All Was Golden in the Sky

The first day back at work was exactly what I expected.

I was sitting on eggshells all day, jumping every time I thought I heard someone approaching my desk. People were smiling at me, offering congratulations. I wasn’t sure if I was just being paranoid, but I swore I saw glints of pity in their eyes when they turned away. They knew as well as I did that it was only a matter of time before my boss, Lionel, called me into the office.

And when that call finally did come, I could practically hear the sad little violin in the background during my trudge down the hall.

“You wanted to see me, Lionel?” I asked, my knuckles lightly rapping against the oak of his door as I lingered in the doorway. The chairs in front of his desk looked friendly and comfy enough, but I just knew as soon as I sat down they would suck out my soul.

Lionel looked up from some papers he was holding, his glasses dangling on the edge of his nose. “Oh, yes. Yeah, come in and have a seat, won’t you?” I started walking in, and he cut me off. “Would you close the door, please?”

Nail in the coffin.

I sat on the edge of the chair, afraid to let my back touch the fancy upholstery. Lionel looked weary and a tad bit exasperated. Clasping my hands together in my lap seemed to be the only defense I had at the moment from whatever wrath was brewing.

“I hear you got engaged. Congratulations.”

What? “Oh, yes, yes I did. Thank you very much.”

He grumbled and sat back in his seat, tugging off his glasses and running a hand over his face. “Anne, listen, we’ve talked about this before, but, well, we need to let you go.”

There is was, that sickening plunge of the stomach, that brief moment of panic that my heart might not resume beating. All the spit in my mouth seemed to evaporate as soon as he spoke, and I tried very hard not to choke on the sandpaper of my tongue. “I…what?”

Lionel kept rubbing his face, still not looking at me. It was gross, really; his fingers were pushing all the loose and wrinkly skin all around, and he looked ridiculous. I decided that probably wasn’t the best moment to make a face of revulsion, and luckily my cheeks listened to me.

“Anne, we’ve talked before about the excess of time off you have requested. You have begun to go over the allotted time granted to you, and your job performance has suffered for it. Therefore, it is in the best interest of everyone if we terminate your employment.”

Who the fuck was this guy? Did people really talk like that in real life?

Instead of voicing my thoughts, I could only nod stupidly. “Oh, right. Yeah, of course.” I might has well have thrown on a dunce cap.

He finally looked at me, and didn’t even offer any kind of awkward smile, just a straight up stare. “Right, so if you can get all your things out of here by the end of the day. That’ll be all.”

Again, I could only nod, and I stumbled out of the office like a buffoon, tripping over my feet the whole way back to my desk.

‘That’ll be all’? What a fucking dick!

No, “We’re really sorry, Annie, but it just isn’t working anymore. Look, at least now you can take off all the time you need!”

No, “We don’t want to do this, but unfortunately this is what it’s come down to. Thank you for four years of great work.”

Well, fuck him. Fuck the stupid business. I didn’t need them.

But when I had finally packed all my things up in a measly little cardboard box, and was all buckled up in my shitty little car, and felt tears sliding down my cheeks, the fear started to really settle in. That was my job—that was what I had dedicated four years of my life to, and I had just been tossed out like yesterday’s pizza. Except not really, because even pizza was valued more than I had apparently been.

And the whole drive home all I could think about was what I was going to tell Brendon, who had no idea that this had been looming. My wonderful Brendon, who was so excited to buy a house with me. How the hell was I supposed to contribute when I didn’t even have a job?

--

Trying to find a distraction when I got home, I finally got around to calling my parents, and Emily, and told them about the engagement. My mom was ecstatic, claiming she knew that it had to have been in the near future. Dad was a little gruffer, offering congratulations and excusing himself, which Mom said was because he was too emotional about the whole thing to deal with it. Em seemed a bit jealous, having her younger sister get married before she did, but she was still overjoyed at the knowledge I’d be marrying a guy with a good voice. Because that was Brendon’s most important quality, apparently.

My friends in California were all over my phone—Hannah was ecstatic and wanted to meet up that week for an overdue lunch to hear about my adventures; I could hardly understand Kara over the phone, because her voice reached such a high of excitement I was sure only dogs could hear her.

After I’d done my bit at being social, I locked myself up in my apartment, finally allowing the overwhelming depression of having just been fired take hold, and turned off my phone.

I knew I should drag myself out of bed to make lunch, but I didn’t feel like it. And then when it got later, I didn’t feel like making dinner, either. I knew I should probably turn my phone on, on the off chance that somebody needed me, but I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I knew if the one person who would be concerned about my silence needed me, he’d find his way over.

