The Young and Lost Club
029
I woke up the next morning feeling like total shit. I was mad at myself for getting in an argument with Brendon instead of taking advantage of the rare time we had together. I looked at my Blackberry to see no missed calls and no emails from him, and with a sigh, got myself ready for another long, boring day at work.
I spent the first couple hours being miserable, staring at my phone, hoping it was Brendon, so that I wouldn’t have to be the one to call and admit my guilt. By lunch time, I had accomplished none of the work I needed to, and was starting to freak out that maybe he was so angry he’d break up with me, or some dumb shit like that, so I called Taylor. “Hi lovely,” he said, yawning.
“Did I wake you up?”
“Yeah.”
“Its 2:30. In the afternoon.”
“Exactly, why are you calling me so early.”
“Bren and I got in this huge fight last night.” I said, and then told him the whole story. “I just don’t know what to do, he hasn’t called and I feel so guilty.”
“Well,” Taylor said. “He was kind of being an asshole, but so were you I guess…I dunno why don’t you just call him?”
“I wish I could just see him, in person and apologize. I acted way out of line: jealous and just like a huge bitch.”
“Then drive up to Boston and see him,” Taylor suggested. “It’s not that far. Just go and see him.”
I paused. “That’s a really good idea…but Max would kill me if I missed practice…”
“Max Shmax,” Taylor said. “Come on, we all know Brendon is super important to you. We could all use the break too.”
“And I have work in the morning.”
“Quit.” Taylor suggested.
I snorted.
“No, seriously, Clark. You’re working 5 times harder then all of us, and there’s no need to. You have more than enough money to last you for a while, and you know Steven Riley would hire you back in a heartbeat if you needed it.”
I sat nodding, soaking in his words. “I…okay, I gotta go, Tay. I’m going to do this.”
“Good for you!” He cheered. “Go get your man.”
“Wow, okay.” I said sarcastically, making him laugh. “Thanks Tay, love you.”
“Love you too. Enjoy Boston.”
Steven Riley wasn’t happy that I was quitting without so much as a two week notice, and I felt bad or doing it because of everything he had done for me. But I didn’t feel like saying “hey, so putting in my two weeks and I’m going to need tomorrow off too,” so I just quit.
It was hard to say goodbye. Steven was my friend, not just my boss, and stupid interns and bands aside, I would miss working for him. I gave him a huge hug, and he made me promise that if we got big we’d play for his show, and then I walked downstairs and packed up my office.
As I walked down the street though, I felt this huge rush of elation. I was free, and now, it felt official that my “job” was being in a band, and making music. All I wanted to do was call Brendon and tell him my news, knowing that he was the only person in the world who would probably understand my feelings, but I resisted the urge. I had this image in my head of surprising him and apologizing for being a bitch and sharing my good news. How many times had he come and surprised me? It was time to return the favor.
Instead, as I got to my apartment and starting throwing together an overnight bag, I called Zack Hall and got the address of where they were staying, but he told me the guys were planning on going to a house party of a friend of Jon’s that night, so I better hurry up.
Less than an hour after quitting my job, I was on the highway, headed to Brendon.
I arrived at the hotel Zack said they were staying at after dark. I made my way up to the room Zack had told me they were in and knocked.
“Hey Clark!” Zack said happily, letting me in. “How was the drive?”
“Not too bad,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“Pretty good.” He saw me looking around and laughed. “They already left for the party.”
“And left you here all by yourself?”
“I was talking with my girlfriend,” Zack said, pointing to his laptop on the table. I wagged my eyebrows suggestively, and Zack shoved me. “Not like that. Jesus, you and Brendon are exactly the same, I swear to God.”
“Come on,” I scoffed. “You were asking for it.”
He laughed. “Give me a minute, and I’ll get you the address.”
“Sure,” I said, settling down on one of the beds, and recognizing Brendon’s suitcase, propped open against the wall, its contents spilling out of it. In one of the mesh pockets inside, I caught a glimpse of myself suddenly. Confused I got up to investigate, and saw that it was a crinkled and dog-eared picture of me. I couldn’t remember when it was taken, but it was out on my balcony on my apartment at night. I wasn’t looking at the camera, but rather smiling out into the night and the bright lights.
