I Have Been Right All Along

SARA’S POV

“What would happen if I told you I wanted you back?” I hear on the other end of the phone.

I roll my eyes as I sit alone in the bus, the sun streaming through the blinds behind me. I pick fuzz off of my black leggings and sigh.

“What would happen if I told you to eff off?” I retort, smiling to myself. My ex from a year ago, Justin, called me out of the blue a little bit ago. I can’t seem to get him off the phone, even after explaining many times over that I have moved on.

“I don’t get why you wouldn’t want to give it another try.”

“Other than the fact that I have more than moved on, you’re the one who broke up with me.”

I hear him sigh into the phone, probably more dramatic than it needs to be. He’s always been a little bit dramatic in hopes of getting his point across. I find it quite irritating.

“Sara. We were engaged. Obviously there was something there at some point.”

“So? You found another girl, Justin. That doesn’t exactly give you a great chance at winning me back.”

“It was a mistake!”

I laugh loudly, throwing my hand up. I can’t even believe he called me over this.

“Not for me! I truly felt disposable the way you handled it. You left me with the drop of a hat and didn’t give even a half of a shit. The next day – the very next day you were dating the other girl.”

“I told you, I made a mistake.”

“I don’t need to hear it anymore. It’s a load of crap.”

“Maybe that’s how you feel, but I really do miss you and I’m still in love with you. I never stopped loving you.”

The door to the bus opens and loud voices spill inside.

“Who is that?” Justin asks.

“Well, you know, that’s really none of your business,” I reply, watching Hayley, Zac, Josh, and Jeremy walk into the bus. Hayley gives me a weird look, having heard what I just said.

“Look, I’ve really got to go now. I’m super busy so I can’t talk,” I say. I hang up the phone without waiting for him to delve into why I need to continue to talk to him.

“Who was that?” Josh asks, pointing at me.

“Nobody,” I snap unintentionally.

“Whoa, sorry!” he laughs, holding his hands up.

I stand up and stretch then pelt my phone into the couch cushions.

“Can I make a stab at who it was?” Hayley asks from the fridge.

“You’ll never guess,” I say, walking up to her to smack her butt as she bends over, her head in the fridge.

“Ouch! Was it Justin?” she asks, rubbing her butt.

“What? Yes! How’d you know?” I ask, truly surprised that she knew right off the bat.

She turns to me and laughs, “You kind of gave it away with ‘you’ll never guess’. So I picked the person least likely to call you.”

“Well, shoot,” I say, plopping down onto the booth at the table, my feet dangling into the aisle.

“Well, that, and there’s really no one else to choose from. You don’t really ever get any calls.”

“Jeez, thanks, Hayley,” I pout, but she’s right. I have other friends besides her and the guys in Paramore, but we don’t call each other very often. I’m the kind of person that has just a few friends, but I’m fine with that. I guess it’s less of a hassle in a way.

“What in the heck did Justin want?” Hayley questions, sitting down across from me at the table.

“Yeah, what did he want?” Jeremy asks from the couch.

“Ugh, he wants to get back together!”

Josh is the first to respond, “Back together?”

I nod, “Yep.”

“You’re not going to, are you?” Hayley asks.

I look up and give her crazy, wide eyes.

“To put it simply, no. No, no, and even more no.”

“Does Brendon even know you had been engaged to Justin?” she asks.

I shake my head, my eyes wide, “I don’t know if I even want to tell him.”

I notice Hayley’s gaze shift to behind me, so I turn and see Brendon walking into the bus.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” he asks as he makes his way inside.

“We were talking about you,” Zac chimes in. Of course! Mr. Oblivious would say something.

“Zac! Shut it!” Hayley yells in my defense.

“You were talking about me? About what?” he looks around at everyone.

“Your lip,” Jeremy says, nodding. Nice save.

Brendon lifts his hand up to his mouth, touching his lower lip where I hit it last night.

“What about it?” he asks concerned.

I snort, covering my mouth promptly afterwards. I glance over at Hayley to see her laughing as well.

