You Only Get One Shot Do Not Miss Your Chance to Blow

I sneakily peeked through Brendon’s bedroom door and found him sleeping on his stomach with his butt in the air and his legs tucked under him. His arms were at his sides and his face was smashed in his pillow and he was lightly snoring. I swear it could have been a new yoga position.

I burst through his door. “Good mooorninggg!!” I sang. Brendon didn’t move at all except choke on his snore, but then he settled back into his regular breathing pattern. I laughed and started sprinting to his bed. I did a belly flop on top of, him causing him to let out a huge wheeze.

I saw his great brown eyes for a flash, but soon they disappeared and were covered by his eyelids once again.

“Hhhh! Come on, Brenny! Wakeup!” I started bouncing on the bed lightly.

“Mmm hmm gshommer. Mm.,” was all I got in response. I exhaled loudly and climbed on his back and straddled his body with my legs and started tickling him. I finally started getting a real reaction from this; Brendon started giggling in his sleep lightly.

I tickled harder and finally he said something other than mumbles. “Stop, Emmyyy,” Brendon whined.

I laughed and tickled him harder, “Then get up!”

“No!” He rolled over making me fall off of him and he then straddled me, tickling me back. I managed to roll of the bed, purposely pulling the covers with me as I went. “No!” he said again as he curled up into a ball in the middle of his queen sized bed with only his thin boxers on.

I took the covers with me as I made my way to his closet. I heard Brendon start snoring lightly behind me again. “Come on, Brenny! It’s Sunday, I don’t have to work! Let’s do something,” I threw a pair of jeans at him. “I’m going to be in the kitchen, and when I come back you better have pants on!”

I started down the stairs when Brendon yelled. “I’ll have my pants but no shirt! ‘Cause I know how you love my sexy bod!”

I shook my head and laughed and went down to get myself a bowl of cereal.

I was pouring milk into my bowl when I felt arms snake around my waist, “Hey.”

His soft, warm charming voice sent chills down my back. I turned around and stuck my spoon on his nose. “Well hello there.”

“So, what is the reason for you waking my up at this ungodly hour?”

“Well for your information, its ten o’clock and I haven’t seen you since lunch Wednesday.” I smiled and sat down after I took my spoon off his nose and started eating my lucky charms. “It’s funny, I saw Ryan, Spencer and even Jon. But not you.”

“Yeah, I’ve been working on some new stuff. I hope Ryan likes it,” he looked hopeful and he zoned out for a while, probably thinking about his new material.

“You should show me some of it,” I smiled.

“Of course,” He grabbed my spoon and took a bite. “You know what we should do, let’s go to the lake!”

“Okay! Let’s go!” I got up and brought the bowl to the sink. It would be nice to get out of his scary apartment. All the white walls were driving me crazy!

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You’re not going to finish that?”

“Aren’t we going?” I asked keenly.

“You can’t waste a perfectly good bowl of Lucky Charms!” He picked up the bowl and started shoveling the cereal in his mouth. I went to get my purse and shoes from his room, excited to spend time with Bren. I came back down and saw him dumping more cereal in his bowl, so while he ate I played with Dylan and continued texting Hayley and Spencer, in the lonely white rooms.

---

“So, how is all the music going?” I asked as we walked in the sand down the shoreline of the lake.

“It’s going… eh,” he said, as he pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes for me, he took his black sunglasses out and put them on him as well. I looked over and saw some paparazzi. I always wondered why that would help, but I shrugged it off and let Brendon do his thing.

“Just ‘eh’?”

“Yeah, we have a lot of songs, it just that we don’t like them.”

“Then… why don’t you do something else?” I asked, getting confused.

“Because we do like them. I don’t know! It’s hard to explain.”

I just nodded, kind of understanding, kind of not.

“So what have you done lately?” he asked as we approached the sand. The lake was busy, but not as busy as it should be on a Sunday afternoon. The lake was privately owned, but there was a public landing with sand for the public. There was a park area with grass above the sand where there were more families grilling out and playing with their kids.

“Hmm,” I thought as Brendon grabbed my hand and laced his fingers with mine as we walked. “Well, actually, I’ve been thinking about college.” I looked at him, hoping to get his approval.

He looked shocked at first, but then let it sink in. “That’s great, Emmy!”

“You think so?”

“Well yeah, you can’t be a bartender your whole life can you?”

I faked gasped, “Yes! And that was what I was planning on doing!” I shook off his grasp on my hand and started stomping away.

He threw his head back and laughed and jogged to catch up with me. He took my hand and kissed my knuckles. “What are you thinking about doing?” he asked, getting serious again.

