Don't Hold Your Breath

I was laying across my bed moping. Which was to be expected. My aunt just gave me a two hour lecture on.... Well I think you can guess. There was another knock on my door. The third one in ten minutes. 

"GO AWAY!" I yelled at the door. My voice slightly muffled because of my position on the pillow. 

"Ryan you have a guest. She's waiting at the door!" my aunt called from the other side. I sighed and got out of my bed. I made my way to my door and unlocked it, opening it slowly. 

"Who is it?" I asked stupidly. I only know one person in this town. But knowing my luck it could possibly be the town cop come to take me away for life for being homosexual. 

"Its that neighbor girl from next door." she answered simply. I sighed and began to make my way to the door when she grabbed my arm. "Be careful, I sense she may be of the dark side. I'd watch  your back if I were you." she whispered. I rolled my eyes and made my way to the front door. 

"Hey." I said as I opened it. In the most pleasant voice I could manage. 

"Hey..." she said cautiously. Catching my iffy mood. "come with me." she said looking around, probably making sure Amy wasn't watching. Which she probably was. 

She grabbed my arm and dragged me next door. She brought me in the house and her parents were sitting in the living room. "Hey mom and dad, Ryans gay, we'll be up in my room." she spoke quickly pulling me up some stairs before anyone of us could reply.

"Nice." I said once she closed the door. 

"Sorry, but my moms over paranoid. She would usually never let me be alone in my room with a boy. Unless they're gay of course." She explained. 

"Right.... Well, what was so important that you had to drag me up here?" I asked. 

"This." She said pulling out her phone. She handed it to me smiling. "He's been pestering me all day. He said he needs to talk to you."

As if on cue the phone rang and Brendon's name came up. I answered it, relief apparent in my voice. 

"Hey sweetie." I answered. 

"Hi." I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Whats up? And why are you pestering my one and only friend here in Alabama?"

"Hey she said I could." he defended. "Anyways, I just talked to my mom...." The excitement in his voice dropped dramatically when he said that. 

"Whats wrong baby? What happened?" I asked concerned. 

"I talked to my mom...." he repeated. 

"You already said that sweetie. What happened? Hun, you're scaring me." 

He sighed. 

"She said-" he sighed again. "I want to visit you. But she said that she'll let us visit a-after graduation..." he finished. What was he so gloomy about? I get to see my baby after graduation!

"Brendon! That's great! Why are you so sad?" 

"I wanted to see you sooner. Ryan, graduation is three months away! Three fucking months!" he began freaking out. 

"Bren......Brenny....B...ba..BRENDON!" I ended up yelling. He wouldn't listen to me. He just continued freaking out. Talking about how he wanted a job, he couldn't wait three months ect. 

"Brendon," I continued when he finally stopped. "Three months- it's nothing. And it's hell of a lot better then not seeing me for eight months. I miss you too, and these three months are going to kill me. But I love you, and we will make it through this." I said feeling my eyes begin to water up. 

I glanced over at Kaela who had her hand over her mouth and looked like she just witnessed the sweetest thing in the world. 

"I-I love you too." I almost heard him smile through his tears. 

From there we began to talk about nothing and everything all at once. We talked for hours. Kaela ended up on her computer completely tuning us out. It got to the point where I was extremely tired, and Brendon was just barely conscious. He was just barely humming in response to my babbling. I stopped talking and began to sing to him. 

On of the very songs on my special playlist. One of the very ones I've listened to almost nonstop since I got here. 

"At my most beautiful
I count your eyelashes secretly
With everyone I whisper 'I love you'
I let you sleep. 
I know your closed eye watching me, listening
I thought I saw you smile."

I stopped when I heard soft snoring from the other line. I sighed and hung up the phone. 

I walked over to Kaela and handed her the phone. 
"Thanks." I smiled. 

She yawned and stretched. "No problem" she said grabbing the phone. 

"Do you want me to leave?" I asked. She looked tired. 

"No, no, stay." she said patting a place next to her on the bed. "Tell me about yourself." She said when I sat down. 

"Well.... What do you want to know?" 

"Why are you here?" she asked nonchalantly. 