“How come it’s fat?” Zac asks, causing us all to laugh out loud with no shame.

“Well since everyone is laughing at me, let’s all turn our attention to Miss Sara, who is to blame.”

I turn around to look at him, my mouth wide open. He’s got a smirk on his face, looking real proud of himself.

“Hey! You’re the one who told me to kiss you!” I defend.

By this point I can feel my cheeks burning red. Brendon laughs, throwing his hands up in defeat.

“Yeah, well. I have nothing else to say about my fat lip. Although I don’t think it’s that fat.”

“It’s not, really,” Jeremy responds.

“Good. So what are you guys up to?”

I hurry to answer before anyone else can. And we all know Zac could still casually mention Justin.

“We’re just hanging out. What are you doing?”

“I wanted to hang out with you,” he responds with a smile.

I smile back, listening to everyone make their ‘aw’s at us.

“What do you want to do?” I ask.

He shrugs, looking around, “I don’t know. We could walk around and see if we can find something cool to look at.”

“Can I go, too?” Zac asks, but I’m quick to turn him down.

“No!”

He makes wide eyes at me, “Geez, sorry!”

“I’m sorry! I mean, no thanks,” I apologize, going over to give him a quick hug. I don’t know why I got so defensive.

“You ready?” Brendon asks when I get to where he’s standing. I nod and grab his hand, clasping it tightly as if someone else would steal him away.

“Have fun, guys,” Hayley yells with a smile.

And with that, we head out of the bus into the warm sun outside.

“Were you guys really talking about me?” he asks as we walk through the parking lot.

I swing our clasped hands and glance at him sideways, “Not really. You were just mentioned.”

“What were you talking about?”

“I don’t really want to get into that,” I say, trying to laugh it off.

I’m not sure about telling Brendon about Justin quite yet. I don’t know if I even plan to tell him anything about him or the fact that we were engaged. The whole story of my relationship with Justin is long and could make Brendon question my feelings for him.

“What? What do you mean you don’t want to get into it? Wh-What would that even be?” he waves his free hand in the air while shaking his head.

He gives me a strong stare, his eyebrows lowered.

“Well,” I pause. “I don’t know what to say. It’s just something I’m not even sure is worth mentioning. And I just…I don’t want to talk about it.”

We keep walking through the parking lot toward a line of trees. Silence takes over for a couple of minutes and I can tell Brendon is thinking hard about what to say to me next. I know I kind of ticked him off.

Once we reach shade, he finally speaks up, “I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me. I’m not going to get mad at you over anything, or judge you, or whatever it is that’s keeping you from wanting to tell me about the conversation you guys were having.”

“I do feel like I can talk to you,” I say, squeezing his hand. “It’s just that what we had been talking about is something I feel doesn’t need to be mentioned to you. No offense to you, but--”

“A little bit of offense is taken,” he cringes.

I stop walking and give him a pleading look, “Brendon. I don’t want you to feel that way.”

He only responds by shrugging.

“You don’t need to feel offended! It’s not like it directly affects you, anyway!”

“Then it does affect me somewhat, right? Just not directly?”

I roll my eyes and tilt my head back for a second, “Yes and no. It’s not worth explaining. It’s not worth talking about.”

“Sounds like it is to me.”

I can feel myself getting frustrated, tears starting to prick my eyes. I drop his hand and cross my arms, looking at the ground. I try to come up with something to say.

“Please don’t cry,” he says quietly.

“I’m not.”

“You’re going to.”

I look back up at him, “I don’t know what else to tell you, Brendon. I don’t want to tell you, and I don’t want you to be offended by that.”

“Well how else am I supposed to feel?”

“I get why you’re offended, Bren, I just can’t.”

He scratches his head, looking back towards the buses.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly as I look up at him.

He doesn’t say anything or look at me for several moments, apparently deep in thought. I exhale, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

“Look, I’m not trying to make you tell me anything.”

“I know that.”

“Can we just forget about it? I’m not mad at you,” he asks, forcing a smile.

“That’s fine,” I reply, still feeling a bit put off.

