Cancer

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It had only been a day, but already I had halfway convinced myself that the night before had been a dream. After so much time spent apart and all the over-photoshopped magazine covers I had seen, it seemed to me that my junior year of high school must have been a cruel joke played on me by fate; it couldn't have really happened. The idea that Brendon Urie had once belonged to me, that I had once known the original members of Panic at the Disco on a very personal level, seemed ridiculous. In my lonely desperation while living alone in New York, I must have made it up.

So Ryan Ross seemed like an illusion, out-of-place in this painful reality, as he walked towards me through the coffee shop. He moved deliberately, gracefully, winding his way around the clumps of people without thought or effort, until he reached the small table by the window I was sitting at.

He had no trouble finding me, of course; Ryan always seemed almost supernaturally aware of everything. I sometimes wondered if he had some sort of strange sixth sense.

Or maybe he just knew everything.

He pulled the chair out without scraping the legs against the floor noisily, like I had, and sat down across from me, immediately planting his elbows on the table and folding his large white hands together thoughtfully. I had forgotten how big he was; as lithe and lanky as he had seemed, slipping easily between couples in the crowded coffee shop, his arms took up almost the whole table and he only had to lean forward slightly to loom over me.

"I never took you for a coffee person," he mused. His light brown eyes danced playfully, but there was something probing about them that made me feel nervous; I was sure he was studying me carefully, assessing my mood. He was concerned.

Of course he was concerned. Hadn't he given me the number last night only after asking me, meaningfully, how I was "feeling"? Hadn't he told me to call not to catch up, not to chat, not to hang out--but if I "needed to talk"? Only if I truly needed him?

I did need him, of that much I was certain. I felt so lost and alone--more than I ever had before. I needed someone to show me the way, to steer me off of this road that was obviously leading nowhere and towards redemption, salvation. Happiness.

"I'm not," I said, too seriously for so light a question, and only after a long pause. "A coffee person," I clarified. "I just...I wanted to talk to you."

Ryan nodded gravely, unfolding his hands and laying them palms-down on the table. He turned and stared out the window for a moment, out at the blistering heat of Vegas in early afternoon. I studied his face, delicate and childlike in its innocence, and yet lined and weary from the trials of a thousand sleepless nights. I wondered if I would ever be as composed, as wise and gracefully omniscient as Ryan. Probably not.

But I also knew that there were more similarities between us than met the eye. He knew disapproval. He knew loss.

He knew Brendon.

And, though I never would have guessed it at the time, he knew failure, too. And not everyday failure--not even the sort of failure his band had conquered. It was a different failure--real failure that exists right down through your very core, and not just in the abstract imaginings of society. The type of failure that lives in your heart forever, leaking insecurities and weaknesses into everything you do. The type of failure that is impossible to recover from.

I didn't identify it as such until much later, but this was what had broken my heart: not disapproval, not loss, not even Brendon. It was failure.

And if anyone could help put me back together again, it was Ryan.

Ryan turned away from the window, and as he stared me down again, his eyes tightened in a way that made me think, absurdly, that maybe he knew what I was thinking--or, more likely, had just been thinking along the same lines. But he faked a smile with purpose (it almost seemed genuine, bless him), and got to his feet.

"Well," he said, with another more lifelike smile that still didn't reach his eyes, "there's no use hanging out in a coffee shop if you don't like coffee. You wanna see my new place?"

I tried to smile back, and found that it wasn't really all that difficult after all. "Sure."

He grinned, and it seemed easier for him too. "C'mon," he said, and lead the way.

-----

Ryan's apartment was on the ninth floor of a rather ritzy complex on the upper-end side of town. The downstairs lobby alone was so luxurious that I would have been content to live there for the rest of my days (two-million-dollar inherited house aside), but he lead me past the absurdly comfortable-looking couches and grand fireplaces and marble floors to the elevator.

"So...how long have you lived here?" I asked conversationally as the elevator moved slowly upward with a gentle purring sound.

He seemed distracted; his dark eyes were focused on some point above our heads as he said, "I don't know--a couple of months. Maybe a year. Something like that."

I chuckled slightly under my breath and dropped the subject.

The elevator doors slid open with a cheerful ping!, and he gestured with a sweeping motion of his hand that I should step out first. I did, and then walked at his side down the hall--rather awkwardly, because I didn't know where we were going. But luckily it wasn't far; he touched my arm gently to stop me as we approached the second door on the right.

"I have to warn you," he said with a grin as he began digging his keys out of his pocket, "I've been back in town for a couple of weeks now, and the maid's not due until Saturday, so it's a little less than spic-and-span right now."

I laughed. "It's okay, Ryan. I mean, seriously, I've been living in a hotel room for the past four days."

He opened the door for me, ushering me forward into his apartment. It was open and airy, and, contrary to his previous warning, fairly clean: there were dirty dishes in the sink and random discarded items of clothing littering the floor, but otherwise it seemed spotless. The living room and kitchen were combined into one huge room with what must've been at least a fourteen-foot ceiling. In the left wall of this room was a door that I assumed lead into the bedroom, and on the far wall, wide floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the city.

It was beautiful.

"This is really nice," I complimented, staring around at all the artwork and photographs lining the walls. "I like it. A lot."

"Thanks," muttered Ryan, shyly--he seemed, just then, more like the quiet kid I used to know, and I was suddenly comforted. "It's not much, but it's home, I guess."

I thought suddenly of the hotel room Mom had holed herself up in, that I would undoubtedly return to tonight; and then I thought of the huge two-million-dollar mansion I couldn't bring myself to spend an hour in. I had no home to go to in this city. No home to go to anywhere, really.

But before I could continue on this depressing train of thought any longer, I heard Ryan call my name from the adjacent room, where the door on the left now stood open. I followed the sound of his voice hesitantly and my original theory was confirmed: it was his bedroom. This knowledge made me abruptly uncomfortable for some reason, and I looked down at my feet.

"Kelsey," said Ryan, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Look."