I suddenly realized it was from the night of eating dinner with Pete the first time (I recognized it by the dress I was wearing in the picture), when we had stayed up all night, talking and goofing around. I forgot he had pulled out a camera at some point to see who could make the stupidest face. He must have taken it when I wasn’t looking. I carefully put it back where I had found it.
“Here you go,” Zack said cheerfully, handing me and address along with printed out directions. “Brendon’s going to be so happy to see you, he’s been missing you like crazy.”
I smiled at that. “Thanks again, Zack. I’ll probably be seeing you tomorrow.”
“Awesome,” He said.
I walked towards the door. “Have fun with the girlfriend,” I said, winking at him.
“Have fun with the boyfriend,” He shot back.
“Touché,” I said, with a grin.
The house was not far from the hotel, and by the time I had gotten there was in full swing. I had been shoving through people for a solid half an hour and was about to give up and go back to the hotel when I finally spotted Jon and Ryan with a small group of other people, standing around and talking.
“Ryan! Jon!” I yelled, shoving my way through.
“Clark!” Jon exclaimed, and I saw both him and Ryan exchange a quick, nervous glance before they both turned beaming at me. Something in the pit of my stomach dropped. I suddenly felt sick. Something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but every fiber of my being told me that something was wrong.
“What are you doing here?” Ryan said, his arm around my shoulders. “We didn’t know you were coming!”
“I wanted to surprise Brendon,” I said with a shrug, trying to ignore the sudden feelings I had gotten. “I felt shitty about how last night ended and I wanted to see him.”
They both laughed, but I felt like something was off, something was very off, like I shouldn’t be there, or I was intruding on something I shouldn’t have. I felt like I was going to puke. Where was Brendon?
“It’s getting late, you all ready to head out?” Spencer said, suddenly appearing , clearly not noticing me yet. He looked disgusted about something. My nausea increased. “Brendon’s probably staying the night…” He rolled his eyes at this, looking angry and defeated. And then he saw me. “C-Clark?” He stammered. “What are you doing here?”
I couldn’t take this anymore. “Where’s Brendon?” I asked, my voice sounded strange to my ears.
“Um,” Jon said, hesitantly, looking at the other two.
“Why would he need to spend the night here?”
“He’s…um…” Spencer trailed off.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, now shaking from head to toe.
They all avoided looking at me.
“Tell me!” I shouted, getting angrier. “Where’s Brendon?”
“Clark,” Jon said suddenly. “Let’s go back to the hotel…”
“Where is he?” I said furiously.
They didn’t answer, but they all looked at me with undeniable pity. I felt like my heart was dropping into my stomach.
“Where is he?” I repeated, but in a whisper this time.
“Upstairs.” Ryan said finally, not looking at me, but at the wall.
I started to spin around to go upstairs, but all three of them lunged forward to grab and stop me. “Clark, please come back to the hotel with us…you don’t want…” Spencer started.
I shook my head, and yanked away, and was racing up the stairs. I threw open the first door, only to find it was empty. The second was a bathroom. The third door revealed Brendon, my Brendon, naked, with a mostly naked girl, on a bed.
I didn’t want to see, but the details were already seared in my brain: his hands on her hips, his lips on her chest, the smile on his lips as she ran her hands through his hair. I wasn’t typically a jealous person, but I felt something burst inside me, something that demanded I both rip them to shreds, and fall to pieces right then and there.
I had been cheated on before, had been lied to before, but none of them, not a single one hurt as much as this one did. I felt like I was physically dying.
They had both looked up when the door had hit the opposite wall, and there was a long pause as we all looked at each other, trying to process everything.
The girl spoke first. “Whoopsies,” she giggled, quickly gathering up the sheets so I couldn’t see what was already burned into my brain, but I realized, with another agonizing jab, that it was Katie. That fucking bitch .
“Clark,” Brendon moaned suddenly, his huge eyes looked tortured and horrified, but I was already turning to run. He had jumped up, stumbling slightly and pulling up his boxers, and grabbed my arm before I got to the top of the staircase.
“Let go!” I screamed, there were tears pouring down my face, uncontrollable, and I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“Clark, no, please, no, no, no…” He was pleading with me, there were tears on his cheeks as well, and it made me snap even more. I reared back and punched him hard in the face.
