Don't Come Home
Tonight the Headphones Will Deliver You The Words That I Can't Say
He drove from city to city, performing every night. Every night, he saw hundreds of new faces, but there was one that was permanently etched into his mind. Claudia. He’d met her three years earlier—before he joined the band. Jon had fallen in love with the younger girl the minute he laid eyes on her; he had to have her.
But he was a kid at the time and being young and in love doesn’t always work.
She worked five days a week and lived with her best friend. She spent every day wishing he would call; she could never forget him. Jon. She met him a few years earlier, when she was still awkward and clumsy, still just a kid in high school. Claudia fell in love the minute he introduced himself; he was so different.
But she wasn’t good at being in relationships, and young love never seemed to last in her opinion.
: : :
He wasn’t sure what state they were in, he didn’t care, though, because they had a day off. He had wandered off, trying so hard not to remember. As much as he wanted to, he wouldn’t let himself; he thought of anything else like the tall grass he had found himself sitting in and the way it would sway in the slight breeze.
When Jon realized it was starting to rain, he made his way back to the hotel. He ignored the curious look from Spencer and went to grab some dry clothes so he could take a shower. He didn’t need to remember that he was hundreds of miles away with no chance of seeing her, of holding her.
He fell on the bed after a hot shower; he knew he had to call her soon, hear her voice and know that she was okay or he’d lose it.
She sat in her home office; the screen saver on her laptop was dancing across the screen while she scribbled down everything she wanted to tell him, everything that she’d been through in her journal. She stopped when her writing was barely legible anymore; she had zoned out and was daydreaming again.
Claudia pulled open a drawer and looked at the two tickets for the concert in a few weeks, knowing how frequent a bout of sickness would overcome her younger friend, Lizz—who had only just fallen asleep on the couch after being up for too long while sick and wouldn’t be better for at least another two to three days.
It was the one thing she had left to hold on to, and if he wasn’t going to call—neither was she, but she desperately needed to see him—she was just going to have to go to one of their shows.
: : :
Jon stood alone by the window, phone pressed to his ear; it kept going to voicemail but now he was only calling to hear her voice. “Jon, come on!” Brendon whined. “I’m hungry.” Jon gave up and followed the younger boy. He ordered the first thing he saw on the menu that looked appetizing even though he wasn’t really hungry.
“Are you okay?” Spencer asked, watching the bassist as he picked apart a roll. Brendon was oblivious and stuffing his face like a starved walrus, and Ryan had disappeared to God knows where.
“Yeah, sure,” Jon mumbled, but he knew something was going to have to change. He didn’t look up from the pieces of his roll. “Just thinking.”
Jon hadn’t realized that Spencer had been worried about him for the past few weeks, didn’t realize that he had been so out of it. He needed his mindset where everything was fine if this was ever going to work.
Neither Spencer nor Jon said anything after Brendon had mumbled, “He’s probably just constipated.” Only Brendon would think it was appropriate to say something like that while eating, but it was also Ryan’s luck that he would sit at the table when Brendon was mentioning shit.
: : :
Claudia sat on the couch with Lizz, feet on the coffee table, each girl with a mug of hot chocolate. It was five in the morning, a Saturday and the younger girl was sick again. “Isn’t the concert today?” she asked in a small voice, resting her head on Claudia’s shoulder.
The older girl sipped her hot chocolate, then quietly said, “Yeah.” She knew that Lizz wouldn’t be up to going; she’d barely eaten in three days. Claudia had marked off the days on the calendar, had a countdown for the past month waiting for this day. The tickets were still in the top drawer on the right side of her desk, and in her bedroom was the outfit that she’d picked but wouldn’t wear because she refused to go without her best friend.
“You’re going, right?” Even though Lizz was only a year younger (a year and three months, actually), she had a way of sounding like a little kid, but Claudia always factored in that Lizz was shorter than her and still threw fits sometimes. “Right?”
Claudia shrugged, putting her mug on the end table and turning on the lamp; neither of them had been watching the cartoons on the television anyway, so she turned off the TV. “No.” She didn’t give reasoning. “How’s your stomach?”
