In My Bones

Ryan grabbed an apple from the counter as he ran through the kitchen to the front door. Spencer was waiting outside in his car and if he had to sound his horn one more time, Ryan knew he would leave. He pulled his jacket on as he stepped through the door. Spencer shook his head as he watched Ryan rush down the driveway.

“Sorry,” Ryan laughed as he climbed into the car.

“Yeah, yeah,” Spencer muttered and put his car into reverse.

The drive to the studio was pretty quick. It was early enough that there was very little traffic. Spencer had all of his windows down, the way he always did. The cool breeze felt refreshing after Ryan had spent the last couple of days inside, sitting in front of the television, pretending to write the last couple songs for the new album. Ryan’s fingers drummed against his thigh to the All-American Rejects that blasted though the car and out of the windows.

“So, ugh,” Spencer started without taking his eyes off the road. “Have you talked to Brendon?”

Ryan cleared his throat anxiously. “Not really, no… Have you?”

Spencer shrugged. “A little. He called the other day, just to talk about the album. He’s got a song he wants to show us today, actually/”

“Oh, cool…” Ryan lied. His heart sank and his hands grew sweaty. What if the song was about him and what he had done? What if Jon and Spencer were to find out? He glanced back at Spencer, who was tapping out a beat on the steering wheel and he couldn’t help but think that Spencer may already have known.

Sometimes, Ryan felt as though he never had to talk to Spencer, which he liked for the most part, but times like these, he wished as was as much of a puzzle as he liked to think he was. He stopped hiding things from Spencer in his first year (rather, his only year) at University. He had invited Spencer to campus one afternoon for lunch and Ryan’s TA happened to be having lunch there too and came over to say hello before returning to the young man Ryan had eyed when the two of them had walked in.

“You fucked him, didn’t you?” Spencer said the moment the young teacher’s assistant was out of earshot. Ryan choked on the Sprite he had ordered and turned to look at him quickly. “You shouldn’t fuck people for grades.”

Ryan looked away and he could feel his cheeks grow hot. He played with his hands in his lap. “I didn’t fuck him…”

They didn’t talk about it again after that moment, but Ryan could tell that Spencer didn’t believe it then and still didn’t.

Spencer turned into the studio parking lot. He turned the ignition off and turned to Ryan. “You should talk to him today,” he stated.

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, I was going to…”

Spencer nodded and finally unlocked the door. Ryan exhaled with relief, he hadn’t even realised he had been holding his breath. He followed Spencer towards the studio and down the tight hallway that led to the recording room. Ryan’s heartbeat grew quicker with every step he grew closer to Brendon. He tried to keep his breathing normal, inhaling and exhaling, but when he entered the recording room and saw Brendon, standing next to Jon with a smile across his face and a guitar thrown over his shoulder, he forgot about inhaling.

Jon nodded towards him. “Hey, what’s up?”

Ryan smiled back and waited to make eye contact with Brendon. There was a piece of hair sticking up on the back of his head, Ryan found it endearing. He wanted to smooth it down, not because it bothered him but because he wanted to feel Brendon’s hair in his fingers, he wanted to relive what he had missed on New Years.

“Hey,” Brendon said.

Ryan had missed Brendon’s voice. Usually, he called him about once a day, just to talk, but Brendon hadn’t called him since that goddamn party, mind you, neither had Ryan. He knew he should have, but he just thought that Brendon probably didn’t want to hear from him, not now.

“Hi,” Ryan answered, his voice barely audible.

Ryan had been making music for as long as he could remember. Even before he had bought his first guitar, he could remember playing the mini grand piano at his elementary school nearly every day after school to be away from home as long as he could, but as he grew older, he just began to love the beautiful sound he could make simply by moving his fingers. Mrs. Jenkins, his sixth grade teacher, told him that he had a gift and that he should take music classes in high school and maybe, if he still had the same passion, he could go into music at college.

He had written so many songs those days, most were shit, but there were a few chord changes that he had written when he was twelve years old that made it onto the first album he made seven years later, when he was nineteen. Ever since those days in grade school, he had been writing nearly every day, if he couldn’t get his hands on a guitar or a piano, he would just write some lyrics. So if felt strange that, when he had been given two full days to add whatever needed to be added to Panic’s sophomore album, he churned up nothing. He thought that maybe all the drinking and smoking he had been doing recently disabled him from feeling those emotions he needed to write songs. But finally, Ryan didn’t understand something: he didn’t understand that not knowing how to describe what he was feeling was different from not feeling anything entirely.

And now, Brendon had written a song, which was scary because it was just so different from what they were used to and what also scared Ryan was the possibility that maybe Brendon was a better songwriter than he himself was. (Ryan had certainly given him enough inspiration to write a touching, heartfelt ballad.) Brendon was already a much better singer than Ryan was, fuck, he was even a better guitar player than Ryan was. If he turned out to be a better songwriter than Ryan, what would be his role in the band? He would just be masked and asked to step back to the second row, the way Paul McCartney masked John Lennon.

And so Ryan was nervous when Brendon picked up his guitar after Spencer had asked to hear what he had written. He didn’t know what he was more nervous about, the song being about him, or the song not being about him. He listened to Brendon clear his throat and then closed his eyes as Brendon’s voice filled the room, ceiling to the floor. It reminded Ryan of smoking marijuana. It surrounded him like a soft cloud and ran through his body, relaxing every tensed muscle. He took a deep breath, allowing himself to fall into a pool of thought, before Brendon stopped suddenly.

“That’s it,” he admitted with a tight laugh.

“Oh,” Ryan muttered. He turned to Spencer who shrugged, but there was approval written across his face. “It was good,” Ryan continued.

