In His Presence

“Hi Anna,” my friend, Michelle, greeted me as I walked into the restaurant.

“Hey,” I answered back, a little out of breath fromrunning walking really quickly down the streets of Los Angeles.

“What time do you get off?” she asked nonchalantly as she filled glasses with pop for her assigned tables of the evening.

“Eleven,” I answered annoyed, not at her, but because I was only working a six hour shift; I needed more money and this job wasn’t paying me enough or giving me enough money to put myself through college.

“Me too, that sucks. Wanna hang out after? Go to a movie or something?”

I started restocking my apron with a couple of pens and a notepad and a few other random objects I might need. “Yeah, well my parents are visiting,” Michelle gave me that ‘your-life-sucks-right-now’ sympathy look and I groaned in agreement. “So all this morning I cleaned every freaking surface in my little apartment so my mother couldn’t complain about anything out of place. And you know what she did?”

“What?”

“She complained about how the place smelled too much of cleaning products!”

Michelle chuckled and set all of her drinks on a tray, “Oh god, I love your mother!”

“That’s one person,” I rolled my eyes, earning a smile from my waitress buddy, and went back to the kitchen to check out my assignments for the night.

I loved bursting through the kitchen doors, especially when it’s a Saturday or Sunday night. Usually the floor is busy with chatter and stuffy with smoke, but when one explodes through the door, the environment changes instantly from dark and full of activity to bright, clean and ‘calm’. Of course, the chefs were bustling around, but it was an entire different feel from ‘out there’.

“Hey Anna!”

“Hey Rodger,” I smiled and tried to sound sincere to one of the other waiters, but frankly, he made me a little uneasy with his over enthusiastic greetings and smiles. Rodger walked out of the kitchen with food for his customers and I walked over to the assignment board and looked at my tables for the night.

“Tables seven to twelve,” I muttered to myself, “Not too bad.” I shrugged and walked out into the airless dining floor. “A little too easy.”

<3

“Ugh! I don’t think my feet have ever hurt this bad!” Michelle poured out her complaints, just like she did every other day. I laughed and blew my blonde, almost white, hair out of my face, and since it was short I didn’t have to put it up.

“Yeah, well some baby barfed on me. So get over it,” I smiled and walked away, and she mimicked me behind my back. My and Michelle’s relationship was purely mean jokes all the time, we knew that the other one was joking and even though to everyone else looking in we were being total bitches to each other. That’s actually how our friendship started out; it was my first day on the job and Michelle was complaining (imagine that) and I sort of ‘went off’ on her, and she took in the wrong way. But a little while after we made up and now we crack indecent jokes all the time around each other.

It was around nine, and the restaurant was still pretty busy, which was usual for a Saturday night. All my tables were attended to, and I even felt like I was bugging them with my check ups on them, so I sat down behind the bar for a while, filling drinks when anyone needed me to.

“Hey An, heads up, table eight,” Rodger said as he walked by. I let out a bored sigh, knowing table eight was a two person table, which meant most likely a date. I didn’t mind dates, I just didn’t like that I got assigned to most of the two person tables because they were easy to do and I liked to be running around and on my feet most of the night. But tonight was a boring night. I grabbed two menus and headed off in table eight’s direction.

There was a boy with dark brown hair sitting with his back to me as I approached and he was with a dark brown haired girl. The man was wearing a nice tan overcoat and the girl had on a sequenced silver dress, which was stunning if I might add.

The pretty girl the man was with was telling a funny story, obvious because his shoulders rose slightly in a laugh. She pointed to the bar, where a man had bent down to pick up his wallet, but when he tried to stand up; he fell flat on his face. The man she was with peeked his head over his shoulder so he could see what his date was laughing about.

I froze. I was about four feet from their table when my blood stopped, and then after a couple of moments it started flowing freely making the hairs on my arm stand up. My hands started to shake and I almost dropped the menus I was meaning to give to the couple.

Instead of talking a couple more steps to reach them, I spun on my heels and walked quickly back into the kitchen, stepping over the man that fell (oops). I breathed a sigh of relief when the kitchen doors shut, relieving the cloudy air, and because when the man turned his head he didn’t see me.

