I Was Ripped Apart But Held By Glue

SIX

We’ve been on this bus for already two hours and we still have a few more hours to go. I sigh and amusedly look at Brendon as he’s playing Guitar Hero against Jon. Spencer flops down next to me, but I pay no attention to him and keep on staring at Brendon. It’s quite funny how he can be so child like and mature at the same time. The way he has been taking care of me lately is just beyond admirable.

“You’re staring,” Spencer says, poking my side. I glance at Spencer for a second and then I turn my gaze back to Brendon.

“I know,” I answer, a small smile creeping on my face as Brendon does his little victory dance after beating Jon. He puts the little, plastic guitar aside and walks over to me.

“I won that one for you.” He smiles and bends down to press a quick kiss against my forehead.

“Awww, look how cute they are!” Spencer grins, looking at us. Brendon pokes his tongue out and gives Spencer a playful slap against his shoulder. “But serious now. How long has this been going on?” he asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Jon, who was switching off the PlayStation, turns around and looks at us as well.

“Yeah, I’m curious about that as well,” he says. Brendon rolls his eyes and sits down on my lap, since there is no more room on the little sofa.

“Since yesterday morning,” I reply, speaking up for the first time. Brendon puts his arms around my neck and sends me a smile. “And that’s all we have to say about it, so if we could talk about something else now, that would be nice,” I add, subconsciously stroking the little hairs on the nape of Brendon’s neck. Jon shrugs his shoulders and walks out of the living room area and into the tiny kitchen area to fetch himself something to drink.

“But wait,” Spencer starts again, a look of confusion upon his face. “Then why did you spit into Brendon’s face yesterday afternoon?” he asks, pointing at me. Fuck, I should’ve known that there would be more questions. Is it so damn hard to just leave us alone?

“That’s none of your business, Spencer,” I snap, maybe sounding a little bit too harsh, but at this moment, I couldn’t care less. I carefully push Brendon off my lap and make my way to the bathroom where I am safe from further questions.

I open the glass sliding door of the little shower and sit down on the floor with my back and head against the tiled wall. I run my hand through my hair and for a split second, I think of going through all the stuff that’s in the bathroom to find something to cut myself, but I resist the urge to do so and just stay where I am. There’s a soft knock at the door and I immediately know it’s Brendon.

“It’s not locked,” I say, raising my voice a bit so Brendon would hear me. The handle of the door is being pushed down and a split second later, Brendon enters the bathroom. His eyes dart through the small area and I can see he’s surprised that he finds me sitting in the goddamn shower cabin. Without speaking one word, he sits down in front of me and takes my hand into his.

“Don’t mind their nosiness too much,” he speaks up, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles of my gloved hand. “They’re just curious and you can’t really blame them, can you?” he adds, looking into my eyes. He does have a point there, but it’s still not nice to live with. I wish it was the end of the tour already, so Brendon and I can have some real alone time.

“I guess so,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders. “It’s just a bit irritating, you know?”
Brendon nods in response.

“I know, but they’re our friends and band mates, you can’t just go snapping at them because they’re a bit curious,” he says, his words making me hate myself for being such an ass to my friends.

“I’ll go apologize,” I mutter, giving Brendon a weak smile. Brendon smiles too and stands up.

“I know your life is really hard right now, but try not to work it out on Spencer and Jon. They didn’t do anything wrong,” he tells me, putting his arms around my thin waist. “You can take it out on me if you want. I understand,” he adds, rubbing his left hand up and down my side. “Or…” he starts, but then he closes his mouth again. “No, leave it, it’s not a good idea.”

“What?” I curiously ask.

“You can tell them about your problem and y’know… what you did,” he carefully explains.
“Like that they won’t step on your toes so quickly.”

“I can’t,” I immediately reply and rest my forehead against Brendon’s. “You know that,” I add, closing my eyes. Why can’t he see that he’s the only person I will ever talk to?

“I thought so,” he replies and pulls his head a bit backwards, looking at me. “Talk to me then, okay?”

“I will,” I promise him, nodding. Then I lean forward, gluing my lips to his. He kisses me back and after a few seconds, he sweeps his tongue over my bottom lip. I part my lips, letting his tongue collide with mine for a passionate kiss. It’s been years since I’ve kissed someone in such a passionate way and I had already forgotten that it was possible.

When the need for fresh air becomes too big, I break the kiss, but keep my arms wrapped around Brendon’s neck so our faces are only a small inch away from each other.

“Come on, Spencer’s probably worried about you,” Brendon says and presses his plump lips against mine again for another quick kiss. When I let go of him, he makes a 180 degree turn and opens the door of the bathroom.

Spencer is still sitting on the sofa and Jon has joined him.

“I don’t know what has gotten into him lately. He seems so different; so glum and distant,” he tells Jon and sighs deeply. Then he sees Brendon and me standing in the narrow hallway between the living room area and the kitchen. I close my eyes for a split second and ignore what I just heard.

“Listen, Spence,” I start, awkwardly standing in front of the sofa that he and Jon are occupying. “I’m sorry for snapping at you,” I say, shifting my feet a little bit. “I just don’t like it when people are being nosy, you know that,” I continue and sigh. “All you need to know is that Brendon and I are together. Everything else is between me and Brendon,” I tell him and a few seconds later, a loud squeak escapes from my mouth as Brendon suddenly puts his arms around me from behind. He laughs softly and kisses my cheek.