Lizz sat up, eyeing Claudia. “Better, I guess. I’m not nauseous.” She drank the last of her hot chocolate then followed the older girl into the kitchen, placing the mug in the sink and filling it with water. “You can go, you know.” She jumped to sit on the kitchen counter.
Claudia was going through the fridge, trying to figure out what the younger girl would be able to eat without getting sicker. “I don’t want to. Not without you.”
“It’s not like its Fall Out Boy. Really, you should go. I’ll be fine for one night. I can call Tori and she can come baby me. Maybe I’ll actually get some sleep,” Lizz said, flashing a smile. In reality, she knew that Tori had to study for a huge test that was coming up in a few weeks, so she’d just take a sleeping pill and sleep on the couch like she usually would.
: : :
There were some things Jon didn’t mind doing as much as others. Visiting kids in hospitals was one of them. It was Pete’s idea—But Pete isn’t here Brendon had whined before Ryan slapped him and told him to get over it. Jon walked two steps behind Spencer, Brendon, and Ryan and nearly ran into them when they stopped to talk to the receptionist.
Ryan handled the list of names and room numbers, leading them down a hallway that hurt his eyes from the intensity of the white. “What’s this kid’s name?” Brendon whispered as Ryan knocked on the open door. It was a single room, the walls were a light green, but the floor was the same speckled white tiles that were in the hallway.
“Come in,” the female voice responded a moment later. Brendon was the first in the room, sniffing the air and going straight to the bed, sniffing the petite girl that was giving him a dirty look. Ryan was almost ashamed to be friends with him, so he stood at the foot of the bed to seem more normal. Spencer was beside him and Jon stood beside Brendon.
“You smell… You smell like gummy bears,” he said, standing straight. “I’m Brendon.” He gave one of his obnoxiously large smiles, causing her to laugh.
“I’m Lizz,” she offered. She had a nasogastric tube taped to her cheek and tucked behind her ear and had an IV taped down on the back of her left hand. “I might be dying. And I only smell like gummy bears because my friend has this really awesome perfume and sprayed me down with it last night before she left.” Jon noticed how she was completely okay with that, fine with dying young; and he wondered why. Ryan didn’t give it as much thought, but he gave her a small smile; Brendon was convinced that Ryan liked her.
“We’re Panic! At The Disco,” Spencer said, giving a smile.
Her brown eyes widened, then narrowed as she carefully looked at each of their faces, starting with Brendon, then Ryan, Spencer, and Jon last. “Oh my god,” she mumbled. “You’re Jon!” Brendon chuckled and elbowed Jon in the ribs.
“Yeah,” Jon said nodding.
The girl named Lizz smiled and pressed a button on the bed so she was sitting up. “I think you dated my friend. She still loves you. She talks about you in her sleep sometimes. She never admits that she likes you, though.” A light pink blush formed on Jon’s cheeks. “Claudia. Claudia Martinez.”
Jon turned to look at Spencer, his eyes wide, before he looked at her again. “Yeah. We dated,” he confirmed. Lizz smiled, proud of herself for making the connection, but Jon was still at a loss for words.
A nurse came in with a tray of food and set it on the table, leaving without a word. “I hate hospital food,” Lizz said. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t eat anyway. I don’t know why they brought me that crap… What is it, though?” Ryan walked over and pushed the table closer to her and lifted the lid off. “Broth again.” She made a face. “Gross.” Brendon laughed as Ryan put the lid back on.
“Why can’t you eat?” Ryan asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
She cocked her head to the side and then tugged on the bottom of Brendon’s shirt till he leaned down. “Oh my gosh, Brendon, has Ryan always been so damn gorgeous?” she whispered a little too loud. Brendon smiled and nodded, wiggling his eyebrows. She slowly turned to look at Ryan as Brendon stood up straight again. “I uh… I get sick when I eat. Like, nauseous and my stomach hurts.”
“That must suck,” Brendon said, frowning. “When was the last time you ate? Er, ate real food?” She shrugged, not bothering to answer the question and gave a small smile, not wanting to make anyone worry unnecessarily about her.
