Flipping Coins

Now, I guess the lion needs to be let out of his cage, and the curtain of secrecy needs to be drawn back here. You are probably thinking “what the hell is this story about? Why is Brendon torn up like this? Who caused it? How does it involve this Emie girl?” and so on and so forth. Well, strap your seatbelts, chick-a-dees, and prepare for a wild as hell ride.

I’m Emie Brooks and this is what happened.…

Brendon and I were the best of the best of friends before Panic even formed. Then, one day our friendship got torn apart by this music career business. Brendon hardly communicated at all with me and didn’t even bother to take a minute out of his day for a short email or a two-second phone call. So, I got crazy furious and would refuse any of Ryan’s invitations to go on tour with them or even see one of their concerts.

Then, one day I finally didn’t care anymore and just gave in because I wanted to see Brendon so insanely bad. I attended this after-party for some awards ceremony. The party was wild, so you can guess how I ended up. Drunk and completely out of it. And guess who I end up waking up to the next morning?

Well, after that I refused to talk to Brendon, and our friendship was lost. Our relationship was already a semi-truck away from a car wreck, so you could imagine how it was after we went through that. And the real problem was that, the morning I woke up with Brendon naked beside me, it hit me that I had feelings for the guy.

I had always thought of Brendon as more of an older brotherly figure and my best friend rather than a lover, so to figure out that I had lust for him was more for me to take in than I could handle, considering that I had just woken up to see that I had slept with him.

And then, after spending weeks upon weeks sulking and avoiding Brendon completely, I find out that he attempted to commit suicide with a gun. Now, I had known that he was going through some problems with his family, and the fame thing was kind of starting to get to him, but I could only assume that I was the main cause. I mean, we were tighter than Frodo and Sam, and now it seemed that even in a galaxy far, far away we still wouldn’t be companions!

So here we are, four weeks later and still awaiting Sleeping Beauty to wake up. He was now 75% sure to make it, which pretty much made me have the deep yearning to slide up and down a rainbow and do the electric slide with some unicorns.

I had unfortunately been unable to spend the night at the hospital for over two days now, and I had only gone to visit him each day for about two hours tops. Things were getting really hectic since I had to return to work as the editor of one of the local newspapers, and I needed to put in some over-time to make up for the days I’d been out.

Today was fortunately Saturday, and I could at long last spend a whole day by Brendon’s side.

My eyes pried themselves open, my brain too unfocused to calculate that I wasn’t working today, so I groggily sat up, thinking that I had to get to work on time. Yawning immensely, I stretched my arms above my head and clenched my toes till they popped.

My eyes briefly scanned my alarm clock, and I swear I could have almost gagged.

“Twelve thirty-two?!” I yelled an octave away from screaming hysterically.

Hurriedly shoving on some black slacks and a button-up silk shirt, I peered back at the clock just to register the time again, and that's when I actually took notice of the day next to the time.

Saturday.

Forcefully pressing the heel of my hand repeatedly against my forehead, I mumbled, “You should have been born a blonde, Emie,” and thankfully kicked out of the dressy trousers.

I dressed into more comfortable clothing that drastically lacked formality. A t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans never failed to displease my taste of wardrobe, and I dressed accordingly to that theory.

After dressing, I pulled my hair up in its normal hairstyle of a single ponytail with my lengthily jet-black bangs covering up the majority of my face.

Heading to my 1996 Saturn with no sense of where I was going to go, I felt a wave of tingles set off from inside the folds of my jean’s back pocket.

Tugging out the vibrating device, I saw that Jon was calling me from my cellphone.

“Yellow?” I greeted as I yanked my car door open and slipped inside.

“Is this…is this Emie Brooks? I don’t think I have the right number. Sorry…um…Ms. Yellow--“ Jon began in a very befuddled tone.

I chortled as I revved up my engine. “Jon, calm down. It is I, Emie Brooks, and that was just a common greeting.”

“Oh,” Jon moronically responded with realization settling in his mind. “Well, why the hell does it have to be yellow? Why not red or black or even pink?” Without waiting for a response, Jon sighed. “Oh, never mind. Let me just get to the point.”

“Good suggestion,” I agreed, settling my gears for take off while pressing my foot against the brake.

I heard Jon exhale a heavy sigh from the other line, and immediately felt my stomach exchange a groan with my heart at the prediction coming to picture in my brain. Had something bad happened to Brendon? Did he di---no, he couldn’t. He can’t.

He won’t.

Jon began to explain, “Emie, I have some news,” damn, it was definitely about Brendon, “…well, I spent the night here with Grey and Spence and…”

No, don’t tell me it’s true! Please God, don’t do this to me! I’ll give everything up, my house, my career, my life---

“…Brendon woke up.”

Just as I was about to finish my silent prayer, my heart ceased its pumping for a whole minute straight, and I remained completely and utterly frozen that entire time. I could faintly hear Jon worriedly asking me something from the minuscule holes imbedded into the receiver of my cellphone, which had dropped onto my lap from my frozen state. But I didn’t care.