“Hey,” he says, enveloping me in a hug.

Resting his chin on my head, he mumbles, “I’m not mad.”

“Okay,” is all I say, loosely wrapping my arms around him.

-------

“What’s up with you?” Hayley asks in the dressing room after the show.

I shake my head, “Brendon’s kind of mad at me.”

“What? Why?”

I look over at her from the couch as she fixes her hair, “He asked me what we were talking about in the bus before he got there. I didn’t want to tell him and he was upset about it. It kind of makes me mad, too, because I don’t want to tell him and I’m not sure what else to say to him about it. He doesn’t get it.”

“You don’t want to tell him?”

“I don’t think he needs to know. Do you?”

She shrugs, glancing at me, “I dunno. I can see why he’s upset. Probably feels like you’re trying to keep something from him. I’m sure that worries him a bit, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” I sigh. “ I just feel like maybe he might see my previous engagement as something bad. Like maybe he’d question my feelings for him.”

“If he does, then forget him! If he’s genuinely into you, then he won’t care.”

I let out a frustrated growl, throwing my head back onto the back of the couch.

“Still. I don’t want to tell him.”

“Do what you want, Sara,” she replies in a sing-song tone as she grabs her bag of stuff and walks toward the door.

“Come on, we gotta go back to the bus.”

I get up and follow her out of the venue. The warm night air feels good in my lungs as I take a deep breath in. I hear the venue door slam behind us as we walk, voices echoing throughout the parking lot. I immediately recognize Brendon’s voice among them.

“Oh, God,” I say quietly to Hayley after hearing Brendon say he’ll be right back.

“Walk faster,” I mumble to her hearing Brendon running up behind us.

She just laughs at me, making a very modest attempt at picking up the pace.

“Sara! Wait up!”

“Hayley!” I scold quietly, causing her to laugh again.

“Sara!” he yells again, this time closer to us.

I turn around to acknowledge him, no longer feeling like I can fake that I didn’t hear him, “What?”

“Can we talk real quick?” he asks, matching our pace.

“About what?”

“I just want to talk for a second,” he says, sounding a little out of breath.

“I’ll be on the bus in a minute, Hayley,” I turn to her for a second before walking off with Brendon.

Once we get out of earshot of anyone else, he speaks up, “Look, I don’t want you to be upset with me. I was prying and it was none of my business. I’m sorry I put you on the spot, I’m an asshole.”

“You’re not an asshole,” I say, looking into his eyes that sparkle under the parking lot lights. “I apologize for not wanting to talk about it. I just don’t want it to affect you and I know it might.”

“What do you mean?” he questions, looking ticked off again.

“Ugh, I don’t know! It just might make you question my feelings for you. I don’t want that to happen. And with that, I’d like to say my feelings for you are real – I really do like you a lot, okay? So just don’t worry about it.”

He shakes his head and laughs, “If you’re telling me how you feel, then why would I even question it?”

“You might! Just don’t worry about it, okay?”

He puts his hands up in defeat, “Okay. Alright.”

I let out a deep breath, giving Brendon a small smile. He smiles back at me and reaches out for a hug. I wrap my arms around his torso and hug him tightly, breathing in his scent.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says quietly, pulling out of the hug.

I nod, shoving my hands into my pockets.

“Goodnight,” I wave as I begin to walk towards Paramore’s bus.

“Night,” I hear him say after I get a considerable distance away from him.

I spend the next few hours mindlessly watching the guys play video games while the bus drives to the next town, but the only thing I can think about is if I should just tell Brendon about my ex-fiancé. I weigh the pros and cons, but head to bed still conflicted.

The next morning I wake up in my bunk just as the bus stops, signaling our arrival at the next venue, which is in Tennessee. I notice in the darkness of my bunk that my phone is blinking. I grab it and turn on the screen, squinting my eyes at the sudden, short-lived blindness before my eyes adjust to the light emanating from the small screen.

I blink several times trying to comprehend the text on the screen, only understanding exactly what it’s saying after a few moments.

It’s a text from Justin reading, “I’m coming to see you today.”