"You mean in Alabama..?" I questioned. She nodded. "Um...." I hesitated. I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell her my whole history. 

"Its alright if you don't want to tell me." she added after she noticed I was uncomfortable talking about it. "How about you tell me about you and Brendon." she suggested. 

Now that I could do. 

"You sure? I wouldn't want to bore you with ramblings about my boyfriend. " 

She laughed. 

"I don't mind. I want to know about him." 

"Alright, you asked for it. Well, he has the most beautiful brown eyes, and dark brown hair. He has the softest, biggest, most kissable lips," I paused and looked over at her with a smirk on my face. "Then there's his amazingly sexy apple bottom-" I cut myself off. I had said too much. She had an amused look on her face. "Then there's his personality..... I continued. He's one of the sweetest most caring people you'll ever meet. He's also really bubbly, and does not react to caffeine well. One time, I was stuck in a van for several hours with Brendon all hyped up on caffeine. He wouldn't stop talking- or singing I should say- at the top of his lungs and he was bouncing off the walls." She giggled. 

"How did you two get together?" I sighed. 

"That's another long story." I laughed. Not because it was funny, but because I had talked so much. 

"Well, before I met Brendon, I was a total ass, with a trophy girlfriend I guess you could call it, I hung with the popular Jack asses and only cared about my reputation. But then Brendon moved in across the street....  I guess you could say we kinda became friends from there. After he found out about my...uh...secret, he understood why I couldn't tell my "friends" we had been hanging out. Then there was the day he practically saved my life and we became pretty close." I skipped the whole Brendon drama with his parents thing for the sake of time. "Then there came the day when Brendon got a boyfriend. You see, he told me that he liked, well loved me, and being the selfish, asinine idiot I was, I told him I was straight and didn't like him in that way. So I assumed the whole Mikey phase was just to get over me. But it drove me insanely jealous, and I couldn't understand why. Then one day I finally realized what an idiot I was being, and completely broke down in front of him, pretty much asking him to break up with his boyfriend and be with me. Which he eventually did... And so, here we are today."

She just blinked. "Wow. Your guy's life is like a soap opera or something. All that's missing is the disapproving religious parents, and some one getting thrown in jail." 

I just looked at her in disbelief. Slightly agape. "Uuuhhhh" was all I could get out. 

Her eyes widened as she took in my expression. 
"You're kidding me right?"

"Enough about me." I interrupted. "What about you?" I asked. 

"Well, there's not much to know. My parents forced me to move here from sanfrancisco because my dad got a well paying job here. I'm a vegetarian, and I've never had a boyfriend. "

"Well your story's a lot shorter then mine." I added. "You've never had a boyfriend?" I asked. I don't see why she wouldn't. She seemed really nice, and she was amazingly pretty. She had naturally long dark brown hair, beautiful big brown eyes, and nice full lips that reminded me of Brendon's. Maybe that's why I liked her so much... And her style seemed like a cross between hippie and almost a little scene. She wore a lot of eye make up that she didn't need. She was currently wearing an over sized black band tee that had the neck cut off so it hung around her shoulders, and was pinned in the back so it clung to her form. She was also wearing a pair of jeans with humongous tears all over the front, with black and green stripped tights underneath. On the back of her jeans were the lyrics to some Beatles songs, and on the front was a very intricate picture of a million things going on at once. I assumed she drew it herself with sharpie. She also wasn't one of those stick figures you see everywhere. She definitely had curves. But she wasn't hideously over weight either. It was part of her charm. I'm sure if I were straight I would be attracted to her. 

"Yeah, not sure why. I guess I've just never really put myself out there. I have trouble with my self esteem." she added. 

"I don't see why. You're beautiful!" I added. She turned red and looked down. 

"Thanks." She mumbled. 

"No problem" I smiled. "I should be getting home now. My aunts probably worried."

"Yeah, I'll see you at school tomorrow." she said. 

Crap. I completely forgot about that. Now I was going to have to face a whole new crowd of religious conservative people. 

"Great." I added sarcastically. As I walked out of the room. "Bye. See you tomorrow." I called as I walked out. 

Tomorrow was going to be a hell of a long day.