<3

“Rodger!”

“Yeah?” I walked quickly over to him as he continued out the kitchen door with food for his customers in hands.

“Could you do me a favor?” I considered batting my eyelashes, but I dropped the idea after I thought about how cheesy that would look.

“Anything!” I widened my eyes at his fruitiness.

“Could you take table eight for me? Please?!”

“Anna, table eight is easy. Anyone can handle table eight. You can handle ten table eights. Hell! You could probably handle all of these tables in here. You could--”

“Yeah Rodge, I get it.”

“Just saying,” he shrugged. I waited off to the side as he gave the waiting family their meals.

“But please, just do it this one time!”

“Why can’t you ask Michelle? Or Chris?”

“I could, but I’m asking you.” Okay, so I was flirting with him. A little.

“What’s up?” Michelle asked being as she was on break and we had made our way to the kitchen.

“Rodger won’t take my table eight.”

“Why do you need him to take table eight? That’s an easy table, you can handle that.”

“Exactly! That’s what I said!”

“Shut up, Rodger. Michelle, can you take my table? Just this one customer.”

“No.”

“But--”

“No.”

“Rodger--”

“No.”

“Hhhh! Fine!” We walked out of the kitchen again and gathered around the bar.

“Who’s at table eight?” Michelle asked as she stood on her tip-toes and tried to peer over at them. I tried blocking so she would see, but she was taller and I couldn’t stop her from seeing. “No way!”

“What? What?” Rodger asked intensely, looking over everyone’s heads.

“It’s her ex!” Michelle exclaimed.

“Seriously? Chicken.”

“Well, come on. You wouldn’t want to sever your ex-boyfriend while he is on a date with a girl that is clearly way more gorgeous that you!”

“You’re such a hypocrite!”

“No I’m not!”

“Yes you are!” Rodger laughed, agreeing with Michelle. “Who was the one that made me wait on my ex?!” I looked down at my feet. “And look where we are now! Married!”

“Strangely…” Michelle joked.

“Psh! Yeah right! I would never end up marrying Brendon Urie!” I laughed loudly, truly amused at the ‘joke’.

“Ya never know…” Rodger walked away and with a shrug Michelle left too.

“Why me!” I sighed to myself. I dropped my head back and stared at the ceiling for a good minute, then took a deep breath and marched over to the dreaded table.

<3

“Good evening. I’m Anna, I’ll be your server tonight,” I started, being extra cheery as usual.

“Hi,” the girl responded back sweetly.

“Can I start you two off with something to drink tonight?” I waited anxiously as the two looked over the menu. Brendon still hadn’t looked up, and I was growing nervous for when he would. What would his reaction be? Would he even remember me? Well okay, that’s a stupid question. How could he not remember me? We went through high school together, finally dating our senior year. After he barely made it through school, we moved in together a little before he left for tour. I was hopelessly in love. And he was too. He called every second he could and he visited every day off or elongated free time. Tour ended and he called me, telling me he’d be home in two days and we were both anxious. The day he was supposed to come home, I went out and bought some ingredients for his favorite dessert, but when I came back, he was gone. All of his clothes, furniture, belongings and toiletries disappeared too. The only thing left was his smell that had faded over tour and soon disappeared after he left me. He did leave me a note though, it read:

I loved you.

So as I waited for the lovely couple to figure out what they were doing, I couldn’t help think about the pain I went through after his departure. His hair had changed from teased to natural side swept and his perfectly shaped face matured and his gorgeous features stood out even more. His eyes were the same though; deep, big, brown and capturing.

“Bren, are you going to be polite and acknowledge or say something?” His girlfriend asked him.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” Shivers ran down my spine at the sound of his voice that I forgot was so sweet. “I think we’ll have… wine…” He answered distracted, as he read over the menu, eyes lingering on our many different beers.

