Change

I woke up to the sound of thunder booming in the sky with rage. Brendon was sleeping so peacefully beneath me, not bothered by the ferocious storm tearing apart the outside world. I glanced up at the digital clock on his cable box. It was only 4:00 AM. Realizing how early it was, I let out an involuntary yawn of exhaustion. How long had we been sleeping? I wasn’t sure. I remember it being only midday when we crashed on the couch. His parents must have seen us, probably thinking about how disgusting we were or something. I don’t know.

I so desperately wanted to move my position around to get more comfortable, but I couldn’t risk waking the precious boy’s slumber. I gently kissed his hand and attempted falling back to sleep. I had no luck, though. Hours passed and it was time to get up for school. Recalling what happened yesterday morning, I let out a sigh of despair. This was not going to be fun.

I nudged Brendon’s arm and his eyes fluttered open a little bit. He let out a yawn, which I couldn’t help but stare in awe at his beauty.

“Hmmm, morning, Ryan,” he said in the middle of his graceful yawning.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty” I laughed. I felt heavenly as he pulled me in for a kiss before I we got up. I hopped off of him and headed towards the bathroom.

“Where are you going, Ry?”

“Shower,” I said, and a devious thought crept into the depths of my mind. So, I asked him very bluntly, “Would you like to come with?”

His face lit up with delight as he skipped towards me with the smile to match my devious thoughts. “I’d be honored,” he said.

We held each other’s hands and walked into the bathroom. I turned on the shower, a bit hotter than I usually did, and undressed myself. Brendon followed suit, causing me to attack him with my lips. I couldn’t resist someone so gorgeous as him.

He backed off a little bit, and I pouted in disappointment.

“Whoa, whoa, we don’t have that much time, you know,” he smirked at me then winked. I felt excited and dragged him into the shower with me. We didn’t really wash ourselves thoroughly, though. It was more of a heated make out session while being showered in scolding hot water. We had to get out, eventually, because the hot water ran out. I felt the sudden touch of cold water on my skin and jumped out immediately. Brendon wasn’t slow to get out, either.

Brendon and I burst into a sudden fit of laughter at what happened. That stopped when there was a soft knock at the door.

“Boys… you’re going to be late for school,” his father cried. You could hear the depression in his voice. It made you almost feel sorry for the guy, but I wasn’t giving into that.

Brendon just fell on the floor, laughing in fucking hysterics. It was pretty amusing, but after about 30 seconds I made him get up so we could go to school. “Sorry, Bren, but we really gotta go.”

I looked at the clock on the bathroom wall. 7:20 AM. Shit. We were never going to make it on time. I still had to get dressed and style my hair, or at least blow-dry it. “Ugh, we’re gonna be late.”

Brendon sighed and dried off with his towel. I did the same, then tied it around my waist and got out my salon-quality hair dryer. In about 10 minutes, my natural flowy locks of chocolatey brown hair actually looked pretty decent. I decided the flat iron was unnecessary and proceeded to my room to get dressed. Brendon was still drying that ridiculously adorable, over-grown mess of dark brown hair.

For once, I was waiting on Brendon to finish getting ready. It was worth the 10 minute wait and tardy pass to class. He walked down to the living room where I was waiting, awkwardly with Mr. Urie reading the paper across the room. The moment I saw him, I was mesmerized. He was a god. He wore dark black skinny jeans that showed off his perfect ass, and I noticed a hint of black eyeliner on his eyes.

“Brendon, you look… hot,” I went in for a kiss, but the second our lips touched, his dad let out an obvious cough of discomfort. I giggled a bit, and Brendon blushed like hell. “Ah, we gotta get going NOW.”

Brendon and I ran out the door, holding hands, and giggling like school children? Ahh… where have I seen this before? It was a good feeling, to know that the person that made you feel complete got the same feeling from being with you.

-Later That Day-

Brendon and I were being extremely flamboyant, to say the least. Every chance we got, we were kissing or hugging or holding hands in the hallways. We wanted the world to know just how perfect our world was.

“Hey, faggots,” ugh, not Pete, “Whoa, Urie, you look gayer than usual today. What’s the occasion?” he and his friends started laughing.

Brendon was quick-witted, though. He wouldn’t take shit from Pete anymore. “Well, I heard some rumors and thought it to be the opportune moment to get your attention.” And he said this in the gayest accent possible, while batting his long, perfect eyelashes in Pete’s face. A few of his friend backed away and started laughing hysterically. I gave Brendon an open-mouth kiss to freak them out. Finally, they left as Brendon and I started losing ourselves in each other’s mouths.

