Speechless

We got back to Brendon’s house, and his mom was already making lunch, so we relaxed on his living room sofa. He grabbed the remote and flicked on some romantic comedy I was not familiar with. I didn’t really watch movies often, and I sure as hell didn’t watch romantic ones. Brendon seemed to be really into it, though, so I didn’t protest.

About a half hour into the movie, he noticed my lack of care for the frivolous chick flick he was so completely in love with. I was growing entirely impatient with the movie. I didn’t even know the name of it. In fact, I couldn’t really recognize any actors in it. I didn’t really keep tabs on celebrities anyways. Brendon paused it for a moment and asked me what was wrong.

“Ry, you’re not enjoying the movie, why not?”

I wrote, “I’m not really the romantic type.”

“Aw,” he looked sincerely disappointed, as if I had crushed all his hopes and dreams. I could see it in the intense glare from his dark chocolate eyes that he was trying to hide. “We can do something else, if you want.”

I shook my head, and he insisted upon doing something else, “No, no, if you’re not having fun we can do something else, I don’t care. I’ve seen this movie so many times.” As annoying as this movie was, I didn’t want to stop Brendon from having his fun. To tell you the truth, it was kind of amusing to watch him giggle at the so-called “funny” parts and awe at the supposedly romantic parts, so I shook my head again and made him watch.

During the whole movie, I watched him, not the television screen. The way he reacted to such a simple story line was actually somewhat adorable, like he was a small child or something. I don’t know. I was just so intrigued by him at that moment, and I couldn’t control my thoughts.

“Ryannnnn!” he called out. I woke up in a daze, forgetting the awkward dream I had just conjured up. “Oh, good, you’re awake.”

I gave him a wide, over-done grin that stretched across my face, and sat up. I must have drifted off during that god-awful movie. I remembered staring at Brendon and…

“You’re blushing,” he said. I looked at him with a face full of confusion, “I said, ‘you’re blushing.’ Why are you blushing?” he asked in a playful tone. Which of course, I think at least, caused me to blush harder. I just blinked at him, unwilling to reveal the lustful dream I had just witnessed come alive in my own mind.

I shook my head and mouthed the words, “weird dream.”

“Oh,” he said. Then he smirked at me with a devilish smile as if he already knew. He probably did figure it out by now. Though, I wasn’t sure how that dream actually came into my mind in the first place. I never really had thoughts like that about anyone before. So why him? I don’t know. I just sat up with extreme confusion, but as I sat up, the blood rushed to my head and I couldn’t see for a second. I hate it when I do that. It happened quite often, actually.

I rubbed the vision back into my eyes and blinked a few times.

“Want something to drink? We have Pepsi,” he offered. I nodded my head slowly, and he got up to get me the soda. I was enjoying the silence, for once. I just felt to weird around him now. Where did that dream come from? The silence didn’t last long though.

“Catch!” he said as he hurled the can of soda at me. I caught it, barely, and my stupidity caused me to open it right away. Soda bubbled everywhere all over his couch and myself. Instead of getting mad, though, he just burst into hysterical laughter, and I joined him. We laughed so hard, that I almost spoke through the noises escaping my throat. I stopped myself to prevent any more of my voice from leaving me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I wrote down on my notebook, yet again I was writing, I hated it. “I thought I almost said something, so I stopped myself.”

He looked down at the floor and back at me. “You know, Ryan, it’s not so bad. Talking, I mean. In fact, it’s some people’s biggest hobbies. You can only get so far in life without talking at least once in a while.”

God dammit, he knew how sensitive I was about this, and yet he was confronting me, telling me I should go against what I’ve been trying to do my entire life and just quit now? I can’t just start talking again like everything is fine. It didn’t feel natural to me, anymore. Silence was natural to me. Silence was my life. Silence was the only thing I knew. That is, silence was my life before I met Brendon. Because of him, there was some noise every now and then. I thought about that and just stared at him blankly.

“Oh, Ryan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” he trailed off and went into panic mode. “Ryan, are you okay? I’m so, so, so, so, so, so, sorry.” I swear I saw him holding back tears, and I knew his apology was completely sincere.

I got up and walked over to him, putting an arm around his shoulder to comfort him. Then I got an idea. It wouldn’t hurt, right? Just one time would be okay, right? “It’s okay. I’m not mad,” I whispered in his ear.

The second I did that, he froze. His jaw hit the floor in denial. “D-d-did you j-just talk?” I grabbed my notebook and began writing, again.

“No, I just whispered,” it read.

He looked up at me with thoughtful eyes and just pulled me into the tightest bear hug anyone had ever experienced. I welcomed the warm embrace, probably taking it a little too seriously.

“I knew you could do it, Ry,” he said, but didn’t really push the matter any further. At that moment, I began slipping every now and then – almost speaking by making subtle noises and stopping myself right away. I had never been so dangerously close to cracking in my life. I wanted to speak to him, so badly, but I knew nothing good would come out of it. Nothing good ever comes out of speaking, so I sat in my normal silent world, waiting for the day to come when I’d have the courage to finally speak.