh, Kelsey. Kelsey, Kelsey, Kelsey..."
Brendon rolled his eyes. "Just ignore him, Kels," he told me under his breath, "he's got nothing better to do than be an asshole."
I didn't say anything. I was too busy wondering why Brendon wouldn't want me at band practice--and why Spencer would call him out on it right in front of me.
-----
All in all, Friday was a very strange and confusing day.
After Spencer made a bit of a scene out of Brendon's "forgetting" to tell me about the band practice that night, I made up some excuse about going Christmas shopping after school (it was the first of December, after all) to get out of having to go to band practice after all. I didn't doubt that Brendon had lied to me, and I didn't doubt that he didn't want me there--and I certainly didn't want to be there if he had gone to lengths to keep me from coming.
What bothered me even more than the thought of Brendon's lying, and the feeling of being unwanted, though, was the question that had been nagging at the back of my mind ever since I found out about these things: why did he lie, and why didn't he want me there? And did it have anything to do with his evasive behavior in regards to Panic! recently?
I didn't go Christmas shopping, of course, but sat in my room and resisted the urge to pace around or cry or throw a tantrum or call Brendon and demand answers. It was obvious that Spencer knew what was going on, so Ryan and Brent were probably both in on it as well. I could have called any of them and gotten my answers, no problem, I was sure--but I didn't want to. I wanted to hear it from Brendon. And I wanted to hear it when he was ready to tell me.
I wasn't going to outright ask him what was going on, partly because I knew it would do no good (it would probably just aggravate him and make him clam up even more), and partly because I was afraid--afraid of what the answer might be. What if he just wanted to get away from me? What if I was getting on his nerves, and he was using band practices as an excuse to escape me?
Or...
A horrible possibility suddenly reared its ugly head in my dangerously idle mind.
...What if Brendon had moved out to get away from me?
That was too much. The thought was unbearable. I threw myself down on my bed and screamed and cried into my pillow until my insides felt hollow and gutted, and then I wouldn't let myself think about it any more.
I was just lying there, staring blankly at the ceiling, when my phone rang; I was so numb from all my previous hysterics that I didn't even jump at the sudden noise. I rolled over and grabbed my cell phone off of the bedside table, and saw the last name I'd been expecting on the screen: Brendon.
"Hello?" I answered, a little too eagerly.
"Hey," said Brendon brightly. "What's up?"
Dazed, I pulled myself into a sitting position and propped my back up against my headboard, folding my legs up under me. "Not much." It was such an automatic response. "What are you doing?"
"Not much," he repeated, chuckling slightly at his own half-joke. "We just finished band practice, so I'm gonna come pick you up, okay?"
"Uh--okay." I tried not to sound as surprised as I felt.
"Are you home now?"
"Yeah, I'm home."
"Okay, I'll be right there." And Brendon, in better spirits than I'd seen him in ages, ended the phone call, leaving me sitting alone and in shock, listening carefully to the dial tone--as if maybe it, of all things, could give me some of the answers I desperately needed.
-----
Brendon really was in a good mood.
I couldn't understand it. Earlier that day he had been much quieter than usual, brooding--especially after the incident with Spencer at lunch--and he hadn't even wanted me at band practice. Now, as he spirited me away in his car, he was smiling and laughing and babbling incessantly about every stray thought that crossed his mind.
Brendon was a naturally cheerful, happy-go-lucky guy. He talked constantly, and smiled every chance he got, for the most part, and when he got nervous all of these tendencies increased ten-fold. But I knew Brendon, and I could tell this wasn't anxiety. He wasn't nervous; he was giddy.
About what, I had no idea, and I was too tired and emotionally drained to even wonder too much about it. For Brendon's part, he offered no explanation: when I asked about band practice, tentatively because my feelings were still kind of hurt, he carefully avoided the subject as always--but this time he evaded my questions with a joke rather than a snide remark, as he always had before.
He had bought an old rusted stove off of a friend of his who was already in college, and so he made me dinner: spaghetti and a pre-packaged salad. His culinary skills weren't exactly riveting, but it was good, and I appreciated the effort. I sat on the brand new Big Lots couch in the expansive room devoted to both the kitchen and the living room, staring unseeing at the television while Brendon cooked. He talked and talked and talked, and I listened to every word, but had few to offer in return; he filled the gaps in our conversation with snippets of Journey songs, and I listened to those too.
His voice had gotten so much stronger since that first night, outside the Seven Eleven--it's clear, sure tone filled the whole room and drowned out the hiss of the pot on the stove and the "Hey Arnold!" theme song on TV. It made me proud and sad all at once. I just couldn't shake the feeling that he was growing out of me--just like he might outgrow a favorite shirt or a pair of shoes.
Sitting there on Brendon's couch, listening to him sing, I was suddenly sure that I was just an old smelly pair of sneakers.
-----
I woke up in a rather awkward position, curled up into a ball and leaning against something hard and kind of pointy in a few spots. My cheek was pressed to something cold and smooth, and whatever I was laying on was humming and bumping along with a comforting sort of rhythm.
I opened my eyes and I was in Brendon's car, slumped over in the passenger's seat as we sped along the outskirts of the city. I yawned and groaned groggily, straightening up; my cheek was stuck to the window, and it made an unpleasant smacking noise as I ripped it free. Rubbing the sore spot on my cheekbone, I glared resentfully at Brendon as he looked over and grinned at me.
"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty."
"Umph," was my only reply at first. I shifted in my seat and yawned again, rubbing my eyes. "What time is it?"
"10:30."
"Really?"
"Yeah," he half-laughed; there was an underlying sadness to it that made something inside me ache regretfully. "You fell asleep after the first ten minutes of Bill and Ted's Exellent Adventure. You've been out for an hour and a half."
"Really?" I repeated, but even more incredulously this time. "How'd I get in here?"
"I carried you."
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him and be completely overcome with some emotion bigger than anything I had ever felt before. It probably shouldn't have meant so much to me, but it had been at least a good ten years since I had been carried by anyone, and I couldn't help but feel at least a little touched.
"You didn't have to do that," I managed, shyly, for some reason.
He shrugged. "You seemed really tired all night. I didn't want to wake you up."
I didn't know how to put into words what my heart was screaming, so I just reached over and held the hand he wasn't driving with.
