Regrets Can't Change the Past

Quick Author's Note before the chapter starts: I wrote this entire chapter while listening to 'Fix You' by Coldplay on repeat. There's a specific part in this chapter where I feel like it's very, very fitting with the story, so I'm going to post a youtube video of the song right before it and I strongly suggest that you play it AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, OKAY?! I just think...it really kind of sets the mood? I don't know. It's just a suggestion, though, so you don't HAVE to. Now. Onto the story.

Brendon almost feels guilty that he’s never really taken the time to get to know anyone at his work. Because the few people that he’d bothered to become acquainted with have turned out to be more than amazing. Jon takes Brendon’s shifts almost whenever he asks, and another worker, Spencer, volunteers to take care of Toby so that Brendon can just spend all of his time at the hospital with Ryan.

It’s only been a few days since he’s been there, but it feels like an eternity.

When Brendon comes to the hospital after having worked a very short shift at work (to which Jon had exclaimed “What are you doing here? We’ll be fine without you. Just go be with your boy,” and then had practically kicked him out) he holds onto a small bouquet of bright, yellow sunflowers. Ryan smiles when he sees Brendon, watching him come closer.

“Sunflowers,” he says. “Those are my favourites.”

“I know,” Brendon replies, setting them down on the little table nearby. “I remember you told me that they were your favourites when I got them for you for your seventeenth birthday.”

“Wanna know why they’re my favourites?” Ryan asks, and his voice sounds weak and soft, but he’s smiling.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because you got them for me for my seventeenth birthday,” he tells him. “I never had a favourite flower before then. But ever since, sunflowers have always reminded me of you.”

“You’re cute,” Brendon smiles, leaning over the obnoxious railing on the hospital bed and placing a kiss on Ryan’s forehead.

“Yeah, right, are you kidding? I look like shit.”

“Are you kidding? You’re always gorgeous.”

“Stop lying,” Ryan smiles.

“Stop being modest,” Brendon says. “Anyways, how are you?”

“Eh,” Ryan shrugs. “Better now that you’re here.”

“I missed you while I was away,” Brendon tells him.

“Yeah, I missed you, too,” Ryan replies, and then he looks down, away from Brendon.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Ryan mumbles.

“Baby, why are you crying?” Brendon asks in a soft voice, sitting down at the foot of the bed and looking at Ryan.

“I’m just…so angry,” he admits. “I don’t want to die!”

“Baby,” Brendon whispers, climbing up farther onto the bed to wrap his arms around Ryan, and the railing on the side of the bed is digging into his side, but he doesn’t even care.

“It’s not fair! It’s not fair for you and it’s not fair for me and I’ve been trying so hard to just act like I’m okay with this so that I can be strong for you, but I can’t anymore! I don’t want to die, I don’t want to leave you, and I’m scared and it’s not fair!” Ryan sobs, and Brendon hugs him to his chest and as hard as it is not to cry, too, he knows that it’s his turn to try and be strong because he knows that Ryan needs it.

“It isn’t fair,” Brendon agrees in a whisper. “And you don’t have to pretend like you’re okay with it. I never needed you to be strong for me in that sense. Because no matter what, you’ll still be the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

“I hate this,” Ryan mumbles, burying his face in Brendon’s chest.

“Me too,” Brendon sighs, resting his chin on the top of Ryan’s head, finally letting a few built-up tears slip down his face.

“I’m sorry.”

“Baby, you have nothing to be sorry for,” Brendon says.

“No. I have everything to be sorry for. I’m sorry I left you so many years ago, I’m sorry I messed up our perfect plan and our perfect future, I’m sorry I’m putting you through all of this. It’s all my fault and I’m so sorry.”

“Ryan. Stop. What happened in the past happened and we can’t do anything to change it. And look, even with everything that happened, we still ended up together. We still got what we had always planned on. It just took a little longer than we had expected. But time, distance, mistakes…even fiancés couldn’t keep up apart in the end. We’re soul mates, Ry. And nothing can get in the way of that. Even after you’re gone, you’ll still be my soul mate. And I’ll never love anyone as much as I love you because it would be impossible. And if heaven exists, then there’s no doubt that we’ll find each other again.”

