They're Gonna Eat Me Alive

Absence

Though Brendon never seemed to notice the little things about Ryan, he did notice his absence. Time seemed to drag by so much more slowly. Brendon, along with the rest of the band, was trying their best to get a new album out. But the process just seemed so much more unbearable.

Brendon had even started to hope that maybe Ryan would just change his mind and miraculously show up.

“Did Ryan tell you why he left?” Brendon questioned. He was sitting with Pete in his apartment.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Pete asked in return.

Brendon thought back, trying to come up with whatever obvious reason that Ryan had for leaving. He thought of Ryan the last time he saw him, how he had smiled at him. He couldn’t have been unhappy.

“I guess it wouldn’t be obvious to you,” Pete said, bringing Brendon out of his thoughts.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Why do you think that Ryan always came to me?” Pete said. “Did you ever stop and consider how Ryan was feeling? Did you ever ask him how he was?”

Brendon felt like a complete and utter asshole as Pete questioned him. He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. That he hadn’t seen these things before. He pictured Ryan again the last time he had seen him, but instead of focusing on the smile he looked at the whole picture and now Brendon could see the empty look in Ryan’s eyes and how forced that small smile was.

“Was it because of me?” Brendon asked quietly. Pete didn’t say anything, but Brendon could tell by the look on his face that it was completely his fault. “Fuck. Why didn’t I see it before? He loved me didn’t he?”

“You can’t help it if you didn’t notice things about someone you don’t actually care about that much,” Pete said. “But yes, I’m pretty sure he did love you.”

“It’s not that I don’t care about him!” Brendon exclaimed. He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just—I don’t know…he just acted like everything was fine.”

“I think,” Pete started. “If you had loved him as much as he loves you, you would have noticed that things weren’t fine.”

“Do you know where he went when he left?” Brendon asked, ignoring Pete’s statement. He shook his head.

“If Ryan wants to be found or if he wants to come back, he will,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
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~Sally