“Agh!” He yelled, but he dropped his hold of me, cupping his nose in his hands.
I didn’t care that I had hurt him; it couldn’t hurt even a fraction as much as the pain I was currently in. I hurtled down the stairs and out into the front lawn. I saw Ryan, Jon, and Spencer out on the front porch, but before I had realized it was them, I was already past them.
Jon caught me first, pulling me to a stop, while Ryan and Spencer caught up. “I’m going to be sick,” I gasped suddenly, and bent forward, retching and crying. Ryan had caught up my hair in his hand and pressed the other one to my neck; I could barely feel his warm fingers on my cold skin. When I’d finished, he wrapped me into a hug, making gentle soothing noises. I was trying to ask why, how, when, how often, why, why, why, why, why, why, but I was sobbing and trembling too hard to make any sort of coherent words come out of my mouth.
And that’s when I heard Brendon, yelling my name as he ran out of the house, a shirt and pants back on and his nose bleeding freely . I shoved away from Ryan, furiously wiping my eyes. “Fuck you!” I screamed at him, scraping up my throat in the process. “FUCK YOU!”
“Clark, please, don’t, please let me explain…” he was rambling, trying desperately to grab hold of me, but Spencer was holding him back.
I was sobbing again, but I managed to say, “I love you, Bren, I loved you, how could you?” Ryan and Jon each grabbed onto an arm.
“Please Clark, just hear me out!” He pleaded.
“How could you?” I cried again. I felt my legs give out, and suddenly I was on the ground.
Brendon lunged forward, kneeling on the ground as well, cupping my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “I didn’t mean it, please believe me, I didn’t mean it, you know I love you…”
My whole body jerked at that, and I struggled to pull away, but he held me closer, our foreheads touching.
“I love you,” he said desperately again and again, and I sobbed even harder, struggling to hit him, he slid his hands from my face to grab my wrists gently so I couldn’t hurt him. I was crying into his shoulder, struggling to get away, but also unable to move.
“I’m so sorry,” he breathed, he was crying too, as he kissed my shoulder, the closest thing to him.
His lips burned where they had touched, and I finally found the strength to pull away. I was aware that our friends were standing around watching all this, but I was beyond caring. “Don’t you dare,” I said struggling to my feet. “Don’t you dare touch me when you were just touching her!” I was shouting again, but my voice was shot, so it was cracking horribly. “And if you really want to sound sincere when you apologize, try buttoning your pants first!”
I turned around to leave, trying to ignore Brendon’s sobs behind me, digging my car keys out of my pocket and stormed to my car. Ryan was following me down the street to where I had parked. I struggled to unlock the door, but my hands were shaking so bad, I dropped my keys, and it was enough to set off a fresh set of tears. “Clark,” Ryan said quietly, bending down and picking them up. He straightened up and looked at me, looking afraid and sad all at once.
“Goddamn it,” I swore, and spun around, punching the side of my car. “Goddamn it!”
Ryan still said nothing, only grabbed my wrist to stop me from bruising my fist more than it already was from punching Brendon and solid metal, and pulled me to him until I quieted down.
“Let’s go,” he said finally, helping me to the passenger seat and forcing himself into the driver’s seat. He had to adjust the seat, as he was too tall and I was too short. I laughed slightly at him, and he gave me a small smile back.
There was a long silence as Ryan started driving. I assumed we were headed for the hotel, or somewhere else, but I really didn’t care where we went as long as it didn’t involve seeing Brendon “You knew,” I said suddenly, my voice was almost gone.
Ryan only nodded, once.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
He sighed, keeping his eyes on the black road. “It wasn’t my place, it was his. He loves you.”
I kept silent.
“Still.” Ryan said, suddenly fierce. “It doesn’t excuse shit. It doesn’t excuse what he did to you. You don’t deserve that.”
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t excuse shit.”
We had reached a hotel, and Ryan requested a room with two beds, smiling graciously at the woman at the front desk, who kept sending me worried glances. I bet I looked pretty awful. I didn’t even bother to try and pay, Ryan would have been practically insulted if I even attempted to reach for a credit card. We got to our room, and I changed into the clothing Ryan had given me, and then without a word, laid on the bed, and pretended to sleep. I felt numb.