I raised my eyebrows. Wine. Very descriptive. “Well what kind, there’s a few. There’s some--”

“The best you have.” Finally he looked up, going to give me the menu. He froze as he gave it to me and his eyes met mine. They pierced me like daggers, but I couldn’t look away. I only had the ability to stare back and let my mouth grow dry. My stomach turned over and my entire body fell weak. We probably looked ridiculous; frozen in between a handoff of a menu for a good forty seconds. I’m sure his date started to feel very, very uncomfortable, so I broke the trance.

“Um, I, uh.” I decided I needed to say something clever. “I think how good something is, is a matter of perspective. Someone can having something great, but not appreciate the good it holds.” Our eyes were still locked on each other, but his face softened a little with guilt after the meaning of the words I spoke got to his head. I cleared my throat, “But of course, I’ll get you what I think would suit you two.” I flashed my white teeth at them and Brendon’s girlfriend forced a grin at me as I walked away.

I could still feel Brendon’s silent awe stare follow me as I left, but it was soon broken when I heard his date smack him, “What the hell was that?! Should I get up and let waiter-girl sit here instead?!”

My smile grew wider.

“I totally saw that!!”

“Shut up,” I groaned.

“Oh come on Anna! You two were totally having a moment!”

“No. We weren’t. And do not lump Brendon and me together.”

“Anna, are you kidding! He was totally mesmerized by your hotness.”

I started getting annoyed at Michelle’s hopefulness. “No, we weren’t. How would you know how he used to look at me?! You weren’t around. All you know is what I told you about him. Michelle, please, I do not want to get back with Brendon. So please stop making this to be out like a fairy tale.” I walked away, leaving her with her jaw hanging open.

I had no idea there could be so much drama on the job.

<3

The night went by pretty well, I avoided table eight as much as possible. One, because Brendon’s girlfriend gave me unwelcoming glances when she thought I wasn’t looking (Hey, I would do the same if I was her) and two, because Brendon gave me the chills.

“Oh my gee!” Rodger joked as I was on break.

“What.”

“I don’t know… I just felt like saying that.”

“You know sometimes I wonder how you’re married.”

“Yeah, I don’t really know why either.” I crinkled my forehead at his seriousness. I didn’t have to ask the question though, because Rodger answered it for me. “I guess, well, it doesn’t really make sense, but I think I’ve figured out that I loved her too much. When we were dating, I called her twenty-four seven and all I could do was think about her. She is/i] beautiful and I do love her… but I loved her so much that- I couldn’t love her anymore.

“It’s not that I don’t love her, I can’t love her anymore than I did, so for fear of loosing love… I married her.”

I stood in place, thinking about what he said. He continued, “I’m twenty-six. She’s twenty-six. We were ready, but not for the right reason I guess. I was scared that I would stop loving her as much as I did at the time, so I married her so I could try to train my brain to think that I would love her that much all the time.”

I kicked the ground and went out the back door into the alley. I leaned up against the wall and sunk down and pulled my knees to my chest and rested my forehead on my knees. I hated myself for believing the obvious for all these years.

<3

“Ten fifty-five,” Michelle sang as we both stood in the kitchen, staring at the clock. Brendon left and hour ago with his date. I didn’t want to admit, but I was sad to see him go. I probably would never see him again. I wished I would have said something to him or forgiven him for the pain he caused me, but I kept quiet and just thanked them when they gave me a twenty percent tip. After they left, I thanked Brendon in my head even more when I found two more twenties slipped in a napkin. It read:

It was…nice to see you.

I rolled my eyes just thinking about the napkin. It was now ripped up and in the garbage as we speak. How tacky.

“Eleven! Anna lets go!” Michelle grabbed my hand and yanked me out the kitchen door. I clocked out and waved goodbye to people. “So, movie? Oh yeah, I forgot. Your parents are visiting.”

I exhaled, “Yeah, not fun. But I guess I could tell them that work was busy and I stayed late?”

“Good idea! I’ll go get my car,” she started to turn to the left as we exited the restaurant doors and I headed to the right, towards my car. “Meet in the park?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, mostly because it was crowded on the streets. As I turned, I left pressure on my elbow. I jumped, and looked at a hand that was latched on to my arm. I knew those hands anywhere.

I was scared to look up into his face, so I kept staring at his hand. I could feel his callused fingers on my skin and his soft palm around my elbow.