***



Two nights later finds Ryan and Brendon in almost the exact same position. Squeezed in the hospital bed together, Brendon’s arms wrapped tightly around Ryan’s frail body.

Ryan mumbles an ‘I love you’ before drifting off to sleep and Brendon smiles, kisses Ryan’s forehead and whispers ‘I love you, too’.

Ryan dies that night, feeling safe and secure in his lover’s arms.

Brendon knows that it’s happened as soon as it happens. He hugs Ryan’s lifeless body closer to him and doesn’t even try to hold back the sobs that rack throughout his entire body, eyes spilling tears down his cheeks.

He knew that it was coming, but it’s not making it any easier. It’s like his heart is completely shattering in his chest, like glass that’s breaking and then stabbing him in the chest from the inside. It’s the worst pain he’s ever felt in his entire life and the only person that would ever be able to ease the pain lies in his arms, limp but still warm, almost as if he’s only sleeping. But Brendon knows better. He knows that he’s gone. He knows that he’s just lost the only person he’s ever truly loved.

His entire body shakes as he cries, still hanging onto Ryan, still holding him close and not letting him go. He already feels so alone without him.

He’s not even aware when doctors or nurses or some other hospital workers come into the room, but he feels a hand on his shoulder and some person saying that they’re sorry. Brendon doesn’t respond.

They give him time. All the time he needs to say his goodbyes. They ask him if he wants Ryan’s wedding ring. He nods and they hand it to him. His hand is shaking as he grasps onto the shiny band.

He doesn’t even know what time it is, but when he walks home it becomes clear that it’s early morning, the first hints of sunlight peeking out from the dark. He walks home even though he could have gotten a taxi or taken a bus, but he wanted to walk. So he walks, Ryan’s wedding ring heavy in his hand, staring into the distance, barely aware of where he’s going. But he gets there eventually.

He gets home, to the apartment that was once just Ryan’s, that had become the both of theirs, and is now just his.

Toby barks happily when Brendon comes inside, and follows him all the way to the bedroom, begging for attention, but not receiving any. Brendon falls down on the bed, his face completely void of any expression. He’s not crying anymore, hasn’t been since he left the hospital, but now he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t cry anymore -- physically, can’t -- but there’s nothing else for him to do, so he just lays there, staring up at the ceiling.

Thoughts flood his brain, though, and before he can do anything about it, tears are streaming down his face again and he’s screaming out, grabbing on to the blankets beneath him and twisting and writhing in a type of pain that he’s never known or felt before. He cries until his tears run dry and screams until his voice fails him and he’s both physically and mentally exhausted. And he eventually falls into the loneliest sleep of his entire life.

***

As days pass, Brendon finds it more difficult every day to get out of bed and keep on living. He feels more alone than he’s ever felt in his entire life, even with the help and support of his newfound good friends, Jon and Spencer.

There are mornings when he’s sure that he won’t be able to make it through the day and night when he thinks that he was right.

He wants to take the easy way out of it all. He wants to be a coward and just end the heartache that plagues him day after day.

But he always here’s Ryan’s voice in the back of his mind.

“You’re going to keep living.”

“I have faith in you, Brendon. I know you’ll be able to do it. And you’re going live a really long time and be really happy and when it’s your time to go, you’ll be really old and it’ll be really peaceful.”

And then that’s all he really needs to keep going.

***

One month, one week, and one day after Ryan’s death, Brendon finally gets around to cleaning Ryan’s things from the apartment. It hurts him to do it, but it hurts him even more to see his stuff still there as if he still lives there. It’s something that he knows he just has to do.

“Thank you guys so much for helping me with this,” Brendon says to Jon and Spencer who have been there for Brendon without question for the past month, week, and day.

“Not a problem at all,” Spencer says.

“There’s no way we’d let you do this alone,” Jon agrees.

It’s a difficult task and Brendon sheds a few tears, but Jon and Spencer are such an amazing help that Brendon is beyond thankful.

