The Past is Best Forgotten

Bri walked in backstage. “Hey, guys.”

“Hey, Bri,” Gerard said as he hugged her. “Keelie said you were acting all depressed about Ryan or something. You seem fine now. What’s up?”

“Well, one of my best friends showed up and I instantly perked up.”

Gerard looked behind Bri. “Karen! Nice to see you again.”

Karen smiled. “I know, it is nice to see me isn’t it?”

Bri laughed at her friend and said, “Come on Gerard, let’s get your face looking prettiful.”

“Cause right now, you’re uglier than Britney Spears in a sparkly black bikini in the last VMAs,” Karen replied, which received a stuck out tongue from Gerard.

“I forgot that?” she said, looking at Karen. Karen nodded and Bri groaned. “And the thing that will be worse is if there were girls groping on her onstage, too.”

“Actually,”Karen said, “there were.”

Bri looked at Gerard. “I missed out on a lot. Somebody tell me they have it on TiVo.”

“I do!” Frank said. Everyone looked at him. “So what? I like the VMAs!”

Bri and Karen laughed before pushing Gerard to the dressing room.

“So Gee," Bri said once Gerard was sitting in the make-up chair. "How do you want your make-up done?"

"The usual way," he said, "Why do you always hope I'll do something different."

Bri shrugged. "May be I'm getting bored with black and red... or scared of it."

Gerard laughed. "That's not going to happen, hun, but I see why you did Ryan's make-up. It's always different."

"And is different bad?" Karen asked in Bri's defense.

"No, I just don't want to go out there and the audience hate my make-up," Gerard said. "They expect that stuff from Ryan and Brendon."

"Yeah, it would just be AWFUL for all those girls to stop drooling on you," Bri said sarcastically, "You may have to stop sending your jackets to dry cleaning." She did a fake gasp and Karen laughed.

Bri was quiet when she started his make-up. After a minute or two, Gerard noticed that she didn't look all too happy. In fact, she looked like she was about to cry. "Are you ok, Bri?" he asked.

"Don't move or I'll have to start over," she said, her voice quivering as if it was about to break.

Gerard moved her hand away from his face. "Bri, what's wrong?"

Bri shook her head, telling him that she didn't want to talk about it. "Just let me do my job," she said.

He did that, and when she was done with his make-up, she completely broke down.

Karen ran to her. "Bri, baby what's wrong?" She rubbed Bri's back and Gerard sat next to her and did the same.

"Is it Ryan?" Gerard asked.

Bri gave them a nod, but was crying too hard to talk. Karen told Gerard to go on, since it was time for him to perform, and he did.

Ryan sat in the hotel room. He looked at the clock on his phone.

'She's with My Chemical Romance right now,' he thought, 'I can't disturb her at work. Stupid me, not charging my phone up.'

Brendon sat beside him. "Keelie just called me. Karen got to the apartment this afternoon and that instantly perked Bri up."

Ryan just shrugged. "I can't believe the phone died right before I told her. She's at work right now, and I won't have time to talk to her the rest of the tour."

"You can tell her when you get back," Brendon said, "Something will keep her alive whether it's skittles or a mental hospital."

Ryan gave him an evil look. "That's not funny," he said, then paused. "What if she moves on before I get back?"

He started to panic, but Brendon stopped him. "She won't. Keelie wouldn't let that happen. She will think of a clever way to get her to take her mind off of whatever guys wants her." Brendon looked at his phone. "Hey, My Chem is performing right now, and someone has nothing to do."

Ryan smiled and pulled out his own phone. He called Bri's cell phone, hoping that she had not forgotten it at home, which had happened before.

"Hey, Ryan long time no see," Karen said with fake enthusiasm in her voice, then she turned protective, "Now, why did you hang up on one of my best friends, who is almost like one of my little sisters. You better tell the truth, Ross, because you know how bad I hurt Brendon that one time, and it was on accident."

"Karen?" he said, "Where's Bri?"

"Right here with me, but I would like to chat with you right now."

Ryan smiled at Karen's protectiveness. "My cell phone wasn't charged and the battery died on me. I wanted to tell Bri something important."

Karen's voice had softened greatly. "What did you want to tell her?"