So when I heard my door unlocking and Brendon’s worried voice call out my name, I wasn’t surprised. But that didn’t make the tears slow down any.

“Annie? Baby, you home?” His voice made me sob even harder, and I buried my face into my pillows. “You weren’t answering your phone so I thought I’d stop by. Did you eat yet? I brought ice cream!” The wood of my flooring creaked under his feet as he wandered through the apartment, and I heard his sigh of relief when he finally reached my room, which quickly switched to panic. “Shit, Anne, what’s wrong?”

His arms lifted me, and my pillow was soon replaced with his strong chest. His fingers brushed back my hair so his lips could press against my forehead, and I could hear the concern in his voice. “Baby, what happened?”

I tried opening my mouth to answer, but to my absolute horror, a wailing sob erupted from my throat instead of an explanation.

Brendon’s eyes widened in fear and he pulled me tighter into his chest. “Fuck, Annie, you’re scaring me! What happened?”

It took a few minutes for him to calm me down enough for my breathing to become a bit more regular and for the tears to dry up. My nails were digging into his shirt, and he was hugging me tight to his chest, murmuring comforting words into my ear. The whole thing should have made me feel better, but I felt even worse.

“Don’t be mad,” I whispered into his shirt.

He stiffened, and I felt his calloused fingers dig into my sides. “I won’t,” he promised.

Finally, I was able to form the words that had been running through my head all day. “I got fired.”

There. I had said it. And muttering those three words gave it more finality than I thought was possible. Then that fear struck again, that feeling of helplessness, and the suffocating concern that I had somehow let Brendon down.

But when I looked up at him, watching for his reaction, I didn’t see any trace of disappointment flash across his face. There was a glint of anger I somehow knew wasn’t directed at me, and then his eyes softened. “What fuckers,” he finally said.

“You…you mean you’re not mad?” I asked.

He lowered his eyebrows, staring at me quizzically. “Why would I be mad at you?”

I bit my lip, wincing when my tongue brushed over the sharp, chapped skin. “Well, because I didn’t tell you…I mean, Lionel has been hinting that with all the time I’d been taking off—“

He cut me off. “I am not mad at you at all, baby. I just think your boss is a total dick.”

The sobbing was quickly replaced by nonsensical giggling. Somehow, that had been just the thing needed to cheer me up.

“God, I hated that place!” I giggled. “I swear, Lionel has been a pretentious dick ever since I started.”

Brendon snorted. “Yeah, he seemed like it. Every time I’d stop by to take you to lunch he looked like he had such a stick up his ass.” He smiled at my giggles, and then continued to egg me on. “Plus, those girls were all bitches, weren’t they?”

“Ugh! Yes!”

Brendon let me wallow in self-pity a little longer, smiling as I vented about the horribleness of my former job, and he held me the whole time and stroked my hair. But then he announced I’d been crying long enough and that our ice cream was probably melting, and he literally dragged me into the kitchen to whip up something to eat and put the Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer for later. I hadn’t been grocery shopping since we got back from vacation, so he decided to just cook up some pancakes with the mix he found in my cabinet.

“I know you’re upset, Anne, but you hated it there,” he said, very carefully cracking an egg over the mixing bowl.

I sighed and grimaced when a great deal of shell fell into the bowl. Brendon smiled sheepishly as he began to pick it out. “No, you’re right. But that doesn’t really make it suck any less, does it?” I asked.

Brendon shrugged and tossed the shells in the trash. “I know. But look at it this way—now you can find a job you actually look forward going to.”

I blew a little bit of hair out of my face and offered to stir up the mix. “I have no idea what I want to do, Bren,” I sighed. My wrist started to hurt from vigorous stirring, but it was like a little distraction. “I’ve never had any idea what I want to do.”

Brendon frowned. “That’s not true, is it?”

I bit my lip, thinking about it. At one point I’d wanted to be a writer—hell, I’d minored in Creative Writing. But I only wrote the occasional poem now and then, and I didn’t think they were by any means noteworthy. Plus, it’s not much of a guaranteed pay kind of job.

When I was a bit younger though, meaning shortly after I first got into Fall Out Boy and, no shame, Panic! at the Disco, I’d fallen very much in love with music. Brendon noticed the glint in my eye at the thought, and nudged me with his elbow, waiting for me to voice my thoughts.

“I mean, I used to want to…I mean, it was always silly, but I just—when I listened to music, I always wondered—“

“Oh my God, Anne, spit it out,” Brendon laughed.

