Sunspots and Raindrops

On Friday of that week, I woke up especially early because even after this long, I still had nightmares about my dad…

I jolted upward and looked around before sighing, feeling thankful that it was just a dream. But my gratefulness soon vanished when I realized that my eyes were now open and my dad was still gone.

I immediately broke into tears after that.

While I was in the shower, I could hardly tell if I was still crying other than the few sniffles that escaped every two or three breaths. The hot water was making it difficult to know if there were still tears rolling down my cheeks.

I stepped out of the shower and wrapped my hair in a towel on top of my head. I glanced in the mirror and almost started crying again when I saw how awfully smeared my makeup had become. I hadn’t washed it off the night before and instead had just gone to bed with it caked on my eyes.

I looked like a drug-ridden raccoon.

I rubbed my eyes and face vigorously and then dried off and got dressed. I began redoing my makeup when I realized how quiet it was in the house.

This was an oddity. My mom was almost always downstairs cooking something extravagant for breakfast or watching the news or listening to music. Anything that could keep her mind buys. But today, it was completely silent in the entire house and for a moment, I became concerned.

I grabbed my phone and dialed my mom’s cell but got her voicemail. I sent her a text message and I walked down the stairs. Sure enough, she wasn’t home. As I walked by the counter to see if the car was in the driveway, I saw her note lying there by the coffee machine.

It said that she had gone out with her friends. She had apparently and ironically had night terrors about dad last night too. I was glad that she was being proactive about feeling better. I was glad that she had someone to lean on other than me. It wasn’t that I minded bearing her problems, but now with school on top of everything, I knew I was bound to have trouble bearing my own.

I poured myself some cereal and sat down on the couch in the living room, watching the muted television. It was on CNN. My dad had always watched the news in the morning before work…

Old habits die hard. No pun intended.

Then, as I munched on my cereal, I realized that since my mom was gone, so was the car, meaning I’d have to walk to school that day.

I looked at the clock. The bell would ring in fifteen minutes and the school was about ten blocks away.

Hurriedly, I put my bowl in the sink, gathered my books and backpack and once I put my iPod headphones in my ears, I was out the door and on my way.

As I walked, slowing down once I was outside in the warm morning sun, I wondered if I’d ever get used to it there in Vegas. Had I still been living in Chicago, there would’ve been no way in hell I’d be walking to school in September. But in Vegas, not only was I walking to school, I was walking to school in only jeans and a shirt. No jacket or coat or hoodie.

It was still so alien to me.

I was crossing the street at after the third block when, over the music in my ears, I heard someone else walking near me. I glanced around and then, across the street, I saw the neighbor boy.

I mean Brendon Urie.

He had headphones in too and probably hadn’t noticed me walking along just across from him. We were walking at the same pace, our feet in sync with each others’. Left…right…left…right…

I tore my eyes from him and stared at the cracks along the sidewalk on which I walked. I still had ten minutes to get to school. At least I wouldn’t be the only one getting to school fashionably late.

I glanced over at Brendon again. He was still focused on his music and the tops of his shoes.

I turned my gaze to my own beat up sneakers. I randomly wondered what Brendon would be doing this weekend. Would his band be practicing at his house again? Maybe they’d have a gig somewhere in the city? Do they even play shows or is their band just a fun little hobby?

Questions piled themselves in my head like junk in a junkyard. However, I didn’t have any answers to any of the questions that presented themselves.

I blinked and then looked up toward Brendon again and this time, to my shock, he was looking right back at me. When our eyes met, he smiled and of course, I quickly looked away. Realizing how much of a dunce I probably looked like, I dug my phone out of my pocket, pretending to read and respond to a text message, and then, when I could still feel him looking at me, I started messing with my iPod, scrolling pointlessly through the thousands of songs I owned despite the fact that I was already listening to one of my favorites.

And since I was focused on my phone and my iPod and the music blaring in my ears, I didn’t hear or notice Brendon when he crossed the street and fell into step on the sidewalk next to me.

I saw his reflection in the screen of my iPod and jumped, almost screaming.

“Sorry,” he apologized quickly once I’d yanked one of my headphones from my head. He hadn’t really sounded genuine about it. “Your taste in music is awesome.” He beams at me.

“Thanks,” I murmured, turning back to my iPod and turning it off. I tucked it into the side pocket of my backpack. I didn’t really know what else to say, so I kept walking, silent.

“You’re in my history class,” Brendon says after a moment’s silence. I looked up at him and noticed that his facial expression matched that of his voice. He was confused why a junior was in a senior history class.

“I took some more advanced history classes back home,” I elaborated. “I had a choice between that history class of a junior government class. My distant memory is far more superior to my interest of who’s in the White House.”

Brendon smiled. “You sing too,” he says. “You’re one of the few in the school that actually seem proud to be in the choir.”

