Cancer

Banner by Insane Gravity. <3

As soon as the door shut behind Brendon, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach--like my insides had been hollowed out and there was nothing left inside. Suddenly oblivious to my surroundings, to myself, to everything but the empty feeling deep inside of me, I fell to my knees and started to cry again. I leaned forward towards the ground until my forehead met the cool, stiff carpet, and just sat there, doubled over and crying, for the longest time.

I felt trapped. There didn't seem to be a way out of any of this heartbreak. And the worst part was that I knew it was all my fault.

I had never felt so lost and alone. Never. Because even after I had broken off my relationship with Brendon because of what I counted as a loss of interest on his part, I had not known his reasons for sure. Now I knew.

I knew that he had still been hoping all along, that he had kept on looking for me and wishing. And now I also knew that, if he kept his promise (and his gaze had never been so sincere as they had been just minutes earlier, when he swore to stay away), he really would let go of me this time.

I had killed my hope before it ever had a chance to bloom, and now I had killed his, too. So I sat there all alone with my misery and regret and cried into the cold, hard floor.

But I wasn't alone for long.

After what must have been about ten or fifteen minutes, I heard the creak of the door opening again. I was terrified to look up and see who it was--I didn't think I could handle seeing Brendon again, especially in my current state--but I stopped crying immediately, forcing my shuddering gasps for breath to quiet.

"Kelsey?"

I sat up slowly and Ryan's expression matched his tone of voice: hesitant, afraid, sympathetic. When he saw that I was crying, his eyes tightened in pain.

"Kelsey, what happened?" he whispered urgently, and then, so quickly that I missed his movement, he was suddenly kneeling on the ground in front of me with one of my hands clutched in both of his large ones. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just..." More tears stung my eyes and I wiped them away bitterly with my free hand before Ryan could see. "I talked to--I talked to Brendon, and..."

"Yeah." His face hardened, his jaw tense. "I saw."

I looked away. I hated to let him see me going to pieces like this.

"What did he say to you?" asked Ryan, his voice suddenly angry and protective. When I still refused to look at him, he pulled one hand away from mine and tipped my chin up with two of his fingers so I was forced to meet his gaze. "Kelsey? What did he--"

"It's nothing," I muttered, averting my eyes. "He didn't do anything wrong, he just..." I took a deep, shaking breath and said, in a shrill, hoarse voice that betrayed the fact that I was on the verge of tears, "He wants me to forgive him, Ryan, but I just can't. I can't."

The anger in Ryan's face melted away to be replaced by sadness. He reached out and pulled me into him and I cried against his chest for a while as he rubbed my back comfortingly. It was much the same scene Brendon and I had just played out, but less heartbreaking this time.

"Shhh," he murmured into my hair. "It's okay. It's not your fault--"

"Yes, it is, Ryan," I sobbed. "It's all my fault--"

"No, it's not," he said sternly. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Neither did he!"

"Brendon took you for granted." Ryan's harsh, unforgiving tone startled me so much that I stopped crying abruptly and pulled away enough to look him in the face: his dark eyes were suddenly steely with resentment and blame. "He didn't appreciate you enough. He took too many chances with what you had."

I stared at him blankly, completely taken off guard by this inexplicable lashing out at Brendon--hadn't Ryan himself defended him just a few weeks ago, at the bar on the Strip, when he told me that Brendon had suggested a break for my own good?

"I...It..." I swallowed, licked my lips and tried again. "It's not easy to keep up a long-distance relationship like that. Brendon tried really hard--"

"Well, maybe he should have tried harder," said Ryan stubbornly.

There was a defensive, overprotective gleam about his eyes that reminded me of what Brendon had said about him earlier--what I had considered wild accusations that were just the result of Brendon's raging jealousy, at the time. But now, after hearing Ryan's harsh judgment of Brendon, the idea that Ryan possibly thought of me in a non-platonic way didn't seem quite so impossible.

As all these thoughts came together one by one in my mind, I looked down at how we were sitting: I was still clinging to Ryan's shoulders and his arms were wrapped around my waist loosely. Suddenly uncomfortable, I let go of his shoulders and squirmed out of his embrace.

He seemed to sense his misstep, because he let go of me and looked away almost guiltily. He cleared his throat. "Do you, uh--do you want to go home now?"

"Uh...yeah. I guess I should," I mumbled sheepishly as I pushed my hair out of my eyes and wiped the tears off of my face. I could only imagine what I looked like--probably like death warmed over, and that was only if my make-up wasn't smeared.