Ryan was quiet, he went and took a shower, and when he came out of the bathroom, covered me with blankets. Around two in the morning, in which Ryan was still awake, texting away on his phone, there was a soft knock, and Ryan opened it to let the person in.
“Is she asleep?” I heard Jon whisper.
“Yes.” Ryan said.
“How is she?”
“She hasn’t said much. But she’s not good. I think she’s in shock right now,” Ryan said, quietly. “How is he?”
“A fucking mess, as he deserves.” Jon said bitterly. Ryan shushed him and I felt them both glance at my back, but I didn’t move. “Why would he do that?” He said finally, whispering. “Why would he ever do that to her?”
Ryan was silent for a little bit before saying, “Its Katie. You know how he gets around her.”
Jon made a noise of disgust. “I don’t get it.”
“Me either.” Ryan said, with a sigh. “Anyway, I texted Taylor, and told him what happened. He’s going to call her tomorrow and figure out how to get her home.”
“We can buy her a plane ticket,” Jon said quickly.
“She drove down here,” Ryan explained. “It doesn’t matter right now. We’ll figure it out in the morning. Maybe she’ll want to talk to him or something.”
“I might kill him before she gets the chance to,” Jon said. “You know Spencer tried to stop him, and he kept saying they were just going to ‘talk’. Fucking asshole.”
“Don’t wake her up, Jon,” Ryan said softly. “And sleep in my room, stay away from Brendon, let him figure his own shit out.”
“Your right. Call me in the morning when she wakes up. I want to be with her.”
“I will.”
“Alright, night Ryan.”
“Night,” Ryan said, and shut the door.
I waited until I was sure Ryan was asleep, and slipped to the bathroom to write him a note on the hotel stationary. It was brief, just thanking him for all his help, telling him I would call soon, and then I changed back into my old clothes, leaving his folded on my bed, with the note on top, and slipped out the door.
I couldn’t stand the thought of being in the same building as Brendon, let alone the same state. I needed as much distance from him as possible, and the only way to do that, was to get in my car, and drive home.
I drove all night, and all morning, I was exhausted, but with some sense of foreboding, I realized sleep was not going to happen for a long time.
I spent the first couple hours being miserable, staring at my phone, hoping it was Brendon, so that I wouldn’t have to be the one to call and admit my guilt. By lunch time, I had accomplished none of the work I needed to, and was starting to freak out that maybe he was so angry he’d break up with me, or some dumb shit like that, so I called Taylor. “Hi lovely,” he said, yawning.
“Did I wake you up?”
“Yeah.”
“Its 2:30. In the afternoon.”
“Exactly, why are you calling me so early.”
“Bren and I got in this huge fight last night.” I said, and then told him the whole story. “I just don’t know what to do, he hasn’t called and I feel so guilty.”
“Well,” Taylor said. “He was kind of being an asshole, but so were you I guess…I dunno why don’t you just call him?”
“I wish I could just see him, in person and apologize. I acted way out of line: jealous and just like a huge bitch.”
“Then drive up to Boston and see him,” Taylor suggested. “It’s not that far. Just go and see him.”
I paused. “That’s a really good idea…but Max would kill me if I missed practice…”
“Max Shmax,” Taylor said. “Come on, we all know Brendon is super important to you. We could all use the break too.”
“And I have work in the morning.”
“Quit.” Taylor suggested.
I snorted.
“No, seriously, Clark. You’re working 5 times harder then all of us, and there’s no need to. You have more than enough money to last you for a while, and you know Steven Riley would hire you back in a heartbeat if you needed it.”
I sat nodding, soaking in his words. “I…okay, I gotta go, Tay. I’m going to do this.”
“Good for you!” He cheered. “Go get your man.”
“Wow, okay.” I said sarcastically, making him laugh. “Thanks Tay, love you.”
“Love you too. Enjoy Boston.”
Steven Riley wasn’t happy that I was quitting without so much as a two week notice, and I felt bad or doing it because of everything he had done for me. But I didn’t feel like saying “hey, so putting in my two weeks and I’m going to need tomorrow off too,” so I just quit.
It was hard to say goodbye. Steven was my friend, not just my boss, and stupid interns and bands aside, I would miss working for him. I gave him a huge hug, and he made me promise that if we got big we’d play for his show, and then I walked downstairs and packed up my office.