: : :
Claudia walked down the road, music blasting in her ears so she wouldn’t think about Lizz in the hospital. She wished she’d taken her sooner—before she passed out. It had been during a period of time where she was seemingly okay, too. She veered to the right into the small field where the tall grass swayed in the wind. She walked up to the tree—their tree—and climbed up to their branch.
She turned down the volume on her iPod as she sat on the branch, legs dangling in the air. She leaned against the tree. “Stupid. So stupid. I knew I should’ve taken her soon. Fucking stubborn dumbass kid,” she hissed to nobody; she wiped her eyes. She looked over where her initials were carved with his.
“Tough day?” somebody asked. It was a guy, she was sure. She turned off her iPod and looked around, not seeing anybody.
She closed her eyes and leaned against the tree trunk. “Tough month,” she replied, breathing in deeply. She swore she could almost smell Jon’s cologne.
“If you want to talk, I’ll listen,” he offered. Claudia still had no clue who he was or where he was, but she did. She told him everything from missing the concert to Lizz being in the hospital to missing Jon (though she didn’t mention any names.)
Then, when she was done, she jumped down from her branch, said goodbye to the stranger (without actually turning to see where he was or what he looked like, or even if he were following her) and walked home.
She took a quick shower when she got home, being careful not to get her hair wet, then put on her favorite dress and grabbed her wallet and car keys so she could go visit Lizz. She walked from her room to the kitchen and grabbed a can of Mucho Mango Arizona tea from the fridge. Then the doorbell rang.
: : :
Jon looked around after he pressed the doorbell. There were two blue metal lawn chairs on the porch, one had Lizz written on it in a darker blue paint. There weren’t shrubs or flowers like the few other houses did (there were only five houses on the road, Jon had counted.) And maybe it was just his imagination running wild, but he swore that he’d seen at least five clan bat stickers on one of the windows of the house.
He was sure he was in the right place. The door opened and she stood there, staring at him with a can of Arizona tea in one hand and her car keys in another. Neither said anything. He wanted to grab her face and kiss her so hard that she forgot how to breathe, wanted to take her in the house and have his way with her and never leave.
She broke the silence. “You aren’t blocking me in, right? I was about to leave…” Claudia said, looking down at her feet so Jon wouldn’t see the blush on her cheeks. He didn’t know what to say now.
But he was a kid at the time and being young and in love doesn’t always work.
She worked five days a week and lived with her best friend. She spent every day wishing he would call; she could never forget him. Jon. She met him a few years earlier, when she was still awkward and clumsy, still just a kid in high school. Claudia fell in love the minute he introduced himself; he was so different.
But she wasn’t good at being in relationships, and young love never seemed to last in her opinion.
: : :
He wasn’t sure what state they were in, he didn’t care, though, because they had a day off. He had wandered off, trying so hard not to remember. As much as he wanted to, he wouldn’t let himself; he thought of anything else like the tall grass he had found himself sitting in and the way it would sway in the slight breeze.
When Jon realized it was starting to rain, he made his way back to the hotel. He ignored the curious look from Spencer and went to grab some dry clothes so he could take a shower. He didn’t need to remember that he was hundreds of miles away with no chance of seeing her, of holding her.
He fell on the bed after a hot shower; he knew he had to call her soon, hear her voice and know that she was okay or he’d lose it.
She sat in her home office; the screen saver on her laptop was dancing across the screen while she scribbled down everything she wanted to tell him, everything that she’d been through in her journal. She stopped when her writing was barely legible anymore; she had zoned out and was daydreaming again.
Claudia pulled open a drawer and looked at the two tickets for the concert in a few weeks, knowing how frequent a bout of sickness would overcome her younger friend, Lizz—who had only just fallen asleep on the couch after being up for too long while sick and wouldn’t be better for at least another two to three days.
It was the one thing she had left to hold on to, and if he wasn’t going to call—neither was she, but she desperately needed to see him—she was just going to have to go to one of their shows.
: : :
Jon stood alone by the window, phone pressed to his ear; it kept going to voicemail but now he was only calling to hear her voice. “Jon, come on!” Brendon whined. “I’m hungry.” Jon gave up and followed the younger boy. He ordered the first thing he saw on the menu that looked appetizing even though he wasn’t really hungry.