“I don’t know, that’s the problem. I don’t have a lot of money, so I don’t want to waste my time. I need to be sure about what I want in this life.”

“Well, how about music? Ryan said you can write some good stuff,” he offered, referring to what I had been doing the past week; hanging out with Spencer and Ryan. It felt good to spend more time with Ryan and Spencer, with out girlfriends or boyfriends. It reminded me of back when we met, we just hung out and had fun, being carefree.

“I don’t think I enjoy it that much. I don’t have the same passion as you,” I said, thinking about how obsessed Brendon was with music and writing.

“You’ll find it,” he winked at me and pulled me down on his giant towel he put down. I laid out on my back and soaked up the rays from the sun. Brendon walked his callused finger tips across my stomach. He stopped at the scar on my side and started tracing circles around it. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked my about any of my scars yet. “Emily.”

I open my eyes slowly. Brendon never called me that. He was on his side, propped up on his elbow looking at me. “Y-Yeah?” I supported myself with both elbows and looked at him back, worried.

“We need to talk.” A cringle flipped in my stomach and I started picking at my pink nail polish. “Emily, look at me.” I didn’t look up. I refused to look up. I never wanted to look up. Those giant brown eyes would soften me up and melt my heart until I would say yes to anything. Maybe this breakup would be a good thing, I had already broken my promise to myself to never fall hard for a boy, which was what I already was doing. Right now. But still, I didn’t look up.

He took my chin and pushed it up with his finger. I was forced to look into his big brown eyes, and I kept telling myself to ignore the twang I felt in my heart when he looked at me, or the goose bumps that ran up and down my arms when he touched me, but I still couldn’t overlook the feelings he gave me.

“What’s going on? You haven’t talked to me. Don’t you remember when you used to come to me and tell me what was bothering you? Why can’t you do that anymore?”

I breathed out a huge sigh in relief, I even started chuckling lightly.

“What. I don’t think this is really a laughing a matter, Em.”

“No,” I laughed again. “I thought you were going to break up with me!” I put my forehead down on his chest and laughed again. It felt so good to laugh, to let out all my worries.

Brendon laughed too, “You’re something else, Emmy.” He kissed the back of my head, as I continued to smile into his chest.

We both sat up. He was about to say something but I cut him off, “Let’s go swimming!” I yelled and yanked his white T of him and started running towards the water, dodging kids’ sandcastles and I ran.

I ran as far as I could in the water before the water was so high that stopped me in my tracks, and then I did a flop onto the lake’s waves. Brendon flopped in a little after me and picked me up and flung me in the water. After goofing around a little bit more, we grew tired and went up on shore to dry off.

We had been lying in the sun for about a half hour when suddenly Brendon sat up instantly and grabbed my wrist with spite. I sat up quickly, “Ow?”

“Did you hear that?!”

“Uh no?”

“That giggle. That stupid little giggle. That giggle I hate. That giggle.”

“I guess not…?”

“Come on,” he got up and pulled me up with him. He grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the water. Then the giggle that Brendon was talking about reached my ears. I looked to my right, and saw a thirteen year old girl running towards Brendon and me. He pulled me in the water and then five more girls appeared.

“You have dedicated fans,” I panted. We swam under the rope that divided the public swimming area and the privately owned shore. We kept swimming until we reached the nearest dock and Brendon went under it and heaved me with.

We popped up from under the water and we were enclosed with the dock around us. It felt like when a boat is tipped over and you swim under it. Brendon’s laugh echoed through the enclosed air and we were both dripping with water.

No matter how cliché it was, I had the urge to kiss him. I might have been his wet brown hair, or the way the water fell down his face or even the way he supported my body, even though we could touch the bottom, but mostly I think it was because I just realized how much Brendon cared about me.

It was as if Brendon knew what I was thinking, because he leaned in and smothered his soft pink lips against mine.

We broke apart and he leaned his head on my shoulder. “I think they are gone,” he whispered into my neck.

“Yeah,” I whispered back with shaky breath.

“So, are you going to answer my question?”

“I don’t know…”

“I guess I should restate that. Answer my question,” he smiled up at me from the comfort of my shoulder.

“Shh! Do you hear that?”

“Em, come one. Don’t try to avoid this.”

“No I’m serious, Bren!”

“And so am I! We need to talk about this!”

“Shh!”

“Emil--”

“SHH!” I put a hand over his mouth. I strained my ear and listened, Brendon followed in suit. “Do you hear that?” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he whispered in the same tone.

“What is it?”

