Mr. Babydoll and the journals of his inner blizzard [peterick]

IX

I didn't know what day it was when Brendon stormed into the coffee shop and the bell above the door was ringing like it was her last time. I would've mocked him about his famous hyperactivity, but I dropped a plate.

Brendon looked like hell.

His face was painted with sleeplessness and misery. Like he'd been crying the entire night before. He barged against the counter and I could tell he had been drinking as well.

"Pete..." he said. His voice sounded rough like he hadn't said a single word for a very long time. He raised his head and looked at me with big, glasslike eyes. "I might have done something very very dumb."

It wasn't the statement itself which surprised me. Brendon often did very dumb things and he could admit it too, but he used to smile during that with shiny eyes and his stupid giggle. But now he was sitting in front of me, looking like the absolute worst. He must have done something really dumb.
"I know, I couldn't admit it when we  talked a few weeks ago." he started while I stared down at the shattered plate on the ground. It was a soft pink one, Haley's favourite. I'll need to buy a new one before she notices.

"Pete, I've slept with someone." Brendon said incidentally. I looked up at him. "Ryan?" I already regretted my entire life before I even spoke.

Brendon stared at me like I just compared him to a third world dictator. He slowly shook his head before he started crying. And with crying, I mean actual crying. His entire body was shaking trough real sobbing. Good thing it was too early in the morning for guests to be here. That's how I found out it definitely wasn't a day on the weekend.

"Holy sh- uhm, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, I didn't want to...! Brendon please." I lead him to the kitchen and made him a cup of coffee.
He sat on the old wooden chair where Joe always spends his smaller breaks. He would often read the newspaper there and when I was already busy and stressed to begin with, he would call me from the kitchen like: "Pete, guess what happened in this Parisian train station. Man, this world truly is a bag of shit."

When I saw Brendon's miserable state, I heard Joe's words all over again.
Brendon slowly calmed down and the only noises left in the room were his sad sniffling and the coffee machine. The clock said 7:30 am. I handed him the cup and he nodded thankfully. His index finger brushed over the paper cup every now and then while he hold it, but he didn't drink. I leaned against a cupboard, facing him.
"I'm sorry that I assumed you and Ryan would...sleep together. I just thought.."

"It's okay." he interrupted me. "It's reasonable." he took a first careful sip from his cup. "Pete, I think I fell in love with my bandmate."

I didn't flinch. "I know."

He chuckled softly and rubbed his eye with his palm. "I wish I wasn't such a mess."
I just nodded. He lowered his head.

"I slept with someone else." he confessed, his voice cracking. My eyes widened. "You did?"
He nodded again and I didn't know what to say. I didn't want him to nod and cry for ten hours straight, I wanted him to just fucking spill the tea already.
"Who did you sleep with?" I tried to find a way to keep this conversation above the water surface.
I'm a good listener. I'm a good listener.

"I slept with some girl after a party. The guys and I celebrated...wanted to celebrate after our first successful performance in a park. It was a great night before...I made everything about myself again." He took another sip. It would take hours to empty a cup of coffee like this.
"What did it mean to you?" I asked.

"It meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was drunk as fuck. She was drunk as fuck. I don't know how drunk Ryan was, but that doesn't even matter. God, Pete I feel so disgusting."
I tried to comprehend what I heard. "I mean there isn't really a reason why you should."
He stared at the wall and shrugged.

"Did she say yes to-"
"Oh Jesus Christ, of course she did!" Brendon yelled back. "Who do you think I am? We both wanted it in our drunken state. If I had been sober, I wouldn't have even talked to her in the first place."
He wiped his already dry face on his sleeve.

"So, tell me what's the problem here."

He leaned back, causing the chair to creak under his weight.
"First of all, I'm in love with my bandmate, so I basically cheated on my crush if that's a thing. Second of all, the girl is going to be pretty upset if I reject her next time she stands in front of my door and she's the major's daughter."
He turned to me. "I think I'm killing our chance to become a popular band." He said it while directly looking at me, but he really said it more to himself.

"You have to confront your mistakes. Ignoring them will only leave you making new ones and you'll seem more and more like an asshole with every time." I told him and he slowly nodded like he was still thinking about what to do next.

"Should I just tell her it didn't mean anything? Wouldn't that make me seem more like an ass?" he asked.
I shrugged, smiling apologetically. "It's still better than ignoring her. You gotta stand up for the mistakes you're making."

A comfortable silence fell over the room like a wordless cloud of agreement. The slow realisation that I've been dealing with a bunch of drunk people recently searched its way into my mind. What's so great about alcohol? It takes your pain away and let's you forget, but causes you more problems in the aftermath. Your liver wouldn't thank you. Maybe I've spent to much time in a cheesy coffee shop to really know about it.

"By the way, what's with your crush on that guy? You know, the one with the weird hat." Brendon broke the silence. "And don't tell me you're not crushing on him. I confessed and now it's your turn."

I crossed my arms and rubbed them like I was cold.
"I haven't seen him in a while. He probably moved on or something."
There was no reason to assume he did. But I just wanted to forget about him. He was probably straight anyway because, let's be honest, I know so many queer people now. The possibility is extremely low. And looking back at it, it seems like it was just a dumb crush anyway. Like when you see a pretty person and you fantasise about kissing them although you know it's all gonna fade soon and never be something serious.

"I'm sorry about that, dude." Brendon said and I knew he meant it.

"No, it's fine. That's how life is."
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I stepped on the shards of Haley's favourite cup while Brendon walked out the door, seeming  at least a little less miserable than he did when he walked in. Joe entered the shop not even a second after him and watched me patiently picking up the broken fragments.

"Dude, I didn't want to be the guy to say it, but you should really stop being people's shoulder to cry on." he told me and I pretended I didn't hear him over the sound of the sherds clashing inside the trash bin.

Sometimes I didn't like myself too much.

patrickstump: I'm sorry, I was sorting some things out.
11:11 pm

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