Murderer

Chapter 4: Brendon

I smiled at Ryan before unlocking the door to my house. I couldn't wait to show him. My parents wouldn't be home for another half hour, so we just had to grab the beers really quick.

As we walked inside, I thought about it. If I tell him now, he may just abandon me. Like I said, he's going to take some convincing.

"Hey Ryan...wait here okay? Just going to grab some food to fill us up for dinner." I said calmly.

"Well I'm just going to go take a piss then." He shrugged his shoulders. He knew I was on to something but he just let it go. Oh well, at least he won't be able to see what I'm doing. I laughed and nodded as he walked down the hall.

I grabbed a few slices of bread and made ham sandwiches. I grabbed a pair of Pepsi bottles and then the two cans of beer, hiding them in my bag, putting an ice pack next to them to keep them cold. I wrote my parents a note saying "Dinner with Ryan at Taco bell, then off to the movies." A total lie, but whatever.

Ryan came back and we both headed out into the backyard, then disappeared into the woods. I knew our lives were about to change even more, I felt a tingling feeling my fingers. A guilty feeling in the back of my mind as well. I knew we shouldn't be doing this, he would soon have the same guilt wash over him, but in the end we'll be able to tell this story to our kids. You have to have a story to tell when you drink your first beer right? I wouldn't know, a few days ago we were the most nerdy kids on the block. Nothing wrong with that, it's just fun to take a huge turn off the road of sequence.

We sat on the grass, staring out into the distance, taking huge bites out of our sandwiches.

"There's something in this place that really calms me. I used to feel just this overwhelming amount of stress that drained me of energy, but now I look at this pond and think, damn, I wish we could spend as much time as we do in school enjoying this gift that we have found that allows me to feel like nothing else in the world matters. This pond gives me an outburst of ideas for my lyrics." he smiled.

I looked down and stared at his notebook for a second, until I looked up and made eye contact with him. He had saw me looking at his notebook, knowing that I had a thousand questions of what he wrote in it.

He took a huge sip of his Pepsi and then gulped. "...D-D-Do you want to see a song I wrote today?" He stuttered, probably worried that I would laugh at him and tell him no, but I would never do that to him.

"Ryan, I have always wondered what your lyrics were like. Of course." I saw him let out huge sigh of relief. I imagined how hard it would be for anybody to share something so personal, even with your best friend. I knew he would only hide his works for that reason, but I want to give him all the confidence in the world.

He flipped a few pages into his notebook, then held his notebook out to me, waiting for me to take it from his hand, like it would also take a huge weight off his mind.

I took it, and started reading the scribbles on the sheet of paper, realizing that every word written was very special to him. I glided my thumb up the side of the notebook, feeling the bumps that the pen had made in the paper.

If all our life is but a dream

Fantastic posing greed
Then we should feed our jewelry to the sea
For diamonds do appear to be
Just like broken glass to me

I took a second to interpret his lyrics. If life is a dream, then that means that someday we would wake up from, then we shouldn't worry about the things we find valuable. Greed would not exist if we knew diamonds were worthless, so we should throw them aside because they are equal value to broken glass. I'm already impressed by his writing.

And then she said she can't believe
Genius only comes along
In storms of fabled foreign tongues
Tripping eyes, and flooded lungs
Northern downpour sends its love

It's like he's writing of a girl who had been hurt before in the past, so much so now she can tell if a guy is fake with her or not. Now she meets a guy who cares about her, but he is foreign to where she lives. Now that she realizes that she can not truly love this guy, she cries her eyes out. I'm also ready to ball my eyes out, if only I wasn't trying to be a man in front of my best friend.

Hey moon, please forget to fall down
Hey moon, don't you go down

The person wants the dream to not end, they don't want to wake up, they want the moon to stay so their dream lasts forever.

The ink is running toward the page
It's chasin' off the days
Look back at boat feet
And that winding knee
I missed your skin when you were east
You clicked your heels and wished for me

Days have turned into weeks, and weeks have turned into months. Time has gone by since the two lovers separated, and they are looking back on that. The girl thinks of all the good times they shared and she just wishes that the boy would return to her.

Through playful lips made of yarn
That fragile Capricorn
Unraveled words like moths upon old scarves
I know the world's a broken bone
But melt your headaches, call it home

The boy had told her how much he loves her. She thinks about how much it sucks that he had to leave her, but she understood that there was no hope for them so she had to move on and accept it.

Sugarcane in the easy mornin'
Weathervanes my one and lonely

The boy left the girl behind in the summer. Since sugarcane is usually grown in very warm climates,  it symbolizes that the boy would practically die without the girl. So when the summer comes, he will "wake up" from his life. Then, I read the last verse of the song.

Hey moon, please forget to fall down
Hey moon, don't you go down
You are at the top of my lungs
Drawn to the ones who never yawn

The boy doesn't want life to end even though it is a living hell without the girl. He is singing this song about her, telling her that he still loves her more than anything, but living without her, is bringing him more and more closer to his death.

I closed the lyric book, and gave him a warm smile. Here's Ryan, the kid viewed life at a whole different level and he felt love eat at his heart but he was not loved back by nobody but his best friend.

"Ryan, promise me that when you get a girlfriend, you'll sing her a song. Because I promise you will melt her heart with songs like this one. You're good enough, and if somebody doesn't love you back then they are not worth your time."

"Thanks, Brendon." I could see the happiness on his face, and I knew he felt it strongly in his heart. I did a good thing.

We laid back on the grass, watching the water for a bit. Then when it came time for the sunset, I grabbed my bag and pulled out the beer.

"Ryan, I know this is crazy, but I wanted to drink my first beer with you. I know we have different paths we are going to take in the future, and I just want such a big moment to be with you, not with some lousy roommate in college." I explained to him, staying very calm. But I could see the expression on his face that said he didn't want to.

"But Brendon, we're sixteen. We're just learning how to drive. Do you really think this is a good idea? Seriously?" I saw the worry in his face.

"It's one beer, Ryan. I thought you would agree that we shouldn't worry when it comes to life." I twisted his lyrics right in the palm of my hands. It was dirty, and I regretted saying that the moment said it.

"No, not this way, Brendon. I want to have my first beer legally, as an adult. As a treat for being 21. Not at a party, not at some pond, not with some roommate. With you, when I'm 21, and you're 21. I'm sorry." he got up, dusted the grass and dirt off his pants, and vanished into the woods.