As I walked down the street though, I felt this huge rush of elation. I was free, and now, it felt official that my “job” was being in a band, and making music. All I wanted to do was call Brendon and tell him my news, knowing that he was the only person in the world who would probably understand my feelings, but I resisted the urge. I had this image in my head of surprising him and apologizing for being a bitch and sharing my good news. How many times had he come and surprised me? It was time to return the favor.
Instead, as I got to my apartment and starting throwing together an overnight bag, I called Zack Hall and got the address of where they were staying, but he told me the guys were planning on going to a house party of a friend of Jon’s that night, so I better hurry up.
Less than an hour after quitting my job, I was on the highway, headed to Brendon.
I arrived at the hotel Zack said they were staying at after dark. I made my way up to the room Zack had told me they were in and knocked.
“Hey Clark!” Zack said happily, letting me in. “How was the drive?”
“Not too bad,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“Pretty good.” He saw me looking around and laughed. “They already left for the party.”
“And left you here all by yourself?”
“I was talking with my girlfriend,” Zack said, pointing to his laptop on the table. I wagged my eyebrows suggestively, and Zack shoved me. “Not like that. Jesus, you and Brendon are exactly the same, I swear to God.”
“Come on,” I scoffed. “You were asking for it.”
He laughed. “Give me a minute, and I’ll get you the address.”
“Sure,” I said, settling down on one of the beds, and recognizing Brendon’s suitcase, propped open against the wall, its contents spilling out of it. In one of the mesh pockets inside, I caught a glimpse of myself suddenly. Confused I got up to investigate, and saw that it was a crinkled and dog-eared picture of me. I couldn’t remember when it was taken, but it was out on my balcony on my apartment at night. I wasn’t looking at the camera, but rather smiling out into the night and the bright lights.
I suddenly realized it was from the night of eating dinner with Pete the first time (I recognized it by the dress I was wearing in the picture), when we had stayed up all night, talking and goofing around. I forgot he had pulled out a camera at some point to see who could make the stupidest face. He must have taken it when I wasn’t looking. I carefully put it back where I had found it.
“Here you go,” Zack said cheerfully, handing me and address along with printed out directions. “Brendon’s going to be so happy to see you, he’s been missing you like crazy.”
I smiled at that. “Thanks again, Zack. I’ll probably be seeing you tomorrow.”
“Awesome,” He said.
I walked towards the door. “Have fun with the girlfriend,” I said, winking at him.
“Have fun with the boyfriend,” He shot back.
“Touché,” I said, with a grin.
The house was not far from the hotel, and by the time I had gotten there was in full swing. I had been shoving through people for a solid half an hour and was about to give up and go back to the hotel when I finally spotted Jon and Ryan with a small group of other people, standing around and talking.
“Ryan! Jon!” I yelled, shoving my way through.
“Clark!” Jon exclaimed, and I saw both him and Ryan exchange a quick, nervous glance before they both turned beaming at me. Something in the pit of my stomach dropped. I suddenly felt sick. Something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but every fiber of my being told me that something was wrong.
“What are you doing here?” Ryan said, his arm around my shoulders. “We didn’t know you were coming!”
“I wanted to surprise Brendon,” I said with a shrug, trying to ignore the sudden feelings I had gotten. “I felt shitty about how last night ended and I wanted to see him.”
They both laughed, but I felt like something was off, something was very off, like I shouldn’t be there, or I was intruding on something I shouldn’t have. I felt like I was going to puke. Where was Brendon?
“It’s getting late, you all ready to head out?” Spencer said, suddenly appearing , clearly not noticing me yet. He looked disgusted about something. My nausea increased. “Brendon’s probably staying the night…” He rolled his eyes at this, looking angry and defeated. And then he saw me. “C-Clark?” He stammered. “What are you doing here?”
I couldn’t take this anymore. “Where’s Brendon?” I asked, my voice sounded strange to my ears.
“Um,” Jon said, hesitantly, looking at the other two.
“Why would he need to spend the night here?”
“He’s…um…” Spencer trailed off.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, now shaking from head to toe.
They all avoided looking at me.
“Tell me!” I shouted, getting angrier. “Where’s Brendon?”
“Clark,” Jon said suddenly. “Let’s go back to the hotel…”
“Where is he?” I said furiously.