Brendon ducked under the side of the dock and I did the same. I got above the water and looked around. My eyes landed on something about a fourth of the way in from the shore.

“Brendon!” I shook his shoulder. “We have to do something!”

“Yeah,” was all he said, distracted by the figure struggling in the water. He only stood there for a second, with his mouth hanging open, eyes squinted, before he sprung to action.

I on the other hand, I sprinted towards the beach to where we were we had our stuff. I got a towel out and laid it down and then grabbed another one and started running towards the water.

Brendon came moments later, carrying a girl in his hands. Both of them were panting and dripping with water, except the girl was crying. Brendon carefully set her on her feet and quickly slipped his arm around her for support as she stood with legs shaking.

“Holy apple shit!” I wrapped the towel around her as we walked slowly to our spot. “Oh, what happened?!”

She just whimpered and snuggled into the towel more. Brendon pushed her stringy wet hair out of the girl’s face, “Can you at least tell us your name?” he asked gently.

I helped lower her on the towel to sit down. “Chris,” she replied quietly. Her voice was high and sweet.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Brendon asked again.

She just shrugged and lay down on the towel. I looked up at Brendon and he just looked at me a shrugged; neither of us new what to do.

So I just laid down beside the so called ‘Chris’ and started tanning.

Brendon looked at me weirdly.

“Well what else are we supposed to do while we wait for her to wake up?”

“Too true, Emmy. Too true.” He jumped over Chris and me and lay down on the other side me and we both fell asleep.

---

I saw a shadow looming over through my closed eyelids. I opened them and saw a girl with short blonde hair that had slight waves and went down to her chin. Her blue eyes shined through her smeared makeup and she was smiling down at me. Creepily.

“Uh, hi?”

“Hello!” I jumped at her loudness. “I thought you would never wake up!”

“Well… uh yeah.”

“I’m Chris,” she held out her hand.

“Oh! You know, you look a lot different when your hair isn’t all,” I waved my hands wildly, “you know.”

She laughed and her blue eyes glittered. “Yeah, I thought I’d stick around and thank you guys.” She motioned to Brendon, who was cuddling with my arm, still asleep. I shook him off and elbowed him to wake up.

“Elf!!” he yelled and darted up, looking around crazily. He finally realized he wasn’t dreaming anymore and laid back down.

“Who’s the friend?” he asked me.

“Brendon, this is Chris,” I motioned to her.

“Oh! You’re Chris! Of course! I’m Brendon.”

“Uh, hey,” she smiled. “Anyways, I just wanted to thank you guys and stuff for everything! It really means a lot to me.” She started standing up to go.

“I’ll only let you leave if you tell me how the hell you got stranded out in the middle of the lake.” Brendon stated in an English accent. I laughed and shoved him playfully.

“Hah, okay. Well I was on a water mattress and I fell asleep and then all I remember was waking up as my mattress was sinking. Then I remembered I couldn’t swim and yeah.”

“Veddy interesting,” Brendon mused.

I laughed, “I’m Emily.” I held out my hand and she shook it awkwardly.

“I would say I’m Chris, but you already know, so…”

“I’m Brendon!”

“Yeah. I know.” He pouted. “You told me,” she laughed.

“Just saying.”

“Well, Bren, I think we better get going home.”

“Wait. Are you guys like, married?”

We both burst out into laughter. “Haha nope!” Brendon hooted.

“Well you guys seriously are cute enough!”

“Hah, thanks?”

“No but seriously, we should go.”

“You should so call us and we can hang out!” I gave her my phone so she could put in her number.

“Or you could give me a ride? Home?”

I laughed, “Sure.”

We packed up our things and piled into Brendon’s car and drove back to my apartment.

“Wellp, here we are,” Brendon said as he pulled up to the curb.

“Thanks,” I said as I got out of the car, pulling Chris with me. “Ryan’s here, come up with us,” I said after spotting his car across the street.

“Nah, I’m meeting with Jon later.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well text me?”

“Of course, Emmy,” he leaned out of his window to give me a kiss good bye.

“Bye, Brenny!”

“Bye, Emmy! Bye Chris!”

“Bye! And for the record, I love you guys,” she said back to him.

He laughed then started singing, “Hey Chris, you were our only friend.
And I know this is belated, we love you back!” He was singing at the top of his lungs and kept repeating the chorus, “Hey Chris, you were our only friend. And I know this is belated, we love you BACK!” I just took Chris by the hand and led her into the apartment while she laughed.

“You guys are hilarious!” she chuckled.

“Just wait until you meet the rest of us.”