“What he means, is that we’re really happy that you guys reacted so positively about our relationship, but we don’t want a big fuss about it,” he says, leaning his chin on my shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant.” I nod and slightly lean backwards, resting a bit of my weight against Brendon’s chest.

“You could’ve said that and I would have shut up about it, you know,” Spencer replies, shaking his head, but smiling.

***

“They’re fucking cute, aren’t they?” I hear Jon’s voice say. My eyes are closed and underneath me, I can feel a warm body breathing in and out. I sigh contently and keep my eyes shut as I rub my cheek against Brendon’s shirted chest.

“They are. I knew there had to be something going on between them. Or that something was going to happen. It was quite obvious,” Spencer replies and I can already imagine the self-confident smile that’s probably playing on his lips now. I slowly open my eyes and yup, I was right; the smile is there.

“You voyeurs, stop staring at us like that.” I say, chuckling as I turn my head to face them. Underneath me, Brendon’s body moves a little bit and a few seconds later, his eyes open up. He looks down at me, completely oblivious of the presence of Jon and Spencer. He presses his lips against the top of my heads and starts rubbing my back.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks, bringing his other arm to my back as well, to press me tightly against his body.

“Mmm… yeah,” I purr and rest my chin on his chest so I can see his face a little bit better.

“But then those two woke me up with their voyeuristic traits,” I add, pointing at the two men standing only a few feet away from us. Brendon turns his head and addresses his gaze to them.

“Geez, guys, don’t you know it’s impolite to stare like that?” he asks, laughing and then he pulls the blanket that is draped over the headrest of the sofa over us so it covers our heads and upper bodies.

“We were just passing by,” I hear Jon mutter to defend himself and then I can hear their footsteps leaving the living room area. Nice, some privacy again. I smile and lay my head back down on Brendon’s chest, my ear pressed close to his heart so I can hear it beating.

“Are you still tired?” Brendon asks me and starts rubbing my back again. The blanket is still lying on top of us, but I don’t really care. I think it’s cosy like this, even though it’s a bit too warm.

“Nah, just lazy,” I answer, letting out a long contented sigh. If only things could be like this forever. Then, maybe, I could be happy.

“Mmm… me too,” he says, placing another kiss on top of my head. “And how are your hand and wrist feeling?” he questions, letting his hand travel from the curve of my back, up to my shoulder and down my arm, until it has reached my injured wrist. He strokes it softly, too softly to cause any pain and I let out a deep sigh. I really don’t feel like talking about this the entire time. I wish we could just forget about what I did for one day. It seems that Brendon senses this and he drops the subject.

“I think we better get our asses off this sofa because I think we’ve almost arrived at the venue,” Brendon states, a long yawn escaping from his mouth.

“Five more minutes?” I ask, rubbing my nose against his chin. “Please?”

“Sure,” Brendon replies and pulls me up a little bit, so he can bury his nose into my hair. Unfortunately, our peaceful little moment is disturbed again by Jon and Spencer re-entering the little room.

“Hey, we got an interview later,” Spencer says, picking up the blanket that was still draped over us. “Who’s going?” he asks, dropping the blanket on the floor. Ugh. Sunlight. I squint my eyes a bit, blocking out the sudden overload of sunlight.

“Can you and Jon go, please?” I reply, looking at Spencer with begging eyes. I don’t feel like giving an interview now. I just want to stay in Brendon’s safe arms as long as I can. “We’ll do the next one, I promise,” I add, turning my face to Jon.

“I guess so,” Jon answers, shrugging his shoulder.

“Yeah, we better give these two lovebirds some time off to do God knows what.” Spencer grins, winking at me and Brendon. I grab a pillow that’s lying on the floor and throw it at Spencer. Fuck. I shouldn’t have done that. I think I twisted my wrist in a wrong way, because it hurts like a bitch. I can’t suppress a gasp and Spencer notices.

“Does your wrist still hurt?” he asks. “You said it was just a small injury,” he adds, giving me one of his typical worried Spencer looks.

“I’m okay,” I say, the words automatically escaping from my lips.

***

“Can I do your make-up?” I ask, feeling a lot more confident than usual. Today has been really great so far and I think it’s quite visible in my behaviour: I’m less turned into myself and more outgoing. Which, I guess is a great step forward, isn’t it?

“Sure.” Brendon smiles and flops down onto one of the two sofas that are in our dressing room. Spencer and Jon are doing the interview now, so Brendon and I have the room for ourselves for at least another two hours. Then we have a quick sound check, dinner and then tonight’s show.

“I’ll get my stuff from the bus,” I tell him with a big smile. “I’ll be right back,” I add and exit the room. It’s been ages since I have done someone else’s make-up and I kind of missed it. I hurry to the bus because all of our bags are still in there, since we didn’t have sound check yet. I easily find mine because it’s a bit larger than the others and it’s also bright red; my favourite colour.

When I re-enter the dressing room, Brendon is still sitting on the sofa, grinning like a fool when he sees me.

“What are you smiling at?” I ask, amusedly looking down at him. He’s so adorable.

“Nothing,” he replies, his smile not fading the slightest bit. “I’m just happy, I guess,” he says, patting the empty spot next to him. I put my bag down on the floor and drop my body next to his, immediately sliding my arms around his body to cuddle him. “And I’m happy because of you,” he adds and then he places a big, wet kiss on my cheek. “You’ve been doing pretty damn good today, haven’t you?”
I nod, my chin lightly touching Brendon’s shirted chest.

“Because you’re being so good to me,” I state and slightly pull away from our embrace so I can look at his face. “Thank you.” I smile and kiss those beautiful lips of his.