Countdown to Self-Destruct

white
From: Ryan Ross (iamthewalrus86@hotmail.com)
Sent: Thurs 7/04/09 1:41 AM
To: Ryan Ross (iamthewalrus86@hotmail.com)

when i told jon that i was leaving he said he wanted to come too. that was never my intention and at first it made me feel worse--i had never meant to split up the band, only to free myself from it. i wasn't so sad to leave panic behind but i didn't have anything against it either. i didn't want it to die. i didn't know if the band could survive if me AND jon both left.

but the more i thought about it, it seemed like a better idea. maybe if both of us left, there would be less focus on me. less blame, maybe. because the fans were definitely going to blame me.

and i deserved it.

it was my fault i guess but i didn't feel so bad. remember, i'm a sorry bastard.

i guess a lot of people will probably think that me and jon were conspiring against brendon and spencer or something, or that we didn't have the same ideals or some shit like that. it wasn't that at all really though. i mean, my ideals were always a lot different from the other guys', but brendon went along with anything and spencer thought i was always right and jon was the new guy, so he couldn't really just barge in and start complaining about my tyrant ways. i guess that's why he wanted to leave when i did.

but jon and i didn't decide to leave together. it wasn't like that. we never even talked about it, really, after that first day when i told him i was leaving. he must've just been tired of us, tired of the lifestyle; he must have assumed that was my only motive too. he must have thought i just wanted to go off chasing my wild Beatles dreams alone.

he didn't see my plans. he didn't understand. he didn't realize i was cutting all the strings and floating away, for good.

i think maybe brendon sensed the underlying hysteria in all my calm preparations. he and Holly were the only ones though. and Holly was the only one who ever tried to stop me. brendon understood me better than most but he didn't try to romanticize me. he didn't entertain notions of changing me for the better like Holly did. i think he knew i was already too far gone from the very first time we ever met.

i think he knew he couldn't salvage what i was hellbent on destroying, so he didn't try too hard. i didn't hear from him for a day or two but then he called me this morning and said that he was sorry about how things happened and he wished he could fix it. i told him i was sorry too and had tried to fix it all my life, but it never worked; i told him not to waste his time. he said, still, i wish you would reconsider, and he told me to think it over for a few days and then let him know for sure if i was leaving.

i knew i was leaving for sure--i was already gone--but his voice sounded so hopeful over the phone that i said, okay, i'll think about it, though i had thought about it so much in the past few weeks that i thought some of the neuron pathways in my brain might short out if i gave it any more thought.

i think he knew i was leaving, though. i heard the note of resignation in his voice. i guess he must have heard from jon by then too. poor brendon... i pictured him reaching out to hold onto us as we pulled away from him like tectonic plates with oceans of molten lava in between. there was no putting pangea back together again.

weird analogy, i guess. i'm surprised i still remember all that shit. but the white lines make my brain work in strange ways that even i don't recognize sometimes....

Holly says i'm changing. i know she's right but i act like she's crazy whenever she says it. we don't live together (though she spends most nights here) so she doesn't know how often i make the white lines now. i think i know the white better than i know her face sometimes but i don't tell her that of course.

it's a bad habit and every time i shove a kleenex up my nose to stop the bleeding, all i see is Dad passed out in the armchair with bottles and cans strewn all around him at his feet, the spawn of his addiction. and i never thought anything could ever be worse than those nights spent at the hospital, those nights spent in my room with the stereo loud to drown him out, the hand-shaped bruise on my wrist, but sometimes i fall into the white for a while and when i come back out i don't recognize myself or Holly or anyone and i don't remember, and i think that is worse. i think the white lines are much worse.

once Holly came over and found me lying in the floor crying, telling Dad over and over again about how I FOUND SOMETHING WORSE, AREN'T YOU FUCKING PROUD OF ME and the worry never really went out of her eyes after that. i never told her what it all meant but i guess she knew. it's not like she didn't see the little baggies and the nail files and the lines on the table, and it's not like i never told her about Dad. and i guess anyone could tell that after all those years wasted crying over Dad, i still turned out worse, and that's enough to break anyone's heart. even if you don't have much of a heart to begin with.

i used to wonder sometimes if Dad would be ashamed of me and i asked Holly once, but she said that was unhealthy to think about so i stopped thinking about it. does it even matter? we both have our faults, our failures, our addictions. he is dead and i will be someday too.

she told me the white lines were bad, really really bad and if i didn't stop i would die. she was crying when she said it and Holly never really cries, so i knew it was serious. but how can i take it seriously? it's l.a. the white lines are everywhere, everyone carries the baggies around in their back pockets and designer handbags, and most of them are alive most days.

it's just that you're changing, she would say, and i knew she meant the way i didn't call her every night at 11:30 to say goodnight anymore and i didn't feel like going to the movies and sharing a cherry coke like we used to. the bars seemed darker, smokier and they made me feel alone so i didn't like going there either. i mostly stayed at home, reading and writing sometimes but usually just sleeping and drifting into the white, listening to The Beatles. sometimes she came to visit and i wasn't as nice to her as i should have been because there was something about life that had me angry with everyone. it wasn't fair but i didn't know how to stop it. all i ever want to do anymore is run away, and it seems like all she does these days is try and hold me in place.

it's just that you're changing... and i know everyone's always changing, said Holly as she curled into my side last night, but sometimes i don't know what you're thinking, ryan. it worries me.

we were lying in bed in the dark and i wasn't tired at all but i didn't know how to answer her so i pretended to be asleep.

ryan? she breathed into my neck. she nudged me. i didn't move.

she pressed her face into my collarbone and the fluttering of her eyelashes tickled my skin, and then i felt a drop of hot moisture pooling there as she cried. and even though i felt so awful for not Loving her, i couldn't help but think about how her arm around my waist, her head on my chest, and her legs wrapped up in mine felt like shackles. a cage.

i didn't sleep at all last night.