I Melt With You

Chapter 1: The First Encounter

I stared at the beautiful man on my phone, childishly bantering with Zack as he messed around. Why? Why did I do this to myself? It hurt, yeah, to watch his Periscopes. He just seemed so happy, and here I was, still a mess. He made me a mess. He made me into this...this piece of garbage. Sometimes I wondered if he still thought about me--if he wondered I was okay. I knew I still cared. That's why I watched his Periscopes: to make sure he was okay. But I knew sure as hell that he still remembered me. He could never forget. I'm not saying that because I'm egotistic or nonsense like that; I'm saying that because the fans would never let him forget. Even in the chat I saw mentions of my name. Ryan this, Ryan that, Ryden, so on. If only they knew how much it hurt, how accurate they were. Brendon and I...we changed each other. I was never able to fully recover. But obviously he was. He had a gorgeous wife, Sarah. She was something. Of course, I had always known Brendon as the glittering homosexual that I fell in love with--that I was still in love with. But now, he was just a "fuckboy", a douchebag, a man whose fame had gone to his head. It was pathetic, how all he did was glorify weed and insult our fans...or should I say his fans. He acted so pretentious, as if he were higher than us all. But I knew what Brendon was doing.

Panic!'s personalities--band members I mean--had always balanced each other out. Spencer was the quiet, sensible one. Jon was the dorky, but lovable one. And Brendon and I were the "lovebirds", the ones that kept the fans interested. The ones the fans loved and adored. Fuck, they made up so many stories about us. Little did they know that all those stories about our relationship caused it to die. Brendon was so...insistent on telling them, on telling the fans the truth about us. God damnit, and of course I said no. I didn't want to come out. I didn't want to open the floodgates. Maybe I was scared. Or maybe I didn't care about Brendon back then as much as I did now. Isn't that ironic? I left the band because I was afraid of telling the fans that Brendon and I had history; and as a result, we ended it. Brendon found Sarah. And I was still here. When Jon and I left, Brendon had to carry the band by himself--he had to keep fans interested. And how did he do that? He overcompensated. I saw the pain behind every action, but he couldn't possibly show the fans that he was hurting, that he was weak. So instead, he became cocky and full of himself. He wanted to prove that me leaving didn't hurt him. That he didn't care. That fucker.

He thought I wouldn't realize that every damn song on that cursed album was about me. Our moments in Cape Town. The empty promises that we made to one another. The sweet nothings we whispered into each other's ears. The naive words we told each other. How stupid of us.

My attention soon was brought back to the Periscope when I heard my name.

"'Ryan's a pussy.' Woah, woah, woah, you don't know Ryan," he joked. I froze. I saw his asshole-ish smile on the screen. And I saw the chat light up. I gritted my teeth. The fans may not have known me, but at least they checked in on me. I saw those comments on my Instagram posts. The fans treated me in much more affectionate ways than Brendon had in the last seven years. I closed the Periscope, not wanting to hear anymore. Grabbing Captain Knots, I curled up on my bed and just stared at the ceiling. I was still hopelessly in love with Brendon Urie, or still hopelessly getting over him.

***

My state of mind didn't improve whatsoever. I still found myself going back to his fucking Periscopes. Was I hoping for him to mention me? To defend me again? Maybe. Yeah, I was. I wanted to know if he still cared, if I had left a mark, if I had left a wound in his fucking emotionless heart. As I drove home, I was watching his Periscope. It seemed that he was stuck in the same L.A. traffic I was stuck in. He was futzing around with his radio--typical Brendon. That kid had an incredibly short attention span. When we had been touring together, he could never listen to the same kind of music for too long. His iPod always died so quickly because he couldn't stop looking at it, couldn't stop changing the song every so often. And that's when I had this bright idea.

I called into the radio station that was taking requests.

"Hello, I'd like to request a song." My voice was shaky--even I couldn't recognize it.

"Sure, sure. Your name and the song, please?"

"I Melt With You by Modern English. My name's Ryan and I'm from L.A."

"Alright, thank you, we'll play your song next." I stared at the traffic still ahead of me. Why? Why was I going through so much heartbreak for a former lover from seven years ago? I waited for the song to come on the Periscope. And I knew that Brendon would sing to it. He sang to everything.

"I'll stop the world and melt with you," he sang. His voice rushed over me, rejuvenated me. God, how I missed his voice. I missed his skin. I missed him. "Let's stop the world..."

"Thank you to Ryan from L.A. for requesting that song!" the radio voice announced. I waited.

"Shoutout to Ryan in L.A.!" Brendon chimed. There was no emotion. My name didn't leave any bitter aftertaste in his mouth, as his name once did for me. His indifference stung. I'd rather have him angry at me than his beautiful, painful, heartwrenching indifference. Because indifference means not caring. And not caring means you're over it. Wasn't he the one who said "being blue is better than being over it"? Here he was, not practicing what he preached. And even then, his smile made my chest hurt. His laugh made my fingers tingle. And just his eyes, his expressions--everything...it made my whole world feel like it was collapsing because, God, how I yearned for him again. I just wanted him in my arms. I just wanted to feel him again.

And so, in my wave of nostalgia and hunger for love again, I irrationally texted him.

To: Brendon Urie

hey. i know we havent talked in...a couple years or so. i just wanted to thank you. for. what you said on ur periscope. mb let's chat sometime.

And without a second thought, I pressed send. Only afterwards did the immense guilt and worry start to rise in my stomach. It was like a pit, sitting there and making me feel nervous and sick. I watched warily on his Periscope for his response.

He grinned and said, "Oh, I just got a text from Jake. He said 'Beeeeeebooooo!'" He then laughed and continued to sing along to his songs. And that's when I felt something inside me break a little more. He ignored me. He covered it up. He pretended I was someone else. But what did I expect?

And so I stared at the ceiling some more the entire night. Tears welled in my eyes and I couldn't...fucking get over this man. This boy who had walked into my life like a natural disaster, ruining everything in his wake and leaving me with nothing but ruins.

And when I finally felt like giving up, turning my phone off and calling it quits, I got an alert on my phone.

Message From: Brendon Urie (1)