A Broken Bone

There was this really rough night once, early on in the first tour we did. Brendon had a hard time dealing with the rapidly growing fan base and the equal amount of hate we were receiving. He missed being able to walk outside without the valid fear of being attacked with admiration or animosity. And you couldn’t blame him, it all made sense — like the whole world was bipolar, or the world was at war, and we were at the center of it. If you think about it too much, it’s bound to drive you a little crazy.

I was writing in another part of the bus and I could hear him. Brent and Spencer were pretty much dead to the world, they got so worn out after shows. My insomnia was starting to come back, and while some potential lyrics were getting a little strange, I felt like they could be great. So I let insomnia win, embraced it. But I could hear Brendon in his bunk, these sporadic sniffles and hiccups and all. He had mentioned to us earlier that he wasn’t sure he was adjusting too well but otherwise, he was pretty much fine. On the outside, anyway.

So I gave it a minute before I went back to check on him. Contemplated if whether or not he would want someone to know how badly he was really adjusting. I figured, if something happens, if he’s really broken up about it, and I don’t say something….

I knocked on the wall outside his bunk, where his feet would be, and he shut up immediately. No sniffles, no hiccups. I whispered for him, but he didn’t respond. Reason told me to leave him alone, but there was this feeling in my chest — this sort of ache and pulling and burning — that made me think otherwise. So I pushed the curtain back.

Brendon’s eyes were closed, but his cheeks were still wet and his breathing was… scared. There wasn’t much room to lie down next to him, but I figured the shift in his bed would have to “wake” him up. I crawled over top of him and shifted my body between his and the wall, and there wasn’t a place to put my arm, so I threw it over his waist. Then his chest. Honestly, where’s the most appropriate place for your arm to go in this situation? Especially when you don’t want to give the wrong idea, after you’ve already crawled on top of the other party in question?

“Ryan…” Just a whisper, eyes still closed. I re-positioned my arm to almost go around his neck and sort-of simulate a hug. I’d never really done this before.

“I just have a headache.” Brendon swallowed and I watched his Adam’s apple wobble. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and gave me a weak laugh. “It’s really bad.”

“So bad you’re in tears?” The words came a lot harder than I meant, but he got the point. He nodded, tried to laugh again. “How bad does it hurt?”

“Oh….” He rolled his eyes, his face covered in thought as tears begin to brew inside him again. We sat completely silent for a while, so long I almost asked him again before he said it: “Like the worst pain I’ve ever felt…like I’ve already forgotten what it’s like to not hurt, like it’ll never stop hurting… like I’m being pulled apart… like there’s no worse pain in the world — ” I watched his face contort from might-be-about-to-cry to inhuman-dying-hysterics in seconds. Brendon covered his eyes first, but when the sobs continued, he buried his face in his palms.

I have no idea what the fuck to do.

So I just let him cry, and I eventually got the idea to tighten my grip on him and actually hug him. Brendon turned onto his side, put his still-covered face into my shoulder, and I wrapped both my arms around him and I let him cry. When Brendon finally returned my hug, I stroked his hair and his back and his shoulders and let him cry into me. Tears on my shirt, soaking through to my skin, sneaking in through my pores and into my blood and racing to my lungs, to my heart. And I let him. I felt a shift in my walls and I let him into me. All the while, crying. Unhinging me. Unaware.

“I’ve had this same headache before,” I told him as the sobs turned back into sniffles. “A few times. First when I was younger, about ten. I described it to my mom as my head being broken.”

Brendon took a deep breath, and then another. “Your head was broken? Like your skull or -- "

“Both, I guess.” Ten years old, I was irrationally sad. I told my mom my head hurt and that it was broken because I couldn’t feel happiness anymore. “It feels a lot like a broken bone… Everything does. I didn’t want to move or think… or breathe.”

Brendon’s eyes found mine automatically, and I realized we had felt the same pain. Maybe it was more than the tour, and maybe he had felt it before, but it wasn’t my place to ask. Not yet.

“I’ve never broken a bone before,” he told me, and then he laughed. “Nothing’s ever been wrong with me before.”

“Nothing’s wrong with you now.” I lifted his chin so his eyes met mine again, like what mothers do in films or on television when their children are upset. “Nothing is wrong with you. And nothing is wrong with me now. See how okay I am?”

We laugh. A real laugh this time.

Brendon’s face got serious again after a while. His walls seemed to shift, and it registered in his shoulders -- the way they relaxed momentarily before tensing up again. His eyes changed, and he opened up. “I miss my family. I miss my house. I miss feeling normal. I miss… privacy.” His eyes darted around the room and lingered on the two bunks across from us, on our slumbering bandmates. I pulled the curtain closed.

“I’m sorry.” It’s all I could say. I didn’t leave much when we decided to tour; I had my friends with me. “Do you want this to end? Like… Should we stop after the tour? Or now?” Slowly, Brendon shook his head. “We can, you know. It would be okay. We can…you can be a lawyer.”

We laughed again. Could you even imagine, Brendon sitting at a wooden table, suited up next to this murder suspect and suddenly shouting, “Objection! He’s badgering the witness!”

“I want this,” he pleaded, his eyes still red, his cheeks lined with salt. “I want to be in this world. I-I want to make music, and play, and I want you… I just miss what we had.”

Writing together. Playing guitar. Talking, eating, laughing. Alone.

“I’d rather be constantly monitored than not see you again,” he told me, and I could see it in his eyes, what I always saw when he came over to me on stage, when we were recording, when we were writing, when we were dreaming. This… indescribable want. A need. “As friends, you know.”

I couldn’t hear him. All I could do was feel him. The need, the pull in my chest, the ache in my head, it was all the same. A new ache. The same feeling of a bone being broken, but with the knowledge that it would heal. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear him. My breath quickened, and I spoke without pause.

“You know how my mom would help my headaches? She would melt them away. You know how?” Just the shaking of his head, and then my lips on his.

And that’s how everything fell to shit.