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

“Brendon!”

“Bren-- Emily!”

“Yeah! Emily!”

“She came!”

“Emily!” The Urie’s cheers irrupted as Brendon walked in the giant arena filled with huge inflatable moon jumps, only this time I was the popular one. I nudged Brendon in the side smugly and he sneered down at me facetiously.

“Hey guys,” I smiled and waved to everyone as we came through the door to Mikey’s party. I took in my surroundings, “Whoa.”

“This is rad!” Brendon stirred. “Hey Matt! I’ll totally beat your ass in boxing!”

“You’re on Bro!” The two boys ran across the floor of the inflatables in the Pump It Up arena and a jumped in the blow up boxing house.

I watched the immature two boxed for a while and greeted everyone. “Hey Kara,” I smiled as I squished my way into the loaded bench that all the adults were sitting on.

“Hey Emily,” she beamed. I talked to Brendon’s family for some time while Brendon ran around with all the kids, letting them beat him up with balls and tackling him in all the different inflatables.

“Come on, Emmy!” Brendon shouted, running over to me and yanking me up.

“Bren, slow down,” I laughed as he pulled me to the big jumper. We jumped around with the kids until we wore ourselves out. It was fun to be a kid again and be carefree and as loud as I wanted.

We were lying on the top of the slide trying to rest with the kids coming up and going down while they played with the staff.

“So.”

“So,” I mimicked.

“How’s Chris? I haven’t seen her in a while?”

“Oh yeah, she’s good! She’s been helping me with the whole college thing,” I rattled on. We continued talking, but as we leaned in for a kiss, Mikey came climbing up the stairs.

“Ewwy!” and in a blink of an eye, Brendon was slipping down the giant slide. I pushed Mikey down and followed the two, crashing into a heap at the bottom.

“Come here, Mister!” Brendon roared loudly, then going forth to tackle Mikey and drag him through the obstacle course.

I sat with Brendon’s aunt and watched Brendon prance around some more, “He seems to really like you, hun.”

I laughed lightheartedly, “I guess I like him too.” We sat on the bench in silence, simply watching all the kids running around the floor and jumping off the walls. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw Brendon playing with all Mikey’s friends.

Brendon interacted with them all so well and the kids were in love with Brendon’s frenzy. His long hair was flopping as he bounced kids off the walls. His smile was bigger than my head and his brown eyes were sparkling with enjoyment.

I admired his willingness and ability to play with kids. I laughed out loud when I saw Brendon trip over a dodge ball, giving one of the kids the opportunity to jump on his back and tackle him. Thus, all the kids piling on him.

“I can tell,” Brendon’s aunt commented after hearing me.

“Hmm?”

“I can tell you like him. Your eyes sparkle.”

“Oh,” I laughed

“Emily, you’re very sweet. I like you.”

“Uh. Thanks?” I was feeling a little awkward with the conversation as it went no where, but his aunt continued to talk.

“Yes, you’re welcome. Brendon seems, so much more… oh what’s the word?”

“Controlled?” Kara stuck her head in.

“No, that’s not the word…”

“Mature?” Matt offered.

“No…” I watched her waiting for the word. “Happy. He seems so happy and… accomplished? No, not accomplished, but he seems to know where his place is now.”

I smiled. “Yeah,” I faded into thought, “I think. I think I do too.” Kinda.

“Come on Emmy!” Brendon ran over to me, hair slightly sweaty, interrupting our conversation. He was smiling so wide, his dimples were three feet holes in his cheeks. He took me by the hand again and threw me over his shoulder and started running towards the enormous obstacle course, with me bouncing up and down as he ran.

I looked over at the benches where I was sitting before; Brendon’s aunt was gazing at us with a smile in her eyes. I smiled and shrugged, causing her to laugh, before I was thrown into the entrance of the course.

---

I was a little over half way through the course when I heard an abrupt cheer. Brendon had beaten me. Again. I slid down the gigantic slide and Brendon was waiting at the bottom, resting and trying to catch his breath. I was finally at the bottom, but I tripped over myself and the squishy surface and landed right on top of Brendon’s stomach.

The arena burst into laughter, especially Brendon, and I buried my head in his chest in embarrassment. Brendon leaned his toward down and kissed me full on the lips as the rest of the laughter died down. Even though my face was heated, I felt a warm feeling in me, yes because of the kiss, but also that Brendon’s family was genuine and so wonderful.

