Dichotomy.

I sit across from Spencer, picking at a bagel while he sips his coffee.

It’s relatively early; when we left, everyone was still asleep or just waking up.

The silence is killing me; I have no idea why he requested to get breakfast with only me this morning.

“So…what’s up, Spence?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. I raise my eyebrows right back at him. “Just wanted to talk. Get to know you better. You don’t talk much, you know? About yourself, I mean.”

I feel my defensive walls building themselves around again.

“Oh?” I tease, quirking an eyebrow again. “What do you want to know?” I ask, but inside, I’m a little wary of what I know he’s thinking.

“Well…a few things, I guess. There any reason you and Brendon don’t get along?” he asks curiously.

“I don’t really know,” I shrug uneasily.

And uncomfortably.

The truth is, I’m being honest.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Why? What do you mean?” He’s confused.

“I know I’m not a good fit,” I state, my eyes darting between him and my bagel.

“Don’t be stupid. You’re the best we could’ve gotten,” he disagrees bluntly. “Do you have anything you wanted to talk about?” he questions. I shrug. I know I’m being difficult, and I hate that it’s hard for me to be anything else.

“I don’t know what you want me to say. My band broke up, you guys found me, and now I’m here.”

“Fair enough,” he says. “Do you miss home at all?” he asks, changing the subject.

“Not really. I miss my dog, I guess,” I admit, not really caring if he thinks I’m weird for it. “What about you?” I ask, taking advantage of his question.

“Yeah. My girlfriend, mostly.”

“What’s her name?” I continue, desperately trying to divert attention from myself.

Rewind to a time where I wasn’t such an anti-social freak, if there ever was a time before that.

“Haley,” he smiles lightly, looking thoughtful. He checks his watch. “We should probably head back; they’re probably awake and unloading everything by now.” I gratefully agree.

He’s right; we immediately get to work moving everything into the venue.

“So, what was going on with you and Spence?” Tom asks, barely hiding his curiosity as I take a break to talk with him while he sets up merch.

“Nothing,” I say, waving it away.

Tom doesn’t respond, just throws another glance in Spencer’s direction as he walks past, deep in conversation with his drum tech.

“He has a girlfriend, you know,” I inform him.

He doesn’t answer, just turns back around to finish setting up the merch table.

“Sorry,” I add, before walking away.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

“Hey.”

These past few weeks of avoiding him except on stage where our hatred is forgotten-

And he easily corners me in the back lounge of the bus on any other late night.

“So…you ever gonna tell us why your old band broke up?” I hate the way his eyebrows are raised, the way he’s leaning against the wall as if he hasn’t thought out a million ways to ask me.

My first instinct is to give him a death glare, but when I glance at him, he looks genuinely curious and he sits across from me after closing the sliding door.

“So?” he prods annoyingly, when I don’t reply.

“I…wish I could say creative differences,” I laugh bitterly. I don’t mean to say it, even, but it starts to slip out, regardless. “It was just…bad terms. Things were already going downhill, and we had disagreements, and I-”

I stop myself before I tell him the truth.

I ruined everything.

“You what?” he asks, perplexed.

“Nothing. I…we didn’t really have a choice,” I lie. “Why did your band break up?” I shoot back. “Did you annoy them endlessly with questions, too?”

“Probably,” he answers, shrugging indifferently, but I know better than to fall for his nonchalance. “And that’s not exactly the best word for it,’” he points out. “Seeing as we’re on tour, you know,” he waves his arms around to emphasize his point.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” he shrugs.

“Why do you do that?” I ask. He looks caught off guard.

“What?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know.

I hate him because he does that.

“That. You act like you don’t know, you always turn things around on everyone. Is that some kind of defense mechanism, or are you actually that passive aggressive?” I question before I can help myself.

“You’re the one that’s avoiding questions,” he shoots back defensively.

“Am I?” I counter, taking a page out of his stupid, childish book.

The truth is, part of me wants to tell him.

Tell him how I put everything into the band, working two or three jobs at a time to pay the bills so that I could help us tour and get into a studio.

How I’d put all those hours in at that stupid French store to the point that I now hold useless information about the difference between kinds of knives and forks.

Dinner and dessert plates.

Wine and water glasses.

The other half of me knows I don’t have to tell him, to explain myself, because he already knows me.

And I hate that about him.

I can’t stand the fact that he can read me better than I can, maybe even better than Tom.

Sure, I understand him just as well, but what’s he got to hide?

He’s shameless, outgoing, and most of all, open about everything.

Or at least that’s the image everyone gets.

And the truth is, I’d rather not understand Brendon Urie at all.

But the one thing he doesn’t know about me is that it’s my fault the band broke up.

It’s my fault because I made a huge mistake I didn’t see coming.

The truth is-

I fell in love.