“Anna?” I closed my eyes for a long blink. “Anna?”

I was discouraged when he removed his hand from my arm, but soon it was at my chin. He forced my face up. “Hi,” whispered out.

He smiled and the skin around his lips wrinkled and dimples formed, it made me want to smile just looking at it. “Hi,” he whispered out in the same way I did. Very quickly, our employee/customer relation faded and I felt more comfortable around him, and not so professional.

I finally met his big eyes, and he met my blue-grey ones. We stared at each other for a long time. I took in his face, more intently this time; his ears were the same, but the faint stubble along the sides of his cheeks was new. His faded freckles were still scattered under his eyes and on his uniquely shaped nose. The eyebrows he sported were still their silly shape and that cute, stupid little freckle-mole thing above his left eyebrow was still present.

He broke the silence, “Your hair. It’s short.” In reaction I reached up to touch my chin length, bright blonde hair. When I was dating him, it was past my shoulders and always wavy. Now it was choppy and straightened.

“Your hair, it’s… different. Shorter?”

He smiled again, melting my insides. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” I smiled too. “An,” he started. It was different when he called me by my nickname, even though everyone calls me ‘An’, it’s special when he says it because when it comes from his mouth, and it seemed so sincere and thought about, like it’s not a nickname to him and he lingered about it before he said it. For him, it wasn’t an easy or a shorter way to say name, it was important. “You look, you look really good.”

I didn’t say anything back, I only continued to look up at him. I could feel Michelle’s presence behind me, so I turned to her and saw her standing off to the side, smiling.

Brendon’s blunt words brought my attention back to him, “Anna. I never stopped loving you.”

I thought about what Rodger was telling me earlier, how he loved his wife. I thought back to the not he left me: I loved you. I thought about the second meaning that I never formed until tonight.

“I know.” Brendon seemed surprised at my answer.

“Y-You know?”

“I know.” I left it at that, why should I explain that I realized he only left me because he didn’t want the love that he had for me to diminish. I knew now that Brendon made the same decision Rodger had made, except instead of marrying me, he broke up with me.

It was very smart if you ask me. Of course three years ago and even three days ago I wouldn’t say that, but now I knew.

Brendon grabbed my hips and inched me towards him. I looked up at him and he was staring back at me. My heart started pounding because I knew what was going to happen next.

None of the memories I had of our kisses were as wonderful as this one was. His lips were juicier than I remembered and his touch has softer than I had reminisced. But then, I realized I couldn’t be doing this. It was like whenever I was in his presence, he manipulated my thinking and all of my values. I pulled away quickly and backed out of his grasp on my waist.

I straightened out my white button up shirt and black dress pants. “I should go. I-I need to, need to do something things still and, I just, I just have to go. Bye, Bren.” I turned around towards Michelle, but he grabbed my elbow again, with more cause.

“Please Anna. Please let’s get some coffee.”

“I can’t, it’s late and my parents--”

“Oh don’t worry Anna,” Michelle winked at me, “you were working late, remember?” She smiled and so did Brendon.

“But I--”

“Cool,” Brendon grinned and took my hand in his. It felt amazing to be touched by him again. Memories flooding back to the nights when we would simply lay in bed and he would hold me for hours.

Brendon pulled me down the street to his car. “Brendon, your girlfriend--”

“Is gone.”

I felt… weird, walking down the sidewalk with Brendon Urie. We had both changed so much. He wasn’t an immature boy anymore, he was grown and accomplished; he wore different jeans and nice shirts and didn’t crack sexual and inappropriate jokes at every chance he had. I was matured also, I didn’t bounce around anymore and I wore matching clothing and I was going to college. Yeah, we dated three years ago, but maybe that was the best, because now I see how much Brendon is right for me and how I wasn’t complete with him.

Two days ago, I would have pictured Brendon with his red glasses and spiked, teased and gelled hair with a hoodie and eyeliner. But now he knows right from wrong and left from right.

He knew his car was to the left and mine was off to the right, and he knew what we were doing was wrong, but it felt so damn right.

<3