“Are you okay?” Spencer asked, watching the bassist as he picked apart a roll. Brendon was oblivious and stuffing his face like a starved walrus, and Ryan had disappeared to God knows where.
“Yeah, sure,” Jon mumbled, but he knew something was going to have to change. He didn’t look up from the pieces of his roll. “Just thinking.”
Jon hadn’t realized that Spencer had been worried about him for the past few weeks, didn’t realize that he had been so out of it. He needed his mindset where everything was fine if this was ever going to work.
Neither Spencer nor Jon said anything after Brendon had mumbled, “He’s probably just constipated.” Only Brendon would think it was appropriate to say something like that while eating, but it was also Ryan’s luck that he would sit at the table when Brendon was mentioning shit.
: : :
Claudia sat on the couch with Lizz, feet on the coffee table, each girl with a mug of hot chocolate. It was five in the morning, a Saturday and the younger girl was sick again. “Isn’t the concert today?” she asked in a small voice, resting her head on Claudia’s shoulder.
The older girl sipped her hot chocolate, then quietly said, “Yeah.” She knew that Lizz wouldn’t be up to going; she’d barely eaten in three days. Claudia had marked off the days on the calendar, had a countdown for the past month waiting for this day. The tickets were still in the top drawer on the right side of her desk, and in her bedroom was the outfit that she’d picked but wouldn’t wear because she refused to go without her best friend.
“You’re going, right?” Even though Lizz was only a year younger (a year and three months, actually), she had a way of sounding like a little kid, but Claudia always factored in that Lizz was shorter than her and still threw fits sometimes. “Right?”
Claudia shrugged, putting her mug on the end table and turning on the lamp; neither of them had been watching the cartoons on the television anyway, so she turned off the TV. “No.” She didn’t give reasoning. “How’s your stomach?”
Lizz sat up, eyeing Claudia. “Better, I guess. I’m not nauseous.” She drank the last of her hot chocolate then followed the older girl into the kitchen, placing the mug in the sink and filling it with water. “You can go, you know.” She jumped to sit on the kitchen counter.
Claudia was going through the fridge, trying to figure out what the younger girl would be able to eat without getting sicker. “I don’t want to. Not without you.”
“It’s not like its Fall Out Boy. Really, you should go. I’ll be fine for one night. I can call Tori and she can come baby me. Maybe I’ll actually get some sleep,” Lizz said, flashing a smile. In reality, she knew that Tori had to study for a huge test that was coming up in a few weeks, so she’d just take a sleeping pill and sleep on the couch like she usually would.
: : :
There were some things Jon didn’t mind doing as much as others. Visiting kids in hospitals was one of them. It was Pete’s idea—But Pete isn’t here Brendon had whined before Ryan slapped him and told him to get over it. Jon walked two steps behind Spencer, Brendon, and Ryan and nearly ran into them when they stopped to talk to the receptionist.
Ryan handled the list of names and room numbers, leading them down a hallway that hurt his eyes from the intensity of the white. “What’s this kid’s name?” Brendon whispered as Ryan knocked on the open door. It was a single room, the walls were a light green, but the floor was the same speckled white tiles that were in the hallway.
“Come in,” the female voice responded a moment later. Brendon was the first in the room, sniffing the air and going straight to the bed, sniffing the petite girl that was giving him a dirty look. Ryan was almost ashamed to be friends with him, so he stood at the foot of the bed to seem more normal. Spencer was beside him and Jon stood beside Brendon.
“You smell… You smell like gummy bears,” he said, standing straight. “I’m Brendon.” He gave one of his obnoxiously large smiles, causing her to laugh.
“I’m Lizz,” she offered. She had a nasogastric tube taped to her cheek and tucked behind her ear and had an IV taped down on the back of her left hand. “I might be dying. And I only smell like gummy bears because my friend has this really awesome perfume and sprayed me down with it last night before she left.” Jon noticed how she was completely okay with that, fine with dying young; and he wondered why. Ryan didn’t give it as much thought, but he gave her a small smile; Brendon was convinced that Ryan liked her.