Someone behind us cleared their throats. I came back to reality and forced Brendon off of me. I looked up to see the vice principal disapproving of our public displays of affection. “Get to class, you two.” There was a look of pure disgust in her eyes that gave me chills. In fact, she seemed much worse than Brendon’s mother.

“We have lunch right now,” I replied. She looked angry now.

“If you two don’t knock it off, I’ll give you a week’s detention. Get your act together, and go to the cafeteria. Now,” she growled, “and don’t let me catch you two at it again, or else.”

The second she was gone, we burst into laughter. What did she know about love? Nothing. Feeling defiant, we continued our little shenanigans for a few more minutes before actually going to lunch.

When we got down to the cafeteria, something was wrong. The atmosphere felt different, to say the least. Our table was empty. I looked around and scanned the room for Spencer and Jon, only to see they had moved on and joined Patrick and two of Pete’s other friends. I saw the look in Brendon’s eyes when he noticed this same exact thing. It was a mixture of hatred and sorrow, mashed up in a dangerous way.

“Brendon, let’s just sit at our usual spot and ignore them,” I said, trying to be positive.

“Ryan, they’ve been my best friends since God knows when, and the only real friends I ever had. Now they’re sitting with those fucking pricks over there, leaving me with no one.”

No one? Who was I? Nobody? “Hi, Brendon. I’m no one.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s fine, I know you didn’t.” Though, it still bothered me quite a bit that he phrased it like that. “If you want, I’ll go talk to him.”

“No, you don’t have to-” he started, but it was too late. I was already walking over to them. I tapped Spencer on the shoulder, then Jon, and beckoned them over to a more private area.

“Guys, why the fuck are you sitting with them, of all people?”

They looked down in shame and guilt, but refused to come back. Fucking pricks, I thought. Though, I reconsidered this. Any normal person would avoid the gay couple, I guess. It was only a matter of time before everyone we knew avoided us due to fear of ridicule just for being associated with us. It came with the territory, but I guess Brendon never realized this when he decided he wanted us to go public a few weeks ago.

I walked back to the table, empty-handed. “Sorry, Bren. I think they’ll come around soon enough. Just… give it time.”

“Give it time, my ass.”

“Yes, your ass is lovely,” I said. He just sighed miserably, not even touching his food.

“You know, I haven’t felt lonely since I met you, but now I can feel a fragment of what that used to be like, and I don’t like it, at all.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Before he had me, he had a girlfriend, he was kind of popular, to say the least, and he had two great best friends. How could someone like him be lonely? He should have tried being me for a day at my last school. I shuttered at the thought.

“What do you mean ‘lonely.’ You had lots of friends before I came around. Yeah, sorry about that, by the way.”

“No, don’t be sorry. I’m happier this way than I was before. I mean, I had a lot of friends yes, and a girlfriend, but I didn’t really feel happy, if you know what I mean. I just felt average, like I wasn’t really that special to anyone.” He sighed again, “But that feeling went away the moment I met you. I wasn’t sure why, until that night I kissed you for the first time.”

I felt heat in my cheeks for a moment and my heart stumbled upon each beat. “Brendon, you’ve always been special, with or without me.” I reached over for his hand and kissed it, gently, then held it on the table for a while. “You know, I was lonely, too. But in both a similar and different way.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, filling each word with curiosity.

“Well, before I met you here, I didn’t have any friends at all.” I didn’t really need to explain it though. Anyone could tell that I was gay just by the way I looked, the way I acted. I wasn’t really your normal guy, per say.

He looked at me meaningfully and said, “Well, I feel both a bit sad and joyous to be your first friend, and now boyfriend,” which caused my cheeks to burn even more. He chuckled a little when he noticed it.

“And I’m glad to be your first real friend, and your first true love,” I said. A few moments after our little heart-to-heart chat, the bell rang and dismissed us from lunch. I didn’t want to leave Brendon’s side, but school was calling my name, with a vengeance.

“I love you, Ry. I’ll see you after school,” he said, smiling. I kissed him on the cheek for a moment, and sadly pulled away.

“I love you, too, Brendon,” I said, walking in the opposing direction to my next class.

The whole day dragged on, and I couldn’t get what Brendon had been telling me at lunch out of my head. It seemed so unreal that a guy like him, who didn’t even know he was gay at first, would have been so troubled before. A smile leapt onto my face at the thought that I was the reason he was finally happy.

Finally, when the end of the school day came, I skipped out of the building, high on absolutely nothing, and ready to see Brendon again. I made my way to his car and waited for him like usual. I waited, and waited. I kept waiting until it was nearly 4 o’clock. My mind started to panic. Brendon was never this late. Where the hell could he be?