I Melt With You

Chapter 4: Just A Cover

We had spent the entire night just talking together until we fell asleep. It was nice. It was normal. It was like old times, back when we were both seventeen again and didn't give a fuck about what we did or who saw. We were the only two people in the world.

I woke up the next morning to a hushed conversation and the smell of coffee, bacon, eggs, and toast. I strained my hearing to try and get an inkling of the conversation.

"Do you want him to leave?" I recognized Brendon's voice. He was always a terrible whisperer.

"N-no, I'm fine with him here. I never got to meet him anyway. It's just...are you okay with him here?" This voice, I assumed, was Sarah's. And you could just tell, if you could picture a face from a voice, that she was beautiful.

I could practically hear his breath hitch. "U-uh, why wouldn't I be...okay with him here, baby?" he asked. I heard Sarah sigh and her footsteps coming closer to me. I rubbed my eyes and pounding erupted in my head. It sounded like someone was throwing seventy tantrums in my mind.

"Fuck!" I hissed at the unexpected pain. I groaned from the sound of my voice since it was louder than I anticipated. Sarah walked into the living room and smiled at me. God, she was beautiful. I understood why Brendon had fallen for her. She smiled.

She said softly, "Hi, I'm Sarah." She extended a hand and I tentatively took it. She looked at me expectantly, as if I were supposed to say something.

"U-um, sorry," I said. I rubbed the back of my neck.

"For?" she asked.

"Er, for crashing at y-your place. I don't mean to intrude. I just got really fuckin' wasted last night and needed a ride somewhere and fuck--" Too much talking. My head spun and I felt like my head was going to explode.

She laughed lightly. "Here, have some coffee. We made breakfast. Stay here as long as you need." She was so, so kind. I felt almost guilty for resenting her, for hating her because she had married the man I had fallen in love with.

"I--thank you." She simply nodded, smiled, and brought over the food to me. She sat with me, eating breakfast with me, and the dogs playfully pranced around us. It was strange. Who knew I would end up eating breakfast with my ex's wife on a Sunday morning? We ended up talking for hours and hours; Brendon had gone out with Zack to the studio or something like that.

It was idle chitchat until she finally mentioned it, "He's still in love with you, you know." She smiled sadly and looked down to her lap.

"I-I'm.."

"And I know you're still in love with him, too, Ry." In those couple of hours we were talking, I ended up knowing Sarah pretty well. She was sweet and kindhearted, loving and faithful. She cared so much and had so much love. It was another one of Brendon's "overcompensating" cases. Sarah was the complete opposite of me. I was always cold to him in our relationships, loving the fast, relentless sex we had. Unfeeling. Unloving. Fake. But we loved each other--we were too scared to admit it. Well, I was.

"Sarah..." I started and she shook her head and I saw her lip quiver and her eyes fill with tears.

"I heard you two speaking the other night and I heard how happy he was, Ryan. His voice filled with emotion again and I just knew it. I knew it. You know how I knew?" I shook my head. "It's the same way he sounds when he talks to me about music. Whenever he talks about music, he gets this childish giddiness about him. He starts to uncontrollably smile and his mind is in a different place, like he's thinking about a thousand different things at once. Lyrics, progressions, chords, everything. And I know that when he talks to you he gets that same feeling. This overwhelming joy and nostalgia that brings him back to when he was young. And happy."

"Sarah," I started again, but she cut me off.

"Don't tell me he's in love with me." She laughed, though it wasn't her normal light laughter. It was more sad, empty. But it wasn't bitter. "Over the years, I've grown to accept the fact that Brendon will never love me the way he loved you. If you didn't know us at all, you'd have thought we were just roommates. There is never any...love in the way we speak to each other. It's like we're best friends. Nothing more, but nothing less. I love Brendon. So much. So, so much. But, I know that he doesn't love me, Ryan. And, I'm okay with that. But it breaks my heart every day to know that he hasn't found the right person for him yet. And just...hearing him last night? That validated my belief that he was still in love. In love with you."

I felt like I couldn't breathe. My chest grew tight. My breathing was ragged. My hands shook. "W-why are you telling me...?"

"Because you needed to know. I want you to know. I want to tell someone who understands. I want you to stay in his life, Ryan. Don't break his heart again," she whispered. I could see her tears.

I struggled to form a sentence. "H-he's lucky. To, to have you, Sarah. But, I don't. I don't think. I don't..."

"Ryan, do you know how much of a mess he was in when I met him?" I wanted to argue with her. She didn't know how much of a mess I was. I had left the only person I had truly ever loved to live a life following my father's footsteps. A life of drugs. A life of alcohol. A life devoid of meaning.

She continued, "I want to say that I fell in love with him the moment I saw him. And I can sometimes say that is true. But more than anything, I was so curious when I first saw him at that concert because I could just see the pain and the lies. And I realized how he hid behind the song lyrics and created this facade just so he wouldn't have to feel. And I wanted to know what, or who, caused that. And when I figured it out, I realized that I couldn't fall in love with him. Because he would never love me in return. All that pain I saw in his eyes? It was love. And he was so afraid to love because of you, Ryan."

She looked at me directly now, waiting for a reaction. And all I could do was shake. And shiver. And cry.

"Do you love him?"

"I do."