Title Track

“Brendon,” My mouth is dry. He kept it. He had it with him. I’m such a jackass. “I don’t even know what to say.” I figure if there were anytime to be honest, it would be now.

“You thought you were just ruining our relationship, Ryan. I don’t think you realized that would include the rest of my life.”

I want to fix everything. I want to make everything right. I want everything to be okay.

There’s no fucking way I can do it.

The most monumental fuck up ever.

“It’s all my fault,” I’m speaking to myself. I’m not sure if I can get my head around this. “I left, and ruined everything for you; for everyone.” It’s too much. “But-- but you kept this-- that has to mean something?” I’m feeling frantic.

“Of course it does.” he sighs, pressing his hands to his eyes, “Fuck, Ryan, don’t be an idiot.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” I mumble, thumbing at the frayed edges of the paper.

We’re both quiet now. I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to do now. I want to apologize, but that won’t get me anywhere. There’s nowhere I can go to make this better.

“I don’t doubt that you love me,” he says. My eyes shoot up from the note to his face, “what I’m doubting is that you’ll stay.”

It’s all my fault.

“We could have been so fucking happy,” I’m making eye contact. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done, “but I’m an idiot. I’m such a fucking idiot.”

“We’re repeating ourselves, Ryan.”

“I know.”

“I hate this,” he sounds so upset, “I hate that this is happening. I wish I trusted you. I wish I could get over everything. I wish you never left,”

“There’s a lot of that going around.”

“But we can’t change what happened.”

“But I’ve changed, Brendon.”

We sound like a bad soap.

“I don’t know you anymore, Ryan. You don’t know me. We’re practically strangers. There’s no way I can know if you’ve changed.”

“We’re strangers?”

“Yeah. We’re strangers.”

“Then we can start over.” It feels like a leap.

“What?”

“We’re strangers. We don’t know each other. We have no history. I never left, because we never happened. This is the first time we’ve ever met.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Ryan.” he sounds tired. But I want to win. I’m going to argue until I win.

“Why? If you don’t know me now, and I don’t know you, whose to say that ever happened?”

“I don’t want it to happen again.” His voice is distressed, and he looks so upset, so fragile, and I’m trying to convince myself that I can fix this. I can fix this.

I swallow hard, swallow all the nerves and the butterflies, and I walk towards him, extending my hand.

“Hi, I’m Ryan.”

He looks terrified. He’s trembling, and his eyes are watered down and red, and this could work. This is a possibility. This has to work.

I stand there for minutes, hand extended, because I won’t be the one to give up.

“Please, Bren,” and I’m holding my breath, because I don’t want him to be upset that I called him Bren. “we’re strangers.”

I can see him swallow, his eyes are so wide and scared, but he lifts his hand.

“Brendon.” he says, gripping my hand. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, we’re making progress. This is so much progress.

“We won’t be the same.” He says, hand still holding mine, “Nothings going to be easy. Just because we’re strangers now doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten.”

I nod, trying to stop myself from smiling. Because this is it. We’ve made some kind of agreement to speak to each other like we did before. This feels like it’s where I’m supposed to be.

I’m alone, but I’ve got Brendon.

Holy shit, I’ve got Brendon.