Cancer

"On the back of a motor bike,
with your arms outstretched, trying to take flight,
leaving everything behind...

But even at our swiftest speed,
we couldn't break from the concrete
in the city where we still reside."

- "Brothers on a Hotel Bed," Death Cab for Cutie

A weariness far beyond anything that could be attributed to physical exertion or lack of sleep had already begun to settle over me as I pushed through the crowded streets of New York City, shoving my way past hoardes of giggling couples and chattering girls. There were so many people out--way too many for eleven-thirty, even on a Saturday night, and especially all in one place. Maybe, I thought as I fought my way through Manhattan, I had never seen so many in my entire life. So many people...all of them happy, all of them laughing, all of them going out to have a good time with a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on.

And then there was me.

I was not going out tonight--I was going home, back to the empty apartment paid for with my father's money, back to the loneliness I had isolated myself in. Back to checking for phone calls that hadn't come in a year and a half, for emails that hadn't come in almost twice as long. Back to tormenting myself with could-have-been's, should-have-been's, and, worst of all, she-told-you-so's.

Three years, and I hadn't forgotten. How could I, when Mom wouldn't let me? When my heart wouldn't let me? Shit, even Brendon himself, absent as he was, wouldn't let me forget.

-----

As it turned out, I got home just in time to catch Saturday Night Live. Sadly enough, this was definitely a bright spot in my day--at least until I caught the very tail end of the opening announcements: "...and musical guests Panic at the Disco!"

I froze, my insides both paralyzed and squirming uncomfortably simultaneously, somehow. I had been in the middle of changing into pajamas, so I was stuck with one arm in the oversized T-shirt I slept in with only the top of my head peeking up out of the collar, my whole body turned in the general direction of the television, watching the glow I could see through the thin fabric of my shirt. As a very creepy Christopher Walken launched into a very creepy opening monologue, I forced my tense muscles to relax.

"Shit, Kelsey," I said out loud--after living alone for almost two years, I'd developed a bad habit of talking to myself way too much. "Don't be so pathetic. He's just going to sing a song. That's all." (As if watching Brendon Urie do anything, much less sing, on Saturday Night Live, was anything less than an emotional ordeal.) "And you don't have to watch it if you don't want to."

But, of course, I did watch it.

I hadn't listened to or watched Panic in...well, forever. Usually whenever "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" or, more recently, "Nine in the Afternoon" came on the radio or TV, I changed the station and tried to force him out of my mind. It was hard, though, if not impossible, to get away from him and his band; in the past year or so, I had learned to avoid channels like MTV and Fuse and magazines like Rolling Stone and Blender completely.

So tonight was a bit of a change of pace for me. For some reason, I was entranced, glued to the television before the band even came on, waiting dilligently to see Brendon again. To hear him again. After I got started on that train of thought, I was almost desperate for the band to perform.

And, eventually, they did.

They were pretty good. Well--they were really good. Brendon had always been a good singer, but his voice had improved so much that I just sat dumbfounded for the first half of "Nine in the Afternoon" before I even thought to remember the past couple of years, to feel the pang of hurt and betrayal and loneliness somewhere deep inside.

Suddenly, I had goosebumps that had nothing to do with Ryan (the Magnificient Ryan Ross, singer-slash-songwriter-slash-guitarist--shit, why couldn't I just forget?), or same-old Spencer banging away at the drums in the background, or this new bassist I had never met and knew nothing about, or even Brendon, twisting his face (handsome as ever, damn him) into convoluted expressions as he sang.

The sadness I felt was more for myself, because I wasn't there with them. I wasn't standing just offstage, smiling and being all proud and happy and excited and generally content with my life while I waited for Brendon to finish his set. I wasn't there, like he had promised me so many times I would be. Instead I was here, in the apartment I shared with no one, alone.

I hugged my arms across my chest and lay down on my side across my bed as Panic finished their song. Brendon nodded once at the audience, giving them a smile I recognized: it was the one he always gave my father back when we were still dating, the nervous, strained one that meant he was intimidated. The forced smile.

Saturday Night Live went to a commercial. I dozed off for a good fifteen or twenty minutes and woke up again just in time to catch their last song, "When the Day Met the Night."

I didn't realize I was crying until the song was almost over. I told myself, in my head this time, that I was being a big baby and that I needed to move on with my life already, jeez--and then my more rational half said that I should turn the TV off or at least change the channel, that watching Brendon sing his pretty little love songs was just upsetting me, but I couldn't.

I couldn't tear myself away, because a part of me was still clinging to the hope that had always sort of been there; the hope that my mother had never quite been able to stomp out; the hope that Brendon had nurtured dutifully right up until that very last day. The hope that I had always known to be false--the hope that I had always entertained anyway.

The hope that I was the Moon, or the Sun, or the Day, or the Night--anything. That was all I had ever really wanted anyway: to fit into Brendon Urie's life somehow. But his life was big and brilliant and pretty like Hollywood now, and there was no room for me in it anymore.

-----

I woke up the next morning feeling hungover.

I hadn't had anything to drink the night before, but I had a blinding headache and all I wanted was to sleep all day--which was possible, for once, because it was Sunday and I didn't have to work. So, when I glanced at the clock and saw that it was ten-thirty in the morning, I rolled over on my side to face the big window looking out over hazy Manhattan and awaited sleep's return.

As I lay there, still and quiet, I recalled, involuntarily, the dream I had been having. Another Brendon dream.

It was obviously the middle of night in my dream, the only light being the glow of the moon (which was enormous and sunk way down low over the horizon, like a sunset), casting half of Brendon's handsome face in shadow. In my dream, he was not the current, stubbly Brendon that peered out at me from magazine covers and television screens everywhere I went; he was my Brendon, the scrawny, overly-enthusiastic one who made his way through life smiling. But he wasn't smiling this time.

He was leaning over the edge of a rickety boat that was being tossed this way and that by the turbulent sea, a single wide, pale hand outstretched towards me. It wasn't until I had taken in this particular detail that I realized that I was not in the boat with him; I was down in the cold water below, drowning.

He was reaching out for me, his big cushioned lips moving soundlessly, desperately--he was pleading. Even though I knew perfectly well that I was sucking saltwater into my lungs, that my limbs were growing heavier and my endurance weaker, I studied his hand cautiously. It looked small and thin, I thought--far too frail to pull me out of the water and into safety.

"Kels," he said, and his voice sounded as clear to me as it had that very last night on the phone. "It's okay."

I just stared at his unappeased hand as ocean water and tears and sheer terror blurred my vision. Just as one final, crushing wave overtook me and knocked me breathlessly into the deep black water, I awoke with a start.

Now, lying in bed in my lonely New York City apartment, I listened to the droning whir of the air conditioner and thought about Brendon's outstretched hand...

"Kels. It's okay."

Three years had passed and I still didn't believe him.

-----

After a while, I finally chased Brendon from my troubled mind and drifted back to sleep. At about one in the afternoon, the phone rang and woke me up again. Groaning and mumbling obscenities, I grabbed the receiver off of the bedside table and pressed it to my ear.

"Hello?" I murmured.

"Kelsey? It's your aunt Tricia."

"Oh," I said simply, rubbing my eyes, too sleepy to be confused about why she of all people would be calling me at lunchtime on a Sunday. "Hey, Trish."

"Honey," she sighed, and had I not just woken up, I might have picked up on the strain in her voice. "I hate to interrupt your day like this, but I'm afraid I have some bad news."

And so began the phone call that ultimately altered the course of the rest of my life.