I Love Him, I Love Him Not.

Brendon grunted a reply and I sighed. The once comfortable silence was now a tension filled one. I was just waiting for Brendon to lash out. Scream at me for being a bitch, tell me I’m heartless, all that good stuff.

But he didn’t. Of course not.

As I began to scan the CD, the bell on the door rang, and, thank God, Jason walked in stuffing his face with French fries. He must’ve noticed the tension; it was suffocating the air. “If eferyfing ofkay?”

I nodded and put on my best fake smile. “Yes, Jason, everything is okay.” I put Brendon’s CD in a bag and handed it to him.

He snatched it out of my hands and snarled, “Four years later and you still lie.”

Brendon stormed past Jason and out of the store. I sighed and bit my lip and watched Jason. He looked completely dumbfounded. He glanced at me. “What the hell just happened?”

I wanted to ignore Jason’s question, but he’d just keep pestering me. “Long story.” I noticed the bag in Jeremy’s hand. “Can I have my cheeseburger?”

“Not until you tell me this ‘long story’.”

I sighed. “It’s too long.”

“Then I’ll eat your motherfuckin’ cheeseburger.”

“Fine.”

So I told him. Everything. During my life story, I feared Jason might think different of me. I’m not a bad person, really. It was one mistake. I don’t regret it. I regret hurting him. But I don’t regret breaking his heart. Weird, huh?

Jason’s light brown eyes never left my face. My hazel ones never met his face. I mostly stared at my hands while I talked, but I felt his gaze on me. When I finished, I looked up from my hands and Jason was looking out the door.

“He had a right to be mad.”

“I know.”

“But if he does anything to hurt you–”

“I want him to.”

“What?” He looked at me like I was crazy. “What do you mean you want him to hurt you?

“Well, not physically. Verbally. Like… I want him to yell at me and tell me I’m a cold, heartless bitch that doesn’t deserve to live. Or tell me that he won’t ever forgive me no matter how many times I say sorry. Maybe it’s not actually hurting me emotionally, but I’ll at least know how much pain I’ve caused him and I’ll be able to apologize. Meaning it, of course.”

Jason still stared at me like I was a crazy person. “Okay, whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “And it’s been, what? Four years? And he can’t get over it?” He chuckled. “Does he usually hold grudges?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It mostly depends on what someone does. Most of the time, he’ll shrug it off and act like nothing happened the next day. But–”

“You cheating on him pissed him off.” He grinned. “Maybe in twenty years he’ll forget about it.”

I groaned. “Can you forget about it? I was doing just fine until I came in to work today.”

Jason smiled innocently. “Do I put you in a bad mood?”

I bit my lip to keep from grinning and threw an empty box at him.

“Okay, bitch. Get out.” He pointed to the door, smiling. I smiled back and threw my arms around him, embracing him in a hug.

________

After work, I went to Taco Bell to get Emily and me a taco, for dinner. Emily really liked Taco Bell’s tacos. I don’t know why. I mean, they’re okay, but I wouldn’t call them the best tacos ever.

So when I got to our apartment, Emily tackled me in a hug when she saw the Taco Bell bag. And while we ate our tacos, we played Go Fish. We tried to play poker, but we’re not ‘card smart’ enough to play that game yet.

This is how most of our days went. Emily worked four hours a day six days a week as a receptionist for some dentist, so she was home a lot. And every day since I was twenty, we’ve gone through the same routine. Except one year all we played was Monopoly and one year it was Uno. Now, it’s Go Fish.

Anyway…

While Emily was shuffling the cards, she asked me, “So, what happened at Wayne’s?”

I was about to say ‘nothing’, but I instead said, “An ex–boyfriend came in.”

She smirked. “Interesting.” She laughed when she saw me roll my eyes. “You really need to stop doing that, you know.”

“Doing what? Rolling my eyes? Why?”

“It annoys everybody.”

“But everybody does it,” I argued.

She narrowed her pale blue eyes playfully. “Touché.” She grinned. “Tell me what happened. Did he know who you were? Tell me everything.” She laughed and looked back down at the cards.

We’re not really a gossipers, but when you live life like we do, gossip is actually necessary.

“Um…” I bit my lip. “Have I told you about Brendon?”

Emily’s head snapped up and she slightly had her eyebrows knitted together. “No.”

I was going to question her on her sudden interest, but I ignored it. “Well, I dated this one guy, Brendon in high school–”

“Really?” Emily gasped.

“Yes…? Anyway, I liked him, but I wanted to date someone… I don’t know… bad ass, I guess, so I cheated on him–”

“Why?!” she cried.

“I just told you!”

“Right.”

I shook my head. “And when Brendon found out I cheated on him, he broke up with me. He was so pissed, he tried to fight–”

“Did he get hurt?” Emily had her eyes open wide.

“Just a little bit. Will you stop interrupting me?”

“Right. Sorry. Sorry.”

“Okay, so the point is that Brendon was pissed and he didn’t look at me twice that year. And today, at Wayne’s he was there. But I didn’t know it was him because I was sitting on the ground behind the counter folding T-shirts. When Jason went to McDonald’s, Brendon was talking to me, not knowing it was me.

“Then he got his CD and–”

“What CD was it?” I glared at her and she slapped her hand over her mouth mumbling a sorry.

“He got his CD and he knew it was me. Then the tension filled the air, and Jason came in. He asked if everything was okay and I told him yes, and then Brendon got mad and called me a liar.”

Emily looked at me. “Are you done?” I nodded. She started chewing on her lip, her eyebrows furrowed. “Hey, Dawn, was Brendon’s last name Urie?”

I furrowed my eyebrows, too. How did she know. “Yes. Do you know him?”

“Not personally,” she answered, a huge grin slowly spreading across her face. “Have you heard of the band Panic At The Disco?”

“Why do I need to panic at the disco?” I was quite confused.

She groaned. “You don’t. There’s this band called Panic At The Disco. And the lead singer’s name is Brendon. Urie.”

I almost gasped. Almost. “Maybe there’s more than one Brendon Urie.” Please?

Emily laughed. “Yeah right.” She smiled. “I’ll be right back.” She ran into another room and came out with a poster. She quickly unfolded it and shoved it, literally, in my face.

“What the hell?!” Emily apologized and took the poster and smoothed it out on the table. I looked at the poster and widened my eyes.

There, at the end left side was Brendon. On the other side of him was three other guys.

“That poster is kind of old. It’s from when their first album came out. I’ll try and kind you a recent picture–”

“It’s okay.” I felt stupid. Seriously.

Emily then got a smug look on her face. “More than one Brendon Urie my ass.”