Brendon nodded and stretched out his jeans. “Thanks…”

Ryan stood and grabbed his guitar from its case and sat back down. “Teach it to me.”

“Right now?” He was smiling. He was always fucking smiling.

“Yeah, right now.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan saw Spencer gesture to Jon and they both got up. They each fumbled for the cigarettes in their jacket pockets and left silently.

“Okay, it’s pretty simply. You start on G and then move to C and then this D thing, I forget what it’s called, just keep your middle finger up instead of on,” he explained. Ryan nodded and mimicked the chords silently. “And those are the only chords really, so you can just watch for the changes…”

Ryan studied Brendon’s hands and tried to remember what they had felt like, running across his chest that night. He followed Brendon’s lead and quickly got used to the chord changes. His fingers moved, almost by reflex, so he let himself fall back into Brendon’s syrupy voice. He half-consciously listened to the words and the thought finally struck him: the song wasn’t about him. His heart fell to his stomach. He suddenly stopped playing and Brendon slowly followed, his brow knit tightly with concern.

“Is something wrong?”

“No… I just thought I’d listen for a second…”

“Oh.” Brendon chewed on his bottom lip. “Do you want me to keep going?”

“No,” Ryan answered. “I’m gonna go for a smoke…”

“Okay.” Ryan could feel couldn’t ignore the uncertainty and hurt in Brendon’s voice, but he didn’t stop. He grabbed his jackets and grasped for the cigarettes in his pocket as he pushed the door open. Jon and Spencer turned to look at him and Spencer stepped towards him, his eyes momentarily flashing with anger.

“Where’s Bren?” Jon asked.

Ryan threw his thumb over his shoulder and lit his first cigarette. Jon and Spencer shared a look before Jon brushed past Ryan and returned to the recording room. Spencer took a long drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out beneath his shoe.

“You can’t keep running, you know?” he finally said.

“Who says I’m running?”

“I do,” Spencer answered with a sarcastic laugh.

“Oh yeah?” Ryan stepped towards him defiantly. “From what?”

“From whatever’s between you and Brendon.”

“You don’t even know what’s between me and Brendon,” Ryan spat.

“No, I don’t.” Spencer took a step towards Ryan, leaving only a couple inches between
them. “And neither do you which is exactly why you’re running.”

Ryan shoved him as hard as his small frame could and barked: “You don’t know the first thing about it!”

Spencer stumbled for a moment and looked up, his eyes black with anger. “All I know is that’s Brendon in there and you better not fuck him and run like you’ve done everyone else!”

Ryan barely realised what he was doing, and though everything seemed to moving in slow motion, he couldn’t stop his fist cutting through the air and connecting with Spencer’s jaw. Ryan had never hit anyone before and he never imagined Spencer would be his first. His fingers stung and he could feel the tears springing to his eyes as the guilt and concern immediately arose within him. His eyes grew wide and he could feel his heart beating behind his eyes as he watched Spencer cradle his tender cheek.

“What the fuck, man?” Spencer finally mumbled.

“I—I’m sorry…” he stammered. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Are you okay?” Ryan asked, putting his hand gently on Spencer’s back. Spencer rubbed his cheek and opened his mouth as wide as he could, letting his jaw crack mercilessly.

“Have you ever hit anyone before?”

“No…”

“You can tell.” A smile slowly spread across Spencer’s face.

Ryan rolled his eyes and shoved him backwards once more, a smile adorning his lips
too. “Fuck you,” he mumbled.

Spencer laughed and tried to smile reassuringly. He could see the moisture covering Ryan’s eyes and just like the guilt had swallowed Ryan, it swallowed Spencer too. He decided not to say anything, instead, je just put his arm around Ryan’s shoulders and squeezed him, the way his mother used to do to him after a long day at school.

“I don’t want to go back in there,” Ryan mumbled.

Spencer nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you a ride home.”

Spencer then stepped towards the studio’s backdoor. “Spen?” Ryan called after him. “Thanks…” Spencer smiled and disappeared down the dark hallway.

Ryan went home with Spencer that day, earlier than he should have. He knew that he should take the extra couple hours and finish that song that he had been working on for the last week or so, but he felt so tired that he let himself drift off into a fitful sleep on the couch. Sleep had been fleeting him for the last few nights.

When he awoke, he sat himself down in his music room, surrounded with guitars and a small keyboard in the far corner. He took a deep breath and picked up one of his acoustic guitars and sat it across his lap. He didn’t feel anything, no flame of inspiration sparked in the back of his mind and no invisible urges told his hands to play specific chords. The words to the song were already written, Ryan thought that they were perfect; he had been able to get those out rather easily, it was only the music that he was struggling with.

He couldn’t ask anyone for help, because they wouldn’t understand it, they wouldn’t hear the emotion in his words. He played a few chord structures, humming to himself, but nothing seemed fitting. For a moment, Ryan wondered if even he could hear his own emotion anymore.

He sighed in frustration and put the guitar down. He pulled himself to his feet and left the music room. He climbed the stairs towards his bedroom and spotted the small box where he kept his weed, sitting on his dresser. It was still open from whenever he had smoked last. He grabbed his pipe and the nearly-empty baggie of marijuana, pulling it all onto his lap as he collapsed onto his bed.

Smoking alone was, to say the least, a rarity; smoking was supposed to be something strictly social, but sometimes, it helped him clear his head and helped him come up with something that wouldn’t automatically wind up on the B-side of their album. Ryan chuckled to himself. He was such an old soul. He took his first, long hit and, slowly, let himself lie down. He watched the smoke float and trace small, bony figures above him. If only he could write a song that sounded the way that smoke looked.