As the Piano Keys Rang

Brendon awoke the next morning to the sound of birds outside his window and his mother singing downstairs. He sat up in bed, still feeling exhausted. He looked down at his body. He saw a blue t-shirt and sweatpants. This wasn’t what he went to bed in at 2 o’clock yesterday. He got up and crossed the bedroom, avoiding the sharp plastic bits that still littered his floor. He went to the bathroom and opened the shower curtain. He saw his old clothes hanging on the rack, in attempt to dry them. He felt them. They were still wet and cold. He hadn’t dreamt that all last night.

He didn’t want to think about. He didn’t want to believe it.

He ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. His mom was washing the dishes. His real mom. She was singing some Frank Sinatra song he couldn’t place with the beautiful voice that solidified his dad’s love for her. “Mom,” he said coming up behind her.

She looked flustered and turned around, “Oh Brendon! Are you feeling any better?”

Brendon smiled but didn’t say a word. He just went up to her and wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. “I love you, mom,” he said.

“Oh, well, I love you, too, honey,” she seemed shocked and paralyzed to what was going on. But Brendon didn’t care. He had his mom back. His perfect mom, just like Ryan said. “Answer me, though,” she said still in his arms, “How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” Brendon said finally releasing her.

“Good. Well, what are you going to do today?” she said turning back to the sink.

“I don’t know. Probably take care of some unfinished business,” Brendon looked out the window and saw the beautiful winter day. The frost had melted in the sun and the grass was green from its thirst quench.

“Okay, well just be back for dinner around six.”

Brendon nodded his head and headed up the stairs. He saw his sister’s room cracked open. She was lying on her bed and texting one of her friends. Brendon cracked the door open and slid in.

“Hey,” he said nonchalantly.

She sat up quickly and closed her phone, “Hi.” She nervously tucked a hair behind her ear.

“How are you?” he asked leaning against her door.

“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” she said bringing her knees into her chest.

Brendon let out a little laugh, “I’m feeling better. A lot less… angry.”

“Well that’s good,” Sarah looked nervous. She bit her lower lip and sighed heavily before opening her mouth again. “Look, Brendon. I’m really sorry. What I did was really really… horrible. I don’t know how you’d ever forgive me and you don’t have to, but I just want to apologize for it.”

Brendon scratched his head, “Yeah, that was…not cool. But I know you’re young and still learning how to not do stuff like that. It ended up being kind of a lesson learned for me anyway, kind of happened for the better. That doesn’t dismiss you, though. Just …don’t do it again, please.”

Sarah looked up at him, “Does that mean you forgive me?”

Brendon waited a second, “No, not yet. You owe me some serious chores, first. But the fact that you’re not forgiven, doesn’t mean I’m still mad at you.”

Sarah smiled, “I’ll do whatever you want. I don’t care.” She ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, “Thank you for understanding.”

Brendon definitely thought he was going easy on her, but he wasn’t about to not speak to her for two months or something. He just hugged her back. “No problem. But I got to go, I have to go talk to some people.”

“Is Ryan one of them?” Sarah pulled her arms off of him.

Brendon nodded and pursed his lips.

“Are you guys like fighting?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah, but it’s not your fault completely. I mean the video didn’t help, but it didn’t cause anything,” Brendon tried to look on the bright side.

“Well, I want you to know that I support your relationship with him. He’s a really nice guy, Brendon. You should keep him around,” Sarah folded her arms over her chest and leaned to one side.

“Yeah, I know. I just don’t know if he wants me around,” Brendon smiled at himself, “but if you support it, you cannot go telling mom and dad about it. EVER!”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “Obviously! They’d like make you have an exorcism or something.” She laughed and so did Brendon. “Go get your boy, big brother.”

Brendon nodded and went out her door and back into his room. He changed into jeans and a gray hoodie over his t-shirt. He grabbed wallet and his phone and slipped them into his back pocket. He ran down the stairs and headed for the door, “Hey mom. I’m going out. I’ll be back before dinner.” He went out the front door.

He walked down to the side walk, but something caught his eye. He walked back to his porch. It was the column that Ryan had broken. Except it wasn’t broken. It was sort of fixed. The pieces had been bent back and covered in a plaster-like solution. Then the whole thing was repainted white to look like the others. Brendon wondered if his dad was mad that it had broken.