Brendon was…was awake. And even though I absolutely resented myself to the core of my very bones for not being there by his side when he had opened those beautifully wide, chocolate eyes, I was so electrified and jubilant that it was next to impossible to describe my emotions with a few fancy adjectives.

Shaking from the sudden surge of adrenaline rushing through my veins, I backed my car out of the apartment’s parking lot, far past eager to get to the hospital. Gasping for a decent intake of breath, my lungs remained unsatisfied and kept asking for the proper amount of oxygen needed to make my heart stop trying to make a get-away out of my chest.

I ran a moist, jittery hand through my damp hair, trying to push past the ridiculously busy traffic of Las Vegas without, obviously, meeting success.

It seemed the Sun had already set by the time I was winding my steering wheel into a parking space at Greg Husband’s Hospital.

Because I was that lame and ridiculous, I shut off my engine and looked into my pull-down car mirror.

It was only then that I wished that I bothered with make-up. My bulky, teal eyes could use a bit of enhancement with some eyeliner or even the use of mascara could do me wonders. My outfit was presentable…for a monster-truck rally. I guess it was too late to do anything about it now.

I zipped out of my car, tucking my keys and cellphone into my backpocket while jogging towards the hospital’s entrance.

My heart was about to leap up my throat it was trembling so vibrantly! Everything in me had melted into mere Jello and was now jiggling uncontrollably.

Can you see what a guy like Brendon Urie can do to you?

I entered the building like a drunk person, feeling as though I were about a jolt away from screaming like I had just realized that there was an activated bomb about to give way inside of me.

I was about three baby steps away from the elevator that would led my way to Brendon’s floor, when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a scanty gift shop set up across the elevator.

Shit, I couldn’t just show up in Brendon’s room empty-handed and looking stunned and love-struck. So, I unwillingly marched into the tiny gift shop to buy Brendon something.

Two minutes and a box of assorted chocolates with a small ‘get well’ card later, I was traveling back up the elevator, trying to not faint of anxiousness.

Once the sleek doors reopened, I stumbled my way to Brendon’s room. I felt more confident that this visit would go well since I had chocolates in hand, which is a treat that Brendon plays dead for, believe it or not, but I still couldn’t hold back the jittery butterflies that had invaded my stomach from the time I ended my phone call with Jon.

At long last making it to Brendon’s room without exploding, I stepped to a stop in front of the door with hesitation.

I knew I would be here one way or another, but maybe I could put this off for a few days. But as soon as the idea splurged across my mind, there was an as-a-matter-of-fact voice booming inside my head telling me that the second I got back to my car, I would just leap back out again only to be standing in this exact spot once more. And the cycle would continue, and it would just be a waste of precious time that I couldn’t sacrifice. So there was really only one thing I could do, and that was to just go inside.

Just as I exhaled and inhaled several gusts of air, and my fingers secured around the platinum doorknob, the door abruptly swung forward. I was violently swatted back, falling on my butt while the chocolates and card went spiraling up into thin air.

The chocolates landed safe into the hands of Ryan, who had been the one to open the door before me, while the card fell square on top of my face.

Groaning, not with pain, but with the embarrassment bound to come, I sluggishly removed the card from my face.

The second the shard of cardstock was unequal to my pupils’ line of vision, I was staring into an all-too-familiar pair of a wide, brown eyes intensely focused on me. My heart, instead of turning into more of an imitation of a platter of Jello, actually regained its steadiness and, like a breath of fresh air, it was back to normality. It was quite strange, but it just happened.

Not once breaking the gaze with the wide brown eyes, I crawled back up to my feet and grinned widely at Brendon. The familiar grin he casted back sent all of my worries down the drain, and I couldn’t help but to feel a little light-headed.

Ryan gave out a gruff cough from behind me, but I didn’t bother turning around to see the reaction. Just as I had mentally predicted, the sound of several chairs scooting out erupted, the door to Brendon’s room was sealed closed, and then it was just me and Brendon.

For the longest time, we just stood like that, grinning like mad fools at one another. I finally cleared my throat and broke our gaze.

Biting my lip while staring holes at my shoes, I stated, “Well, I’m so indescribably happy to know that you're back. Things were getting pretty scary there.” I peeked up to see Brendon nodding his head while peering down at his hands, probably sensing the awkward conversation at hand.

“Well, I’m so indescribably happy to be back,” Brendon mumbled, meeting my gaze once more with another grin.

My expression suddenly transformed moods, and all of the merriness drained to pure suffering. Brendon witnessed this change, and mimicked my actions, the grin tugging down to an impaired frown.

And then I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I wanted to scream it.

Marching to kneel at his bedside, the whelming of tears became unstable before I could stop it, and I sputtered out in a pleading tone, “Brendon, why? Yes, I know I fucked up absolutely everything, but how the hell could you?! Do you have any idea how these past few weeks have been for your friends and family? For me?”

My face screwed up to reveal the massive amounts of hurt and pain flooding my entire being and, once again, Brendon’s face reflected my own.