I took a deep breath and stared down at the circles I’d started pouring into the frying pan. “I always wanted to be part of music,” I mumbled. Before he could say anything, I continued. “And I know, like, since I’ve been with you I have been, but I mean beyond just standing offstage and watching you guys kick ass. I don’t know, I worked a couple concerts at my college and it just got my blood pumping. It was awesome.”

I peeked up at him from underneath my lashes, and he was flipping the pancakes, looking down with a smile. “Yeah, that sounds like a pretty cool gig,” he smirked.

“You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I just think it’s funny how neither of us thought to get you a job for the tours after nearly three years together,” Brendon laughed.

I blushed. “I didn’t want you to think I was only after you for a job.”

He chuckled and flicked my nose. “Nah, we all know you were just after me for the hot body.”

I rolled my eyes and turned away to start pulling out the butter and syrup. “Whatever, forget I said anything. I’ll start the job search tomorrow.”

“Hey now.” He gripped my hips and tugged me close, pressing kisses against my neck. “Don’t go all Raggedy Anne on me.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Shush. What I’m trying to say, dear one,” Brendon said, turning me around in his arms, “is that I think that’s a great idea. Why don’t you do stuff for our social media and all on our tours?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, holding the butter and syrup in my hands suspiciously. “Mmhm, but who exactly would be fronting the paycheck for such a job?”

Brendon’s cheeks flushed and he shrugged. “Well, I mean…”

I shimmied out of his grasp and slammed the toppings on the counter top. “See, that’s exactly why I was so upset about getting fired! Fuck the job, I don’t care about that job, but I didn’t want to be financially dependent on you! I wanted to be able to contribute!”

He held up his hands in front of him, as if he were afraid I was going to fling the butter at him. “Anne, would you please stop worrying about that?”

“No!” Uh oh, the hysterics were coming back. My chest started feeling heavy with all the pent up frustration I’d been feeling over being poorer than my fiancée. “I don’t want to be some girl that just lives off your money. I want to be your wife, your partner, who can order a pizza without paying with your credit card.”

The look of panic on his face softened into a smirk. “Annie, you pay for yourself a lot anyway when you won’t let me.” Meaning every time I beat him to the door or if he happened to go to the bathroom when the check came. I wasn’t sneaky, just firm.

We ate our pancakes in silence; I was quiet because I realized how starving I actually was, and I’m sure I looked very attractive shoving them in my mouth, chewing with cheeks like a chipmunk. Brendon more poked at his, glancing up at me from under his eyelashes every once in a while. He insisted on doing the dishes, but just like the checks, I beat him to the punch, running the soap and water over them before he got a chance to even make it back into the kitchen.

“Are you staying the night?” I asked, drying off my hands on a dish towel after I’d put all the plates in the dishwasher.

He crossed his arms and shrugged, leaning in the doorway and looking down at his feet. “I don’t know…am I?”

The sad look in his eyes made me feel very guilty at that moment. The little glance he shot up at me, looking hurt and pitiful, calmed my inner storm better than any of his words had. That glance told me what he’d been trying to say—that he wanted to take care of me, and didn’t mind using his money, because he’d been saving it for our future; and if I wanted a job that I loved, even if it wasn’t with Panic!, he would help me find it.

“Oh, Bren,” I whispered. I walked over and wrapped my arms around his waist, nuzzling my face into his chest like I had an itch on my nose that only the feel of him could scratch. I didn’t know what to say, so instead I just looked up at him, giving him the same look he had given me.

I love that you want to take care of me, but you have to let me take care of you, too.

He smiled down at me, brushing the hair out of my face. That smile told me he had heard my thoughts. “Get over yourself, kiddo,” he joked, pressing a chaste kiss on my lips. “I’m buying you a fancy house, and we’re gonna have a kick ass wedding, and you’re gonna have to just accept and love every little bit of it.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, and pretended to act very grossed out when he leaned forward and licked it. “Fine, mister, but I’m still paying for all our pizza.”

Brendon chuckled and released his hold on me, walking back over to the fridge. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said over his shoulder as he opened up the freezer. “Now c’mon. Let’s eat this fucking ice cream and bawl our eyes over whatever chick flick you want.”

I raised an eyebrow at him as he dug out two spoons from my utensil drawer. “Are you sure you’re not gay?” I joked.

He winked at me and closed the drawer with his hip. “Psh, you tacky bitch,” he said, in his best fashion-faux-pas accent. When he got closer to me again, he let his eyes flicker slowly down my body until my cheeks blushed. Brendon smirked and then his lips were pressed against my earlobe. “You want me to prove I’m not?”

When his tongue flicked against my earlobe, that was it. And the next morning, we found that poor but I’m sure delicious ice cream had completely melted in its bin on the island.