---

“So, we leave at six. So dinner at four at…?”

“Applebees!”

“Uh… okay? Then we’ll arrive in and get settle by midnight. The next day we have all day to hang and then the 7th, we will play and then we’ll leave the next day.”

“Ugh! When is Spencer getting back?” I asked, braking up Ryan and Brendon’s planning. “I want tacos!”

“Me too!” Hayley complained, hanging half off of Spencer’s couch.

“Well I don’t want Taco Bell anymore,” Brendon protested, “I want Applebees!”

“No,” Ryan shot him down. “Anyways. I was thinking, the ticket for the 6th is cheaper, but if we get the ticket for the 5th, we can hang all day the next day and check out some of the bands there and--”

“Can we stop talking about the Summerfest? It’s boring, and you’ve been talking about it forever!” I grumbled, rolling off the chair, sprawling out in boredom. We have been sitting in Spencer’s apartment for the past four hours, the boys discussing the plans for the festival coming up.

Jon was lying on the other side of the room, on his back, strumming his guitar that was laying across his stomach. Brendon intentionally put us on opposite sides of the room on purpose I think.

“Watch out, an elf is emerging!” Brendon pulled out a Keebler cookie from somewhere and waved it over Ryan’s head. He danced the elf cookie across Ryan’s pant leg and dance him to the beat of the Barney songs.

“Cookies?!” Hayley jumped up from the couch and ran to Brendon.

“I got Tacos!” Spencer said, bursting through the door.

“Finally!” Jon and I said at the same time, causing me to stutter on my steps over to Spencer.

“Yay!” Brendon cheered, causing little elf crumbs to fall out of his stuffed mouth as Spencer handed him his meal.

“Sick.” Ryan uttered, flicking a crumb off his shoulder.

“That’s right, Ry. Eat it up,” Brendon taunted. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, making me blush. It was hard to imagine that about a week ago I was inflamed at Brendon, and examining our entire relationship. There was something about him that couldn’t get me to stay mad at him. After seeing him once I came home from Gilly’s, while he was looking at my pictures and reading my journals, I could tell he finally understood. I don’t think I could forgive anyone else as quickly and easily as I forgave Brendon. Never.

I didn’t care anymore that anyone else understood, all that mattered was that Brendon knew. That night when we lay on my bed, reading my last journal I had written, I had not only taken another step towards opening up, I had gotten through to Brendon and myself for that matter, because I was opening up with little worry about judgment.

The only part I was not okay with was the way Brendon looked and felt when he read and thought about my entries. His eyes filled with rage and I hated seeing him in agony. The pain on his face from restraining the balled up fist from smashing into something or someone was hard for me to even watch. I didn’t want that.

I didn’t want him to feel pity for me and I didn’t want him to baby me. All I wanted was for him to understand. I just told him my deepest, darkest secrets and the thing that was killing me wasn’t the indulgence in his eyes, it was that he didn’t really ask me about it.

He didn’t ask me to explain some the things I said, even though I knew he didn’t understand what I meant in my writings sometimes. And even though I didn’t want him to treat me different, I was surprised he didn’t.

“Emmy?”

“Hmm, what?”

“You okay?” Brendon asked as we drove home from Spencer’s.

“Of course, why?” I smiled over at him, his eyes still plastered to the road ahead.

“Well I only said your name, oh only five times,” smiling back at me.

I laughed, “Oh well. I’m just thinking I guess.”

“About what?” his gentle voice asked me curiously.

“I don’t know… Just… You, I guess,” I chuckled.

“What about me?” He asked smugly. As we drove down the busy streets, Brendon taking back roads as often as possible, my eyes started to get heavy. I hated getting tired when I was with Brendon. He was very busy a lot, and so was I, and I schedules clashed often so I didn’t get to seem very much anymore.

“Hmm? Oh yeah,” I awoke from my light daze from lack of sleep, “I, I don’t remember…” I yawned, making Brendon laugh. “What?” I demanded tiredly.

“You.” I fake pouted. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

“I don’t want to,” I responded, except if was inaudible due to yawning while I was trying to speak.

“Whatever you say Emmy,” He grinned as my eyes involuntarily shut.