He ignored the thought and made his way down the street. The same route that had been taken last night. He watched the houses go by until he was back in Ryan’s yard. It was much warmer now.

He went up to the door and rang the doorbell. He could feel the nerves rising inside of him. He heard the door unlock and twist open. On the other side of the screen door was an older man. He looked at Brendon and his eyes became confused, “Who are you?”

“I’m Brendon. I was wondering if Ryan was around. I’m a friend of his,” he put his hands in his pockets and tried to act as polite as possible.

“RYAN!” the man shouted in the opposite direction. Brendon heard the quick footsteps on their hard wood floors. “Your friend’s here.”

Ryan appeared in the doorway, “Thanks, Dad. I can take it from here.” The older man walked away and Ryan stood behind the screen door. “What are you doing here?” his voice was slightly harsh and his eyes were squinting from the sunlight.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Brendon said, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“About what?” Ryan bit his lip, but not innocently as much as bitterly.

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

Ryan pondered the idea for a moment. He sighed, “Let me get my shoes.” He went out of sight for a moment, “Dad! I’m going out for a little bit!”

Brendon heard muffled speech in the background, then Ryan was opening the screen door and stepping outside. They walked together to the end of the walkway. When they pulled out onto the sidewalk, Ryan spoke, “What did you wanna tell me?

Brendon kept his eyes on the cement, “I wanted to thank you for last night. I could have died out there.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ryan’s voice was quiet and almost ashamed that he helped him.

“But why did you do it?”

Ryan sighed, “Cause you needed me. What else am I suppost to do when your screaming in my front yard?”

Brendon blushed, “I’m sorry you had to do that.”

“It’s okay. We all of bad days,” Ryan shrugged his shoulders.

Brendon shook his head, “No, it’s not okay. You are so sweet to me and I treat you like shit back.”

“It’s okay. I’m used to it,” Brendon knew he was trying to make him feel guilty.

“No, Ryan. Don’t say that,” he whispered back.

“Where are we going?” Ryan asked.

“Um… the park on the next block,” Brendon said still upset.

They walked up to the park. It was really just a big hill that went down into a field with some trees along the sides. It was vacant of children on this Sunday afternoon. Brendon walked until they were under the shade of some trees on the edge of the field. He sat down in the grass. Ryan sat across from him. Ryan’s face was still troubled. They sat there in silence for awhile.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said… about the piano,” Brendon pulled at the grass with his fingers.

“And…” Ryan said in an annoyed tone.

“And you were right. The music isn’t a reflection of my own feelings, it’s… music. It’s whatever I want to play.”

“Was that in your dream?” Ryan asked, keeping his eyes low.

Brendon looked up into his face, “how did you know?”

Ryan smiled, “It’s kind of apparent when you are shouting, you can’t make me play that song again. I don’t have to do this.”

Brendon blushed, again. He was embarrassed of his little incident. “Yeah, but you know what it made me realize? My dream I mean.”

Ryan dug at the hole in his jeans, “What?”

“Well, in my dream. Everyone had warped faces. You and my parents. They were horrible. Then I saw myself and I wasn’t different at all. I looked exactly the same. It’s like I was seeing worse versions of all these people, but my worst version was me right now.”

“So what if it is?” Ryan said still not looking at Brendon.

“Well, I can’t have that. Why would I want to be the nasty version of me?” Brendon rebelled.

“So you're gonna stop the warping in its tracks?” Ryan said looking up at him for the first time.

Brendon starred back, “Yeah, fuck it. I’m not gonna let myself become that.”

“So what can you do to stop it?” Ryan pushed.

“I can’t be the person that you told me I was. Ungrateful and self-absorbed. I can’t go back to that.”

“Was I right about that?” Ryan asked.

“Ryan,” Brendon looked at him with a strong certainty in his eyes, “You were right about everything.”

“Welcome back to Earth, Brendon,” Ryan smiled.

Brendon smiled back. “I’m sorry I’ve been being a dick to you. You’re the one that finally made me realize all that stuff though.”