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as I turned to look at him without anything obscuring my view. I noticed how dark his irises were when he looked at me, but they held an innocent curiosity. The kind of brightness that you see in kids that want to ask so many questions and know so many things but just can’t seem to word what they want to say correctly.

“We have the same lunch period too,” I tried to pin him the way he pinned me.

“And your bedroom window is straight across from mine!” he one-upped me immediately, bouncing one his toes and then walking sideways slightly, all while looking at me jubilantly.

I couldn’t help but smile timidly at him after he said that though. “Observant, aren’t you?”

His walking calmed and he fell back into a regular step with me. “You’re just difficult not to notice.” A cord deep within me was struck when he said this and I missed a step and staggered slightly. I didn’t want to put Brendon on the spot. After all, he—along with everyone else at the school—believed that I moved to Vegas with my mom for job opportunities. I didn’t want to be pegged for lying through my teeth after just my first week of school. “Did I say something wrong?” Brendon asks, his happiness replaced with worry.

I promptly felt guilty when I noticed how uneasy Brendon was. After all, it wasn’t his fault that what he had just said reminded me more of my father than anything had in the last week.

I knew my smile was long gone and when I looked at Brendon and saw his concern deepen, I knew that he felt bad for whatever he’d done that brought on this reaction of mine.

“It’s nothing.” I say. I didn’t want to go into any specifics but I also didn’t want him to feel bad any more. He had too nice of a smile…

Quietness took over for the next few steps and I wondered if I had just completely freaked Brendon out. I wanted to know if he thought I was a total freak now for overreacting to seemingly nothing at all. What if he thought I was mentally ill or some kind of psychopath or something?

I glanced at him and, just like always, his eyes welcomed mine. He was smile was quiet and it looked like he was wanted to say something but was waiting for me to speak first.

“Do you think I’m a psycho now?” I blurted.

The laughter bubbled into his eyes instantly but he only breathed a chuckle. “No,” he says, shaking his head and looking down at our feet. “But I do think we haven’t been properly introduced.” He hopped in front of me and held out his hand. “I’m Brendon Urie.”

I took his hand and smiled up at him. “Sonny Mae Daniels,” we both stood there smiling at each other for a moment. “It’s great to meet you, Brendon.”

When I said his name, his smile widened and his grip on my hand tightened. “It’s better to meet you, Sonny Mae.” Then, he let go and gestured down the block. “My kingdom awaits.”

I laughed quietly and he and I walked the rest of the way to school together. When we got there, the first bell rang just as we walked through the doors. I turned down my hallway toward my locker and Brendon went to his. By the time I had gotten my locker open, Brendon was walking past me with his books in his arms. “Looks like we’re Mr. and Mrs. Tardy today.” He laughs as the bell rang.

He disappeared around the corner that led to Mr. Tanner’s classroom and I felt the corner of my mouth hitch a little. “Looks like it.” I said to myself and then hurried off to first period as well.

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First period seemed to go by a lot more quickly since I had Brendon in the class to keep me entertained. I found that since he and I were on a first-name basis with one another, I found it a lot less awkward to sneak glances at him now and then or to laugh at him when he was being…well, himself.

When the bell rang, I was relieved to be going to choir and as I walked out of Mr. Tanner’s classroom, Brendon stopped beside me. “See you in choir, underclassmen.” He joked before hurrying off toward his locker. He had a longer walk back to second period, after all.

I dropped off all of my books at my locker and then started toward the choir room which was conveniently tucked away in a corner of the high school, far from any math or science classroom in the building.

But I found the walk relaxing; a sort of reboot time for me.

“So you and Brendon are rubbing elbows now, eh?” Charlie was smirking at me when I looked at her.

“He’s my neighbor,” I said nonchalantly. “We were bound to meet eventually.”

Charlie accepted this as a significant excuse when Brendon joined us on our walk to class. He said hello to Charlie and she smiled back. I gave her a sardonic look and she shook her head. “Don’t go there.” She said and then she and I walked to our section of the choir while Brendon departed toward his own.

Choir also flew by. Singing was like a conscious nap for me. I let go of a lot of what was bothering me in the time that I was singing. And once I stopped, I felt, in a way, refreshed. And it the relaxation that came with singing only deepened each time I noticed Brendon looking at me or smiling at me.

He was a distraction in himself.

From choir, I went to art and Brendon went to physics and I didn’t see him again until lunch. Even then, while I was sitting with Charlie, eating and discussing, I would gaze around and catch Brendon’s eyes dart downward. I wondered if my smile would ever go away.

After lunch, I wouldn’t see Brendon until after school. And, just like that morning, I got a text from my mom saying that she was still away and that I would have to walk back to the house. So, I started toward the neighborhood and was about a block away when Brendon caught up with me.

“I could get used to this.” He said as he tried to catch his breath.

I smiled at him and then continued toward our houses.