They didn’t answer, but they all looked at me with undeniable pity. I felt like my heart was dropping into my stomach.
“Where is he?” I repeated, but in a whisper this time.
“Upstairs.” Ryan said finally, not looking at me, but at the wall.
I started to spin around to go upstairs, but all three of them lunged forward to grab and stop me. “Clark, please come back to the hotel with us…you don’t want…” Spencer started.
I shook my head, and yanked away, and was racing up the stairs. I threw open the first door, only to find it was empty. The second was a bathroom. The third door revealed Brendon, my Brendon, naked, with a mostly naked girl, on a bed.
I didn’t want to see, but the details were already seared in my brain: his hands on her hips, his lips on her chest, the smile on his lips as she ran her hands through his hair. I wasn’t typically a jealous person, but I felt something burst inside me, something that demanded I both rip them to shreds, and fall to pieces right then and there.
I had been cheated on before, had been lied to before, but none of them, not a single one hurt as much as this one did. I felt like I was physically dying.
They had both looked up when the door had hit the opposite wall, and there was a long pause as we all looked at each other, trying to process everything.
The girl spoke first. “Whoopsies,” she giggled, quickly gathering up the sheets so I couldn’t see what was already burned into my brain, but I realized, with another agonizing jab, that it was Katie. That fucking bitch .
“Clark,” Brendon moaned suddenly, his huge eyes looked tortured and horrified, but I was already turning to run. He had jumped up, stumbling slightly and pulling up his boxers, and grabbed my arm before I got to the top of the staircase.
“Let go!” I screamed, there were tears pouring down my face, uncontrollable, and I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“Clark, no, please, no, no, no…” He was pleading with me, there were tears on his cheeks as well, and it made me snap even more. I reared back and punched him hard in the face.
“Agh!” He yelled, but he dropped his hold of me, cupping his nose in his hands.
I didn’t care that I had hurt him; it couldn’t hurt even a fraction as much as the pain I was currently in. I hurtled down the stairs and out into the front lawn. I saw Ryan, Jon, and Spencer out on the front porch, but before I had realized it was them, I was already past them.
Jon caught me first, pulling me to a stop, while Ryan and Spencer caught up. “I’m going to be sick,” I gasped suddenly, and bent forward, retching and crying. Ryan had caught up my hair in his hand and pressed the other one to my neck; I could barely feel his warm fingers on my cold skin. When I’d finished, he wrapped me into a hug, making gentle soothing noises. I was trying to ask why, how, when, how often, why, why, why, why, why, why, but I was sobbing and trembling too hard to make any sort of coherent words come out of my mouth.
And that’s when I heard Brendon, yelling my name as he ran out of the house, a shirt and pants back on and his nose bleeding freely . I shoved away from Ryan, furiously wiping my eyes. “Fuck you!” I screamed at him, scraping up my throat in the process. “FUCK YOU!”
“Clark, please, don’t, please let me explain…” he was rambling, trying desperately to grab hold of me, but Spencer was holding him back.
I was sobbing again, but I managed to say, “I love you, Bren, I loved you, how could you?” Ryan and Jon each grabbed onto an arm.
“Please Clark, just hear me out!” He pleaded.
“How could you?” I cried again. I felt my legs give out, and suddenly I was on the ground.
Brendon lunged forward, kneeling on the ground as well, cupping my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “I didn’t mean it, please believe me, I didn’t mean it, you know I love you…”
My whole body jerked at that, and I struggled to pull away, but he held me closer, our foreheads touching.
“I love you,” he said desperately again and again, and I sobbed even harder, struggling to hit him, he slid his hands from my face to grab my wrists gently so I couldn’t hurt him. I was crying into his shoulder, struggling to get away, but also unable to move.
“I’m so sorry,” he breathed, he was crying too, as he kissed my shoulder, the closest thing to him.
His lips burned where they had touched, and I finally found the strength to pull away. I was aware that our friends were standing around watching all this, but I was beyond caring. “Don’t you dare,” I said struggling to my feet. “Don’t you dare touch me when you were just touching her!” I was shouting again, but my voice was shot, so it was cracking horribly. “And if you really want to sound sincere when you apologize, try buttoning your pants first!”