Ryan leaned against the trunk of a nearby tree, “its okay. I just got sick of you fretting over the little things. I didn’t like seeing you so… stressed. What about Tom?”

“Tom was nothing. I just wasn’t in control of the situation. I told him to stop and now… he’s in a cabin in the woods rethinking his engagement,” Brendon widened his eyes at the idea.

“Wow. Talk about stressed out,” Ryan shook his head.

Brendon pursed his lips, “Speaking of stress, I think we have someone to apologize to.”

Ryan looked confused, “who?”

“Spence.”

Ryan sighed, “Yeah, come on. We can take my car.”

----------------------------------------------------------

“I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me?” Spencer said sitting on his bed.

“We didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable around us or like you couldn’t be friends with us anymore,” Ryan’s fingers combed through his own hair.

“No, are you kidding? It would’ve been fine. I actually would have liked it,” Spencer shrugged.

“Why would you have liked it?” Brendon asked leaning against the drum set in the corner.

Spencer sighed, “Okay. You can’t tell anyone about this.”

Brendon and Ryan nodded, confused.

“I met someone,” Spencer said blushing at the floor.

“Who?” Ryan and Brendon said in unison.

“I met him at work. He’s my shift manager.”

“Dude, I wouldn’t recommend going for your boss,” Brendon said.

Ryan rolled his eyes at Brendon.

“No, no, Brendon. This is different. He’s nineteen and he’s like the nicest guy you could ever meet,” Spencer smiled and tried to reassure them.

“Does your mom know about him?” Ryan asked.

“Are you kidding me? That’s the reason she got me the job at Starbucks,”
Spencer laughed. “He’s an old student of hers and she wanted me to meet him. His name’s Jon. I knew she’d been trying to make me gay since second grade when she made me take those dance classes.”

“You took dance classes?” Brendon said bursting out in laughter.

Spencer shrugged, “You laugh now but just wait till I’m getting all the… guys? Wow that sounds weird.”

“Well, we can’t wait to meet him. We are very happy for you, Spence,” Ryan patted him on the back.

“Well, I have to go. I got to be home by six,” Brendon said checking his phone.

“Okay. Well, we’ll see you tomorrow, Spencer. I’m sure it will be an interesting day,” Ryan cocked one eyebrow.

“Well, I’m there for you. Bye, guys,” Spencer walked them to the door.

Brendon and Ryan got in the car and began their drive home.

“So, are you excited to ‘double date’ with Spencer?” Ryan asked turning onto their street.

“Well, to ‘double date’ you need to be dating someone,” Brendon pointed out.

“Yeah, so…” Ryan pulled into the driveway and threw the car into park.

Brendon looked at him. His eyes were honey, just like he liked them. Sweet and sticky. “You mean you want us to be like…” Brendon sputtered out before stopping.

“Official? Only if you do,” Ryan smiled sincerely.

“Does that mean you forgive me?” Brendon asked, filled with anticipation.

“Yeah. I think you’ve paid your dues a couple times over.”

“Well, does that… title mean I have to tell my parents?” Brendon questioned.

“Not if you don’t want to. If it helps, I will not be telling mine any time soon,” Ryan shrugged his shoulders.

“Yeah, I think we could work that out,” Brendon nodded his head and smiled at Ryan. “Well, I got to go eat dinner, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then?” Ryan nervously played with the air controls.

“Seven o’clock?” Brendon asked back.

Ryan nodded.

Brendon nodded.

“Okay, well bye,” Brendon said opening the car door. He started to climb out.

Ryan made an annoyed sigh and rolled his eyes, “You’re not getting away that quickly.” He grabbed Brendon’s jacket and sat him down before leaning into his face. Brendon felt the wonderful feeling of Ryan’s lips against his. After awhile, he tried to pull away but Ryan grabbed onto his lower lip with his teeth. Brendon smiled into the kiss and stayed a little longer.

“Ryan, I got to go,” he laughed pulling away.

“Okay. Okay,” Ryan said leaning back. Brendon got out of the car. He went to go shut the door, “I love you,” Ryan shouted out.

Brendon ducked his head in the car and pecked Ryan, one last time. “I love you, too.” He closed the door and ran inside, suddenly starving.

LA FIN