"I'd rather tell HER right now. I'm sure she'll tell you after I do."

The protectiveness came back in an instant, "Well, unless you tell me, I'm not letting you talk to her. Your battery may die again." She said in a mocking voice, then she hung up.

Ryan sighed and put his phone on the night stand, knowing that he could never get past Karen when she was being protective.

“What happened?” Brendon said. He sat beside Ryan, ready to hear the story.

“Karen answered, and I guess Bri got really upset or something because Karen was being really protective. Bri still thinks I hung up on her.”

Brendon sat at the desk chair near the bed. “But Keelie said she was happy.”

Ryan laughed sarcastically. “She was happy? Remember the one time I accidentally broke her wrist jumping on that trampoline? She acted like she was fine for a whole week, until she put her weight on it and she immediately broke down crying!”

“Oh, yeah,” Brendon said, remembering the incident. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ryan said. “I’m just upset that she’s hurt and it's my fault."

After the concert ended, Gerard, Mikey, Frank, Bob, and Ray ran to check on their favorite make-up artist.

When they got into Gerard's dressing room, Karen stopped them. "She's asleep, and Ryan called her. He said he wanted to tell her something important."

Gerard looked at Karen. "You know you could of woken up Bri for that."

Karen shook her head. "I couldn't let him talk to her, he would have hurt her."

"How do you know? For all we know, he could have been about to confess his love to her." Gerard walked into the dressing room and grabbed Bri's cell phone. He called Ryan.

"Hey, this is Ryan. . . ," Gerard heard the voice mail. He hung up.

"His phone is turned off," he said as he put the phone down. "I hope what he had to say wasn't too important, because he won't have time to the rest of his tour, and neither Panic! nor us will be able to deal with them."

Just then Bri woke and slowly rose from the couch. "Is the concert already over?" she asked groggily.

"Yeah," Gerard said. "Let's get you home, sweetheart." He led her to her car and he, Bri, and Karen piled in.

Once they were at the apartment, Gerard decided to talk to Bri. He held her back while Karen went inside.

"Don't be upset about Ryan. He wouldn't intentionally do something bad to you. I know him and he wouldn't treat you like that."

Bri smiled. "Thanks, Gee. I'll try to remember that." Then she got out and went into her apartment.

When she walked in, the first thing she saw was Pete, sitting on the couch and talking to Keelie and Karen.

"Hey, boy. What are you doing here?" she asked Pete.

Pete turned around, looked at Bri, and smiled. "I just thought I would come over and harrass some girls that didn't have their boyfriends over."

Bri shook her head and sat on the seat next to the couch. "I haven't seen Patrick in a while. How has he been?"

Pete shrugged. "Fine. We're both working on new music and everything, but that's about all we're doing." Looking over at Keelie, Pete asked. "How long is Panic! supposed to be gone?"

"About a month," Keelie said.

Pete made a noise as if to say 'Ouch.' "So you'll be away from darling Brendon a whole month?" He looked at Bri. "We'll have to be far, far away when they arrive."

"Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz," Keelie said with a force that, combined with using his full name, made him shrink a little, "we are adults we can control ourselves until we have some time alone. Plus, we have other, more important things to deal with." She jerked her head in Bri's direction.

Bri, who noticed the head jerk said, "What do you mean by that."

"They're going to take you and Ross to the Chapel of Love to be married by the King," Pete said with a little laugh. "Against both of your will because we all know the love you have for each other."

Bri rolled her eyes. "If he loved me so much he wouldn't have hung up on me."

Keelie stood up. "Bri, he didn't hang up on you!"

"Oh! What are you gonna back him up with the excuse that his 'phone died' and he had to tell her something so important that he wouldn't even tell me? He knows how close I am to her so why wouldn't he tell me?" Karen yelled to Keelie.

"BECAUSE HE WANTED TO BE THE ONLY ONE TO TELL HER!!!" Karen said, "NOT LET SOMEONE ELSE TELL HER!!!"

"QUIT IT, JUST QUIT IT!!!" Bri said. The other two looked at her and, seeing her this way before, turned quiet. "We can see if he has anything to say to me when he gets back. So SHUT UP about all of it until next month." Then she walked off to her room.