Brendon merely stared back at me with sad puppy-dog eyes, and he weakly answered, “Emie, I’m…I’m so, so sorry. I just didn’t want to deal with it anymore. Any of it. Things just felt so absolutely shitty, and I felt as if I had…no other choice.” His eyes broke away from mine and fell back down to his hands.

Pushing in my lips sternly, I reached up and gently lifted Brendon’s chin so that he would be forced to look me in the eye once more.

“Oh, Brendon,” I sighed, shaking my head. “You did have a choice, and you chose the wrong one. I can’t even begin to tell you how these few weeks have been like for me…the anticipation to know if your life-long, closest friend might be gone forever. Waking up wondering if you might get a phone call from the hospital’s doctor who had some bad news. Or looking up by your friend's side to see that your best friend that you’ve known for life was only a mere corpse of what used to be. And having to deal with all of that knowing it was only yourself to blame. ” I looked down at my shoes again as I weakly whispered those last words.

Brendon looked shocked and began to shout, “No! Emie, no! This has nothing to do with you!” I peered back up at him and gave him the ‘yeah right, and I tapped Keanu Reeves and Justin Timberlake all in one night’ look.

He sighed again, and I looked back down at my anciently old sneakers. “Okay, so maybe it was partly because of you. But I don’t want you thinking for one second that you were to blame for what I did. I did it to myself, and your conscious should be clean on this one.”

Biting my lip, I looked back up at Brendon and replied in a hushed voice, “Brendon, I don’t know how to apologize for what I did because there is honestly no way that a few heartfelt words could make up for something of that size, but for what it’s worth, I am truly sorry. I should have talked to you about it, and avoiding you was a childish and horrible move on my part.”

Brendon cracked me a grateful smile. “Ems, it’s okay. Even though those weeks after were truly the worst weeks of my life, I do accept that apology. Thank you,” he sighed, about to say something that was going to be hard on his part, I’m sure. “Well, I guess it’s my turn again. Emie, I’m sorry too. I was an asshole to you for forever, and I should have never put our friendship in jeopardy for anything, especially something as silly as music. And, I’m also sorry about…that night…too.”

The awkward part was taking its toll on full blast now. I only nodded my head and continued to knaw on my lip as I replied, “It’s fine. That was both of our faults. And you were an asshole, but I was the ultimate bitch to you, so I guess we are even now.”

Brendon pulled his wide lips back to reveal his white teeth as did I, although I’m sure my teeth looked closer to a cavewoman’s dentures rather than a Crest-toothpaste model. Even when he had been unconscious and unable to brush his teeth in about a month, Brendon still had the teeth of a God.

It rather suddenly hit me that I was still clutching onto Brendon’s face. I hastily wrenched my limb back and slipped both of my hands into my jean’s pockets, making a straight gaze at the tiled floor while my black bangs rushed forward to conceal my eyes.

Feeling Brendon’s puzzled stare boring onto my face, relief washed over me when I heard the buzz of goofy laughter sounding from outside the door. The guys were back, so I wouldn’t have to answer the questions lurking inside Brendon’s big chocolate eyes that remained intently on me.

Ryan strutted in first, giving me a knowing glimpse before gazing back at Brendon. “Dude, you look like shit. You should get up and do something with that mess you call hair.”

Even though Ryan did have a valid point with the hair thing, I had to silently object. Brendon looked better than ever, in my opinion. But then again, I guess he always seemed to look good in my vision. God, I hated crushes and this lust bullshit with the passion. It was already getting to me and only after a few minutes of reuniting with Brendon.

Brendon grinned widely at Ryan. “Oh Ryry, what would I do without you? You and your perfect role model I have to follow. I mean, since your hair always looks so propped up and styled, all I have to do is imitate you, and then the ladies can’t help themselves. They all want a taste of the Urie.” Brendon winked at Ryan, jokingly biting into his bottom lip while drawing invisible circles into his bed's sheets.

Ryan only rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “More like a taste of the Urinator.…” Even though no one else had heard it, I had. I only smiled up at Ryan until he met my gaze and grinned back.

“But Brendon, you seriously should clean up. The doctors said that you can’t get out till you looked healthy, so you should start tweaking now so that we don’t have to keep coming to this stupid place everyday just to visit you,” Spencer suggested, stuffing his mouth full of Doritos after saying so.

Brendon rolled his eyes. “Jeez guys. Thanks for making your best friend, that just barely escaped death, might I add, feel so special on the first day of reawakening. But can we please calm down and let me take a piss in peace, por favor?”

Everyone shared a sigh as Brendon wobbled onto his feet. Dan ended up having to take on the role of Brendon’s personal walker to the private bathroom since Brendon seemed to have “sea legs”. Soon Brendon returned looking a bit more freshened up.

And, even though I was the happiest I’d ever been in weeks, and maybe even months, I couldn’t shake off that strange feeling. You know, that feeling that something bad was going to happen? It was that negative foreshadowing that creeps into your mind and brain-washes you with the torture of spectors.

But, after Brendon and I sleeping together, our friendship escaping a lost black hole by a hair, and then the whole hell of Brendon almost dying, what else could happen…right?