You're The Only One

"Well, we're finally done packing." I said shoving the last of the clothes in a drawer. Our room was fairly cozy I guess. I mean, it's nothing compared to home though.  

Brendon was sitting on the edge of the bed, not saying a word, playing with his fingers. 

"Bren?" I said. He looked up at me slowly, still not saying a word. 

"Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" I asked softly, sitting next to him. 

He sighed. "You know what's wrong." he mumbled. I grabbed his hand. "And I miss home." he added. 

I sighed and nodded. "Me too." 

"We can never go back." he mumbled. "And it's all my fault." 

I paused.

 "What?" I asked, almost angry. "Brendon, this is, in no way your fault. At all." It's mine. "And when things die down… maybe we can go back." I tried. 

He shook his head. "No Ryan, we can't. We can't go back. We can never go back. They'll be looking for us forever!" he exclaimed out of frustration. 

"Well it was self defense." I mumbled. "They can't arrest us for that right?" I asked, hoping to give us some hope. 

"They don't know that." he said. "We have no proof that he raped and tried to kill you. We have no proof that he was a psychotic, obsessive, maniac." he paused and began pacing back and forth across the room. "Anyone who knew Pete thought he was a  nice, normal, guy. No one would believe that he would do something like this. But do you know what they will believe? Everyone who fucking knows me, knows that I'm a crazy, psycho, paranoid, jealous freak, that over reacts constantly, and they'll think I killed him out of jealousy! Because all the evidence points to it!" He threw his arms in the air and was seriously starting to scare me a little. Not because of what he was saying, but because he looked so upset. "I can't go to jail Ryan, I can't." he said, looking at me with pleading eyes. He looked as if he might start crying, but he was probably out of tears.  

I placed my hand on his cheek, and he closed his eyes. "You won't." I said. "I promise you won't, you're safe now. I'm here, our friends are here, and we'll protect you, us. Us because you're not in this alone. This is all my fault, if only I would have told everyone what was going on…" I trailed off. "I love you so much." 

He fell forward, and rested his head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around him and rubbed comforting circles on his back.

"We should go down stairs. Phil should be here soon."  I told him. 

"Okay. I love you too." he sighed. 

~*~
 
We walked downstairs, and Phil was standing in the doorway talking to someone outside. Vicky, Gabe, Bill, and Patrick were all sitting on the couch watching T.V. 

"Hey guys, I want you to meet my boyfriend." Phil said. "Sweetie! Can you come here please?" she called out the door.  A few seconds later, a tall thin familiar man stood in the door way. "Honey, these are Kaela's friends that are going to be staying with us for a while. Guys, this is Eric." She said. 

Patrick looked over and his eyes widened. "Eric?" he questioned. 

"Patrick?" The dark haired man asked out of confusion. "After a few moments of awkward silence he spoke again. "Well this is unexpected." he said. 

Then it dawned on me. 

This was one of the dudes we met a Pat's birthday party a while back. The one Pete invited us too...

"You guys know each other?" Phil asked. 

"Um, yeah." Eric said. "We've been family friends since we were kids. I haven't seen him since my last trip to Vegas." he explained. 

Phil looked at him strangely. "Well that's a strange coincidence." she said. "So you all know each other?" she questioned. 

"Um…" he looked around. 

I stepped forward and offered my hand. "I'm Ryan. We met at Pats party…" I further explained. 

"Oh yeah. Nice to see you again." he said shaking my hand. "And I think we met too, right?" he asked, turning to Brendon. 

Brendon gave a small smile, and nodded, shaking his hand. 

"Dude. Thus is so weird. You didn't tell me you were coming to California. Or that you were going to be staying in my house." Eric said. 

"Well you didn't tell me that you were living in Calfornia, or with Kaela's friend." Patrick replied. 

"Well you didn't tell me that you even knew Kaela." he replied. 

"Touché" 

"Well I'm Vicky." Vicky said loudly, but not willing to stand up. "And these two idiots are Gabe and William. Jon and Spencer are still unpacking I think." She said. 

William glared at her, hand Gabe waved at Eric with an idiotic smile on his face. 

~*~

Brendon and I sat at the kitchen table silently drinking coffee. Neither of us could sleep. 

It was late. 

"Hey, what are you guys doing up so late?" Phil said walking into the kitchen, and grabbing something out of the fridge. 

"Couldn't sleep." we both mumbled. 

"Well of course not, you're up drinking coffee." She said with a slight smirk on her face. She then pulled a chair out and sat at the table with us, opening up her soda. "Yeah, Kaela has told me all about you guys. It's no wonder you can't sleep." she continued. 

"Really?" I asked. 

"Mhm." she hummed. 

"How do you know Kaela?" Brendon asked out of the blue. 

She let out a small laugh. "Well, Kaela and I were best friends for the longest time. All through middle school, and high-school. Even though she left me for that crappy town in Alabama." she continued with a smirk. 

Alabama. Good times. 

"I remember she would call me and tell me all about her 'New gay best friends.'" both Brendon and I managed to laugh at that. 

"I haven't seen her in ages. It's probably been a couple years. We still manage to chat on Facebook every now and then, but I haven't had real contact with her in too long. So I was eager to let her and you guys come stay with me. Since I missed her wedding and all."

"Um," I couldn't help it. I had to ask. "Have you met Kaela's, uh, husband?" I asked. Brendon gave me a weird, "what are you doing?" look. 

"Um, no. Isn't he coming with Kaela and the baby?" she asked. 

Brendon and I exchanged glances. 

"Not exactly." Brendon said. 

"So he's not coming?" 

"No, he is." I said. "We should probably let Kaela explain though." I finished. 

She look confused. But agreed nonetheless. 

"So," I decided to change the subject. "Since you know so much about us, it's only fair we find out more about you." Brendon smirked and nodded in agreement. 

She laughed. "Okay then. Well, my real name is Judy, but only Eric calls me that. And my parents I suppose. But I preferred to be called Phil. I live here with my boyfriend, who just happens to be the frontman of the band Black Gold. They're not very well known yet, so you probably haven't heard of them. I guess you could say I'm the manager of the band. Um, I'm twenty three years old, and I've lived here all my life. That's it. Nothing really super exciting has happened to me since I started dating a rockstar." she said with a smirk. 

I laughed. "Well, at least we're never bored." I said to Brendon. Then I turned to Phil. "Our life has been filled with a series of unfortunate events that we somehow managed to pull through."

"I can see that." she said. "You guys are strong. I admire that." 

I smiled and looked at Brendon, grabbing his hand. He managed to smile back. She's right. We are strong. And we can make it through this.