“We’re Panic! At The Disco,” Spencer said, giving a smile.
Her brown eyes widened, then narrowed as she carefully looked at each of their faces, starting with Brendon, then Ryan, Spencer, and Jon last. “Oh my god,” she mumbled. “You’re Jon!” Brendon chuckled and elbowed Jon in the ribs.
“Yeah,” Jon said nodding.
The girl named Lizz smiled and pressed a button on the bed so she was sitting up. “I think you dated my friend. She still loves you. She talks about you in her sleep sometimes. She never admits that she likes you, though.” A light pink blush formed on Jon’s cheeks. “Claudia. Claudia Martinez.”
Jon turned to look at Spencer, his eyes wide, before he looked at her again. “Yeah. We dated,” he confirmed. Lizz smiled, proud of herself for making the connection, but Jon was still at a loss for words.
A nurse came in with a tray of food and set it on the table, leaving without a word. “I hate hospital food,” Lizz said. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t eat anyway. I don’t know why they brought me that crap… What is it, though?” Ryan walked over and pushed the table closer to her and lifted the lid off. “Broth again.” She made a face. “Gross.” Brendon laughed as Ryan put the lid back on.
“Why can’t you eat?” Ryan asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
She cocked her head to the side and then tugged on the bottom of Brendon’s shirt till he leaned down. “Oh my gosh, Brendon, has Ryan always been so damn gorgeous?” she whispered a little too loud. Brendon smiled and nodded, wiggling his eyebrows. She slowly turned to look at Ryan as Brendon stood up straight again. “I uh… I get sick when I eat. Like, nauseous and my stomach hurts.”
“That must suck,” Brendon said, frowning. “When was the last time you ate? Er, ate real food?” She shrugged, not bothering to answer the question and gave a small smile, not wanting to make anyone worry unnecessarily about her.
: : :
Claudia walked down the road, music blasting in her ears so she wouldn’t think about Lizz in the hospital. She wished she’d taken her sooner—before she passed out. It had been during a period of time where she was seemingly okay, too. She veered to the right into the small field where the tall grass swayed in the wind. She walked up to the tree—their tree—and climbed up to their branch.
She turned down the volume on her iPod as she sat on the branch, legs dangling in the air. She leaned against the tree. “Stupid. So stupid. I knew I should’ve taken her soon. Fucking stubborn dumbass kid,” she hissed to nobody; she wiped her eyes. She looked over where her initials were carved with his.
“Tough day?” somebody asked. It was a guy, she was sure. She turned off her iPod and looked around, not seeing anybody.
She closed her eyes and leaned against the tree trunk. “Tough month,” she replied, breathing in deeply. She swore she could almost smell Jon’s cologne.
“If you want to talk, I’ll listen,” he offered. Claudia still had no clue who he was or where he was, but she did. She told him everything from missing the concert to Lizz being in the hospital to missing Jon (though she didn’t mention any names.)
Then, when she was done, she jumped down from her branch, said goodbye to the stranger (without actually turning to see where he was or what he looked like, or even if he were following her) and walked home.
She took a quick shower when she got home, being careful not to get her hair wet, then put on her favorite dress and grabbed her wallet and car keys so she could go visit Lizz. She walked from her room to the kitchen and grabbed a can of Mucho Mango Arizona tea from the fridge. Then the doorbell rang.
: : :
Jon looked around after he pressed the doorbell. There were two blue metal lawn chairs on the porch, one had Lizz written on it in a darker blue paint. There weren’t shrubs or flowers like the few other houses did (there were only five houses on the road, Jon had counted.) And maybe it was just his imagination running wild, but he swore that he’d seen at least five clan bat stickers on one of the windows of the house.
He was sure he was in the right place. The door opened and she stood there, staring at him with a can of Arizona tea in one hand and her car keys in another. Neither said anything. He wanted to grab her face and kiss her so hard that she forgot how to breathe, wanted to take her in the house and have his way with her and never leave.
She broke the silence. “You aren’t blocking me in, right? I was about to leave…” Claudia said, looking down at her feet so Jon wouldn’t see the blush on her cheeks. He didn’t know what to say now.