Never on My Lips

“I’ve liked you for a while. For a really long time actually.”

There are few words in this world that can be combined in such a way that truly renders someone of being speechless. Usually, it’s something that beholds terrible news or an immense amount of shock that it might not even be considered plausible. This, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly unexpected, but, regardless of his timing, still left me speechless back then when it happened as it does now.

Three years ago when Brendon Urie gave me this small confession, I had no reaction, no response; in fact, I just stood there, quite stunned at even the possibility of him having feelings for me. Brendon was always such a mysterious person. Not mysterious in personality, but the way that his humor and methods of conversation seemed to hide a secret persona—one that he probably kept isolated. At that moment, I felt like he finally opened up that side of himself to me.

And, truthfully, I was afraid to accept it.

It’s such a cliché excuse to use, liking the same gender. Honestly, I think it’s a pathetic excuse, but I’m a coward whose irony chased after me not long after this situation.

“I’m sorry. I-I don’t… I like someone else.”

Or maybe it was a slip of the tongue. Maybe it was just a mistake.

“She’s waiting for me.”

I had no time to stutter. If anything, lying was a brilliant talent of mine, one that I confess leaves me feeling guilty and all too proud at the same time. I knew that if I stuttered, this would be less believable, and I had to keep him thinking that it wasn’t anything I didn’t like about him for as long as possible.

In a way, I wished I liked Brendon at the time. I hadn’t realized what aspects of my life he had touched until he up and ran off. The music he’d leave for me on my desk or the poetry he’d ask for my opinions for—they all kind of stuck with me.

I shook my head of these thoughts from the past. It was four o’clock, and Brendon was probably waiting for me at the coffee shop like he’d mentioned. My palms started to sweat, and the last thing I needed right now was coffee.

**

“How have you been?” Brendon stirred his black mug delicately, staring at the tip of the silver spoon before switching glances to me.

I couldn’t help but grip onto my lukewarm tea with frozen hands. If I let go of the mug, I’d feel the cold sweat, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. God, this was so nerve-wrecking. It was difficult to describe the type of intimidation Brendon instilled in me. It was like he gave off this aura that, even without words, would make a street preacher stop and listen.

His voice wasn’t too deep, but it was menacing enough. His lips were full to the point where an artist would have a field day trying to sketch them while keeping all the details in, the solid shade of deep pink pigment beneath the skin, the slight frown he holds. It had to have been his eyes. So deep brown, they could capture you in an instant. They were the type of eyes that you wanted to stare at for hours, but they resonated a type of fear that at any moment they might just look back.

He was the type of person most girls would admire from afar but be too afraid to approach. And now, he’s right in front of me asking the simplest of questions.

“Fine.”

“After three years, all you can dish out is a one word answer? That’s weak for you, Lydia.” He grinned. He had perfect teeth, too.

“It’s just been quiet, I suppose.” I could only smirk in the slightest, lowering my eyes down to the reflection of the ceiling in my tea. “Where’d you go? And how come you’re back?”

“Just some self-discovery.” Brendon flicked his head off to the right, his styled hair lofting to the side. He looked out the window as the sky turned a pale gray. “I guess, you could say I became a vagabond of some sorts.”

“A vagabond?”

“A hobo with a purpose.” He laughed once.

“So you stayed in Nevada or what?”

“Ha, Nevada.” He shook his head. “This is home, but I didn’t want it. I probably spent a few months in California, going from place to place, making connections, running into the right and wrong people. I kept in touch with the school, had them send me lessons every now and then so I could come back on time. I had it all planned out in a way; I’d wander without any direction, but I’d come back when the wanderlust was over.”

I nibbled at my lip. The thought of leaving home and going anywhere in the world without even considering the consequences frightened me and excited me at the same time. I didn’t know what to think. I had always assumed that Brendon’s dad must have gotten a new job that required him a transfer, or maybe his parents decided he should go to boarding school—typical explanations for a student disappearing so suddenly.

“Were you afraid?”

Brendon’s eyes connected with mine. With a sly smile, his lips parted. “Of course. But fear is temporary, and I knew I’d come back eventually. So, here I am.”

Brendon’s leg skimmed the tip of my knee cap underneath the table, and I shuddered. He was so warm.

“So how is she?”

He knew he was going to ask that question. It wasn’t something he’d decided out of the blue; he probably set this up so could settle some curiosity he’d garnered up over the years.

“And don’t say ‘fine’.” He cut me off before I could speak.

“She’s doing well. We’re doing well.”

“And so you use the grammatically correct way of still saying ‘fine’.” Brendon laughed to himself. “Just the answer I could expect from you. It’s no wonder you kept my interest back in freshman year. Always such a mystery.”

My leg vibrated. My phone was just begging to be answered, and I knew it was Janie. If it wasn’t Janie, it was my mother, and both of them have impeccable timing.

“You should get that.”

As a reflex, I did what he said.

“Hello?”

“Hey, where are you? Sam and I just drove back from tutoring, and I thought I saw your car at a coffee place.”

“I’m just around. Why?”

“Oh, I was sure it was your car—“ The sound of Janie’s voice wasn’t just on the phone anymore; it was behind Brendon at the door.

She didn’t see me right away. In fact, she might not have seen me at all were it not for the audible gasp I let slip into the receiver when she walked in. Obviously, I don’t deal well with surprises.

Janie’s hazel eyes grasped onto mine with such an adolescent look of shock. Brendon turned around, and I’d hoped since they’d never met formally that nothing would click. Her stare shifted subtly between mine and Brendon's.

My lover hung up the phone and waved shyly before turning away to follow after her other friends. It wasn’t difficult to recognize the look of sadness that washed over her face when she’s realized I’d lied just as it was two times as difficult to disguise the red in my face.

Brendon turned to face me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of her back. I’d messed up, and I was still in disbelief that I was capable of such a thing.

“It’s a secret, isn’t it.” Brendon scrapped the matte paint on his mug. “No one knows.”

I lowered my eyes finally once Janie had walked away to a table on the other side of the shop where my few of her was obstructed my numerous customers. “What?”

“No one knows,” he repeated. “About you and her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Must feel terrible to see the one you love walk away because of a lie, doesn’t it?” His eyes bore holes into me.

And just like that, I felt like the vagabond. If home was where she was, home had its back turned to me. Home was camouflaged beneath those brown curls and walked to the other side of the room.

But I knew that if it were me, I would have walked away, too.