“Hey, Brendon,” Jon calls out, and Brendon turns around to see Jon sitting down, a stack of computer paper in his hands, a couple pages flipped out, Jon holding them together like a book as he looks down at one of the pages.

“Yeah?”

“Um. You might want to check this out,” he says, and then Spencer is next to him, looking down at the pages.

“What is it?” Brendon asks curiously.

“Wow. This is good,” Spencer comments. “Is it finished?”

“Looks like it,” Jon says, looking at the last paper of the stack. He sees Brendon coming nearer and lets the top pages fall back down onto the pile. He holds it up so that Brendon can see the front.

“Is that…?”

“A book? Yes. A completely finished book. A memoir, it seems,” Jon answers, and hands it to Brendon who sits down, flipping the top paper over.

“I fell in love twice in my life. The first time, I was fifteen-going-on-sixteen. I didn’t realize it was love until I was sixteen-going-on-seventeen. Brendon. His name was Brendon. The second time, I was twenty-five. And that was when I fell in love with remembering what it felt like to feel in love. When the butterflies in my stomach would turn into birds and my heart would pound in my chest so hard that I would be sure that someone would be able to hear it or at least see it jumping out of my rib cage. When I fell in love with remembering what it felt like to feel in love, I was falling in love with remembering what it felt like to be in love with Brendon.”

Brendon is smiling despite the fact that his eyes are filled with tears as he flips through the papers, skimming the pages of Ryan’s life, written out for someone to read. Meant for anyone to read.

“Um,” Spencer says, and Brendon looks up. “I know someone…who knows someone who works for a publishing company….”

***

A year and a half since Ryan’s death, August thirtieth, what would have been Ryan’s twenty-ninth birthday, ‘Regrets Can’t Change the Past; A Memoir by Ryan Ross’ is published and released to the public.

The LGBT and HIV/AIDS communities alone make it a nearly instant best-seller.

With the money that comes in from the book, Brendon takes just a little more than what he needs to get by, and the rest he donates to help finding a cure for HIV and AIDS.

He hasn’t dated anyone since Ryan’s death, and doesn’t plan to any time within the next several years, if at all. He still wear his wedding ring simply to symbolize the fact that Ryan was his soul mate and that he simply can’t just let go of that.

He’s happy, though. He has amazing friends and amazing memories of the man he loved written and bound together in a book, preserving them forever.

He wishes Ryan could see it, though. His dream of being a known writer coming to life.

‘Ryan can see it,’ he tells himself. Having become a firm believer in some type of Heaven, Brendon is sure that Ryan can see it.

***

“Brendon, come on, hurry up, we’re going to be late for the movie,” Jon grumbles in the living room of Brendon’s apartment.

“Sweetie, we still have almost an hour,” Jon’s girlfriend, Cassie, says.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Brendon calls out from his bedroom.

“That’s what she said,” Spencer mumbles, and his girlfriend, Haley, elbows him in the stomach while Jon and Cassie and even Brendon, in the other room, burst out laughing.

Brendon finishes pulling on clothes and quickly runs a brush through his hair and calls out “Okay, ready!”

“Finally! God, you take longer than a girl to get ready,” Jon teases.

“Well, I am gay….”

They all laugh again, and just as Brendon is about to leave his bedroom, he looks down at the opened book on his nightstand. It’s flipped to the very last page, the ‘about the author’ page with two black and white pictures. The first one, Ryan and Brendon when they were seventeen and sixteen years old. The second, taken just a few months before Ryan’s death, of Ryan, Brendon, and Toby. ‘A family shot,’ as Ryan had called it.

“I’m turning the lights out here off. You’d better hurry,” Jon yells.

“Yeah, yeah, be right there,” Brendon laughs, flipping the pages in the book to the last page with actual writing on it, and for the millionth time, he rereads the very last line.

I may have a lot of regrets, but I don’t always regret my regrets. After all, without regrets, I wouldn’t have a story.

Regrets can’t change the past, but we have the power to change the future.

THE END.