"I can drive you," offered Ryan. He stood up and held out a wide hand to help me to my feet as well.

I looked away, avoiding his gaze and his outstrethed hand. Suddenly, I couldn't bear to look at him. "That's okay," I said. "I can take a cab."

"There's no sense in paying someone to drive you when I can do it for free," he insisted, his expression hopeful. "I mean, your hotel's on my way home anyway."

I ran a hand through my hair uncomfortably. It wasn't that I was mad at him or anything, I just didn't want to be around Ryan right now. I didn't want to be around anyone, really.

I shook my head. "I really just want to be alone right now."

"Come on, Kelsey," he said quietly, and there was a softness about his eyes that was disarming. "Don't push me away, too."

The thing is, Ryan knew everything. And he knew the exact words--the only words--that could have convinced me to let him have his way this time.

"Okay," I sighed in defeat. He beamed triumphantly and I struggled to give him a watery smile in return.

"Ah! You made a good choice," he told me as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into him, leading me out of that tiny room and into the dark club beyond it. "I'm much more attractive than any cabbie in this city. And no one's had sex in my backseat, either."

I glanced up at him, raising my eyebrows skeptically.

Eyes twinkling boyishly, he grinned and admitted, "Alright, you caught me. But you really would be hard-pressed to find a cabbie hotter than me."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure, Ryan. Sure."

He laughed as he steered me around the hoards of people on the dance floor and past the big-name celebrities lounging in the booths along the sides of the room, surrounded by their various posses. And I laughed a little, too, despite myself, until I looked up and what little good humor I had managed to salvage was instantaneously destroyed.

Brendon Urie sat in a booth across the room, his expression brooding. Spencer and--what was his name?--Jon sat on either side of him. Both of them seemed to be trying to cheer him up; while Spencer looked on apprehensively, Jon smiled and said something to Brendon, poking his arm playfully to get his attention. But I could tell by the faraway look in Brendon's eyes that he was blind to both of them.

He was too busy staring at me across the room as Ryan's arm slipped from where it had been slung over my shoulders and he took my hand in his. And so Brendon watched with heartbreak written all over his face as, hand-in-hand, Ryan and I left the club together.

Just before Ryan and I reached the door that led into the backroom we would make our escape from, I took once last glance at Brendon over my shoulder: my line of vision seemed to narrow to block out all the writhing bodies that crowded the room, the egotistical celebrities lingering around the edges, and Jon and Spencer desperately trying to distract their tormented bandmate. All I could see was Brendon, with his precious hope torn and bleeding in his eyes.

And I will never forget the look on his face then. Never.

-----

Ryan--who was usually a painfully cautious driver--drove too fast down the not-so-deserted streets of Vegas, passing other cars recklessly and running two red lights. As we sped towards another traffic light and he realized we couldn't go fast enough to run it without being smashed by oncoming traffic, he had to slam on the brakes to bring the car to a stop in time--we both gasped as the sudden jolting whiplash and I turned to stare at him.

"Ryan?" I asked, a little breathlessly; I was still getting over the shock of stopping so quickly. "Are you okay?"

He turned to stare at me with an oddly panicked look on his face. "Yeah," he muttered, looking away and scratching at his hair uncomfortably. "I'm fine."

"You don't have to be in such a hurry," I hinted. "It's not like I have to be back to my hotel room by a certain time, or anything. And we left pretty early anyway."

"I know, I just--" He stopped abruptly mid-sentence and then faced me again, licking his lips and squirming around in his seat nervously. "Do you mind coming back to my place for a little while first? I'll take you home later, I promise, I just... I just want to, um, talk to you about...something."

He studied my face apprehensively, waiting for to respond. With a sinking feeling in my chest, I said uneasily, "We can talk now."

Dissatisfied, he turned back to the road and started driving off again as the light turned green, but more slowly this time. He chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully for a while, his thin, delicate brows drawn together sharply in concentration and frustration. Obviously, something was bothering him.

"Ryan--"

"I'd really rather you just came back to my place for a while," he cut me off. His harsh tone allowed me no room for negotiation; it sounded more like an order than a request. "There's a lot to talk about, and...it would just be easier that way."

I had never seen him act like this way before. He was being so fierce and demanding--nothing like his usual mellow, apologetic self. But I didn't want to fight with him. There was no way I could handle that sort of strain tonight without breaking completely, so I sighed and gave in.

"Okay. Whatever you want."

"Thank you," he said grudgingly.

Neither of us spoke again for the rest of the car ride.