Countdown to Self-Destruct

endings
From: Ryan Ross (iamthewalrus86@hotmail.com)
Sent: Sun 6/21/09 2:04 PM
To: Ryan Ross (iamthewalrus86@hotmail.com)

when i told spencer, he just said, well, okay, if that's what you really want, and he blinked at me as if in awe, like he never would've guessed that this was the solution to everything. because spencer thinks i'm always right. he has always accepted everything i say to him as absolute truth, and he did then. he always will.

it never occurred to him that this was a suicide mission.

Holly got it. when i told her what i was doing, she got all pissed off and incoherant and started ranting about SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR, threatening to call my mom or whatever, and i just rolled my eyes at her--like i care what my mom does! that's the scary thing about me, and i saw the look come into Holly's eyes as she realized this: i don't answer to anyone.

usually it's just lonely, but sometimes it's terrifying too. i mean, whenever i fly off the handle, there's no one there to grab me and steer me away from certain doom. it's just me and all my stupid friends, who i never listen to anyway. and Holly.

i listen to Holly though. and i knew she was right, it was self-destructive behavior, but what else could i do? i had to get out.

I JUST THINK THIS IS A LITTLE EXTREME, she said, all flustered, delicate eyebrows drawn together over wide eyes, red cheeks. she bit her lip. HAVE YOU TOLD BRENDON YET?

no.

he's going to be very upset, Holly said. and he was.

i didn't say it to his face because i am a cold, cruel, manipulating coward, and i knew that brendon asking me Why was the one thing that could shake me. i figured he would either get really mad or really sad, and i could handle the mad thing, but fuck...what if he started crying? or what if he didn't cry? maybe that would be worse. maybe it would be worse if he just looked at me with that damn face of his, all confused and grief-stricken like i knew he would be...

i wrote him an email that sat festering in my drafts folder for days, and every time i went back and tweaked a word here or there (which i did constantly--i was fucking FIXATING on that damn email, just like the dogs on dog whisperer fixate on shadows on the walls and shit like that, and no, of course i don't watch that show, who the hell do you think i am anyway--spencer smith?) i pictured brendon all curled up in his bed at home with his big square nerdy glasses on, laptop perched in his lap as he checked his email. i saw him mouth every word to himself like a second-grader, sure that he must have misread something. what the hell? how could this HAPPEN? why didn't he notice before? did he miss something? and he just stares and stares and stares at the words on the screen, not blinking, not crying, not mouthing the words anymore, just absorbing the shock of the blow. and he's quiet on the outside, like he always is when he's upset, but inside he just keeps thinking HOW CAN RYAN LEAVE THE BAND?

how CAN ryan leave the band? at first i asked myself if it was even possible, to separate myself from panic at the disco--but then i realized that i had been doing it already for a while. the exclamation point wasn't even the first step. they all bit their lips and shed a tear when we switched from the sequins and the pristine dandy gloves to the vintage floral prints, but it was all the same to me. and when you strip it all down, what is there to panic at the disco, anyway? pop culture references shrouded in suits and lace and eyeliner, with slivers of my own words peeking out behind glittery masquerade masks. that's all.

it was never so personal anyway. it never really meant that much to me. all i ever did was run away--the band was running away from Dad, from Vegas, and then l.a. was running away from the band... i was a coward when you got right down to it, and i had no soul left to me, these days. not that i ever had much of one to begin with, but you know, eventually something inside of you snaps, and what used to be just a little suddenly isn't there at all anymore. you just lose it.

so you run away.

i don't remember the moment that i realized i couldn't do it anymore. i think it came to me slowly, and then one morning as i was sticking my head in the refrigerator, looking for food, i found myself arranging the words in my head.