I turned around to leave, trying to ignore Brendon’s sobs behind me, digging my car keys out of my pocket and stormed to my car. Ryan was following me down the street to where I had parked. I struggled to unlock the door, but my hands were shaking so bad, I dropped my keys, and it was enough to set off a fresh set of tears. “Clark,” Ryan said quietly, bending down and picking them up. He straightened up and looked at me, looking afraid and sad all at once.
“Goddamn it,” I swore, and spun around, punching the side of my car. “Goddamn it!”
Ryan still said nothing, only grabbed my wrist to stop me from bruising my fist more than it already was from punching Brendon and solid metal, and pulled me to him until I quieted down.
“Let’s go,” he said finally, helping me to the passenger seat and forcing himself into the driver’s seat. He had to adjust the seat, as he was too tall and I was too short. I laughed slightly at him, and he gave me a small smile back.
There was a long silence as Ryan started driving. I assumed we were headed for the hotel, or somewhere else, but I really didn’t care where we went as long as it didn’t involve seeing Brendon “You knew,” I said suddenly, my voice was almost gone.
Ryan only nodded, once.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
He sighed, keeping his eyes on the black road. “It wasn’t my place, it was his. He loves you.”
I kept silent.
“Still.” Ryan said, suddenly fierce. “It doesn’t excuse shit. It doesn’t excuse what he did to you. You don’t deserve that.”
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t excuse shit.”
We had reached a hotel, and Ryan requested a room with two beds, smiling graciously at the woman at the front desk, who kept sending me worried glances. I bet I looked pretty awful. I didn’t even bother to try and pay, Ryan would have been practically insulted if I even attempted to reach for a credit card. We got to our room, and I changed into the clothing Ryan had given me, and then without a word, laid on the bed, and pretended to sleep. I felt numb.
Ryan was quiet, he went and took a shower, and when he came out of the bathroom, covered me with blankets. Around two in the morning, in which Ryan was still awake, texting away on his phone, there was a soft knock, and Ryan opened it to let the person in.
“Is she asleep?” I heard Jon whisper.
“Yes.” Ryan said.
“How is she?”
“She hasn’t said much. But she’s not good. I think she’s in shock right now,” Ryan said, quietly. “How is he?”
“A fucking mess, as he deserves.” Jon said bitterly. Ryan shushed him and I felt them both glance at my back, but I didn’t move. “Why would he do that?” He said finally, whispering. “Why would he ever do that to her?”
Ryan was silent for a little bit before saying, “Its Katie. You know how he gets around her.”
Jon made a noise of disgust. “I don’t get it.”
“Me either.” Ryan said, with a sigh. “Anyway, I texted Taylor, and told him what happened. He’s going to call her tomorrow and figure out how to get her home.”
“We can buy her a plane ticket,” Jon said quickly.
“She drove down here,” Ryan explained. “It doesn’t matter right now. We’ll figure it out in the morning. Maybe she’ll want to talk to him or something.”
“I might kill him before she gets the chance to,” Jon said. “You know Spencer tried to stop him, and he kept saying they were just going to ‘talk’. Fucking asshole.”
“Don’t wake her up, Jon,” Ryan said softly. “And sleep in my room, stay away from Brendon, let him figure his own shit out.”
“Your right. Call me in the morning when she wakes up. I want to be with her.”
“I will.”
“Alright, night Ryan.”
“Night,” Ryan said, and shut the door.
I waited until I was sure Ryan was asleep, and slipped to the bathroom to write him a note on the hotel stationary. It was brief, just thanking him for all his help, telling him I would call soon, and then I changed back into my old clothes, leaving his folded on my bed, with the note on top, and slipped out the door.
I couldn’t stand the thought of being in the same building as Brendon, let alone the same state. I needed as much distance from him as possible, and the only way to do that, was to get in my car, and drive home.
I drove all night, and all morning, I was exhausted, but with some sense of foreboding, I realized sleep was not going to happen for a long time.
♠ ♠ ♠
oh my god, you guys, I hit 500 readers on the last update. I honestly can't believe it. I really can't. You are all amazing and I just want to marry you all.Anyway, this is the chapter I suppose. And it made me cry when I wrote it because I'm way too attached to my fictional characters.
Leave me a message to tell me your feeeelllllllinnnnngggggssssssss
Much Love,
Sophie