Speechless

Brendon left. Keltie, Jon, and I ate breakfast. I popped some bagels in the toaster. I didn’t feel like making anything, and I didn’t want people digging through the kitchen for food more so than they already had.

“So, there’s something going on between you and Brendon. What happened? Seems like you guys have a past.” Jon decided to ask me the one thing I couldn’t let Keltie hear.

The second I spoke my voice was nervous and weak. I didn’t know what to say to them. “We were best friends and he replaced me with that Spencer kid, I don’t know. We fought over something personal… yeah. He and I don’t talk much anymore. I went over to his house the other night, but he wasn’t too pleased to see me. He sort of kicked me out, not really but, you know. I don’t know.”

“Ahh, I see.” Jon didn’t buy my mostly true explanation. He could tell there was some missing information – important missing information – but he didn’t take the time to ask me any further questions about it.

“Sooo what do you guys wanna do today?” asked Keltie.

“Die,” I said. My head was pounding.

“That’s awfully morbid.”

“I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have drunk anything last night. I’m so stupid. I told myself I wouldn’t do that…”

“Ry! It’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up. We all drank a little bit.”

Jon laughed, “But Ryan drank more than just a little bit.”

“I don’t even remember anything.”

We all laughed a little, but I was more upset than happy. I wanted to know what I had done to Brendon. Why had he even shown up? Why did he stay here until morning?

When the house was finally clean, Keltie and Jon said their goodbyes. I watched them walk away. I watched myself become lonely again. Staring out the windows of the living room, I let my eyes wander across the yard and into Brendon’s. His house was lifeless and empty. That child-like disposition that once filled the air had turned into a dark, gloomy outlook on a lonely life.

--

School the next day was a blur even though my hangover had completely faded. I noticed a lot more people recognized me. They high fived me in the hallways, constantly praising me for being “awesome” or something like that; I don’t know. It was awfully strange. I walked down that hallway every day, yet no one ever knew my name. Now all of a sudden I was a celebrity to these people. At lunch, Brendon glared at me. I sat with Keltie, Jon, and now Spencer, too. Apparently Jon and Spencer were close friends. I didn’t really want to sit with Spencer, but at this point I had no real choice in the matter.

Though, I didn’t really want to be with these people. I realized how annoying Keltie is after a while. Jon was nice and all, but there was no denying that he wasn’t going to make me happy. No one could ever do that, except for him.

A bedroom becomes a lonely place when you have no one to share it with. Eating at the table is tiresome when you’re the only person sitting at it. A cell phone is useless when there’s no one to call. The only place left for me was my dreams. Even after these days of acceptance from Ketie, Jon, and most people who went to my party, this empty void refused to just disappear. It continued to grow. It grew and grew and grew. My mind was in a constant haze. My grades were steadily beginning to slip. Nothing could keep me focused – especially when I saw him at school. We had mainly the same classes, the same lunch period, and we lived next door to each other. There was also absolutely no way for me to possibly escape this ludicrous torture set upon me. I couldn’t imagine how it could be done. At first, Keltie and Jon had given me a way to temporarily forget him. I could breathe and relax. I was at ease. That didn’t last very long, though - probably because he was everywhere.

It started with homeroom. I was already in my seat when I watched him walk into the room. His body was sunken and sad. He hunched over and hid his face from mine. I never really noticed it before, but I was pretty sure he had been doing that for a long time, now. He sat in the back of the room, alone. Usually he was with Spencer, but for some reason Brendon was now avoiding even him.

I couldn’t bear to look at him like that anymore, so I averted my eyes out the window where I saw nothing but a parking lot full of shitty cars baking in the heat of the desert. I thought of nothing but the taste of Brendon’s warm lips against my own. I missed it all too much.

--

There was nothing worse than waking up on a Saturday morning to the feelings of loss, loneliness, and boredom all at the same time. A week passed full of absolutely nothing. No feeling at all. But when you’re all alone with no distractions, it’s hard to maintain that numb, empty feeling. I stared outside my bedroom window at his house wondering how I let him get away. His curtains were drawn shut, but the shadow of himself was directly in front of it, and by the looks of it, he was more than likely getting dressed. I wished those curtains had been drawn open.

I slowly dragged my pathetic body out of bed, hoping to find some sort of motivation to get myself started for the day. I had homework to do. That could distract me. Not to mention the large amount of chores I got stuck with when my father came home. Still, the only thing I felt myself wanting to do more than ever was to go over to his house and win him over again. I knew that wouldn’t happen. Not like this.

My old man was snoring in his room, just down the hall from my own. I exhaled a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t awake, yet.

A vibration on my nightstand caught me off guard, and my body flinched. I grabbed my phone and flipped the top up to see a new text from Keltie. She wanted to go do something today. I didn’t. Although I needed a distraction, I couldn’t bring myself to reply with a “yes.” I typed the words, “Sorry. Busy today. Maybe tomorrow.” But I knew I would say no tomorrow, too.

My eyes turned to the window, lingering on the now shadow-less window. Brendon was gone, busy doing whatever it was he did these days.

This obsession needed to stop.

It didn’t, but what did stop was that god-awful snoring. Footsteps climbed down the stairs and stopped once they reached the bottom. They didn’t move again.

“GEORGE!” he yelled.

Of course. Time for breakfast, meaning time for me to make him breakfast. I finally had a slight form of motivation to move again. I slowly trudged down the stairs, pushing my father into a mild form of frustration.

“George, there’s no breakfast” he complained.

“I know. I just woke up.”

“Well hop to it, boy” he grumbled as he went into the living room to sit in his favorite recliner.

I hurried into the kitchen to cook a simple omelet for my father. I looked out the kitchen window for a moment to see he was sitting out on the deck again. His face was sullen with a melancholy expression.

The eggs sizzled in the slightly-rusted skillet. My father blankly stared at the news on the television screen while he waited. Eggs don’t take long to cook, though. Thank God for that.

I didn’t say anything as I handed him his omelet. He didn’t say anything, either. Not even a simple thanks. So, I walked towards the front door. It creaked as it opened up.

“Where in the hell do you think you’re going?” my father grumbled in the background.

I shrugged my shoulders at them as if to say I had no idea, when I had a perfectly clear idea as to what I was doing and where I was going. He shook his head in response, showing no signs of actually caring. He ate his breakfast with a look of disgust plastered onto his hard face. I couldn’t bear to stay here any longer, so I walked out the door and slammed it shut as loudly as I possibly could.

The light breeze that passed by didn’t help with the blazing heat outside as I walked. There was an overcast sky above me, threatening to drench me in my own tears. I wouldn’t mind it. That breeze, however, pushed me in the direction of his house. Brendon’s house. I turned to face the forgotten home that was once a sanctuary.

I didn’t even go to the front door. I walked passed his front yard and into his back yard, silently. I snuck around the deck as Brendon moped atop it, staring into space. For a few moments, I just watched him as he was unconscious of my presence right next to him.

“Hi.”

He jumped out of his chair and plummeted to the floor of the deck in shock.

“Who the hell-? Oh.”

He looked at me as he turned around. His face was made of stone, completely impossible to decode and unmoving.

“What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” and I honestly didn’t.

Our eyes met for the first time in a long time, and we just kind of stared at each other. His face might have been unreadable, but his eyes were full of emptiness and want. So were mine.