This Isn't How I Thought It Would Be. Things Are Different Now, and I'm Not Sure I Can Handle It. I Think I'd Like to Try Something Else for a While. Musically Speaking, We Just Aren't on the Same Page Anymore...

what page was i on, anyway? i wish life was like that--you could just dog-ear a page or slide in a bookmark and hold your place, you don't have to worry about finding your way home between tours when the magazines have clouded your judgement, you don't have to wonder whether or not there will still be room for you there when you get back. i wish i knew where i was all the time. mostly i just feel like a balloon with a cut string, floating away to sail out over the ocean and choke some poor unsuspecting whale to death. because a lot of people associate the image of a balloon flying away with freedom, but i just think of whales choking whenever i see it.

and who would've thought that such a small colorful thing could choke such a big ugly whale to death?

no one has ever said such a thing to me outright, but i see it in their eyes when they ask me about leaving the band: why am i leaving the band i started in the first place? it just got out of hand, that's all, is what i feel like saying to them, but even that sounds a little pathetic and is not entirely true. sure, it all happened pretty fast and it wasn't what i had expected, not in a million bajillion years, but it wasn't THAT bad, it didn't change SO much. it was the same all along, really, for us--jon is nice and brendon is always happy and spencer's the same kid he's always been and, fuck, even brent's not so bad.

it was never really what i wanted though. the problem was that i invested EVERYTHING in that damn band because it was all i had at the time, it was the only distraction, the only escape, and i never counted on everyone else needing it as badly as i did--no, that's where things went wrong. because then when i didn't need it anymore and i just wanted to cut the ties and let the balloon fly away, there were too many people left holding on. i cut too many strings that had never belonged to me.

not that i care. i am essentially a heartless bastard (especially since the music industry stole my soul), and even when i sat there with my fingers poised on the keyboard of my laptop writing the most cowardly of cowardly emails and picturing brendon crying his beautiful little eyes out, i didn't feel GUILTY--i felt AFRAID of feeling guilty. i was AFRAID that i would feel bad because i let brendon down and then i couldn't run away. i would have to stand tall like a man and face myself.

and fuck it, i couldn't face myself, i never could, i always flinched at the reflection in the mirror and maybe that was the reason for all the glittery masks and the make-up and the goddamn costumes, maybe i was just covering up the real Me and then everyone fell in love with the fake stand-in, and fuck, what was i supposed to do then? i couldn't BE him for everyone, i couldn't do it anymore. i didn't have anything left to give in me.

and yes, i am selfish. there's so much hurt so deep inside of me, and i won't even share it with them, i won't let them know it's there except for a few clipped song lyrics that don't even make it on the actual songs, just in the cd booklet (because who the hell reads those except for all of YOU?), and even that was never enough. why couldn't i give you my pain when you gave me yours? i was so selfish, you know.

and half the time i don't even GET myself. i don't understand, and Holly explains me to me and i just take her word for it because she knows me better than anyone, pretty much. i mean, when we were walking around the car dealership hand-in-hand and she watched a little pink balloon flying up towards the sky and said that when she was little she used to wonder how many she would have to gather up before they would all carry her far away from here and i said that i felt the same way almost every day i was alive, she squeezed my hand and smiled at me in the saddest way, but not like she thought i was crazy, like she understood and she was sorry because she Loved me--and how many people know me well enough to do that? only her, really.

and then i wrote her a letter the other day, pouring my fucking heart out, and when she wrote back, all she had to say was that i use too many run-on sentences. so i wrote her back and said, I LIKE RUN-ON SENTENCES. I'M NOT A FAN OF ENDINGS, and she wrote me back saying, WELL, THAT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE YOU'RE ALWAYS ENDING EVERYTHING, and i taped that letter up right on my bedroom wall because it was the goddamn truest thing anyone had ever said about me. and it was brave too, you know, for her to say that to me--but Holly was never ever afraid of me. she said that a lot of times when parents are abusive, their kids grow up to be abusive too, even though they hated it--but then she said i was different, and i would never be abusive. i asked her if she was Sure and she said, of course I'm Sure, i know you, don't i? and fuck, what was i supposed to say to that? she said, you're so meek, like a little baby rabbit. you would never hurt anyone, except maybe yourself in invisible ways, and i wish you wouldn't. (or something along those lines, anyway, i don't think that's exactly what she said, but you get the gist of it.)

she Loved me.

i don't know why. i often sit and wonder about it, but mostly i just feel sorry for her, because i never Loved her back, really. it's not that i didn't want to, because she was a lovely girl and i couldn't have found better. i just didn't know how.