Bound By Words Ch, 8

Taking the chair next to his little imitation gurney, I was deeply in thought.

Ryan's soft locks fell onto his face gently as he slept, turned on his side so that his cheek was smushed by the pillow he was laying on. It didnt look like he was breathing, but they were slow breaths, small and short through his lightly tinted pink yet pale lips that teased me to the max as I stared at him, denying myself the gratitude of waking him up and asking him.

Lets review what happened, shall we? I poked him for like, the seventh time in a row, and all of a sudden his expression looked quite worried, almost confused in a way, like he couldnt understand or couldnt have it. Anyways, I poked him, he shifted, and faintly from his lips, he whispered, "...Brendon...I..."


No, I never heard what he said next because I tripped over the chord to a lamp and almost woke him up, so he turned over and resumed his sleepy state.

Now thats two male names in a row, in one small time frame. Maybe it had nothing to do with what I'm thinking, and maybe it had nothing to do with anything in particular. I'm not too sure, but Ifeel like I should know. I mean, its my name,. And I hate to say it, but Ryan is extremely important in my survival, he’s what I think about when I pray, along with my parents. I mean, there unavoidable, but theyre my parents, so I have to love them.

“Hey, Ry…” I whispered, getting up and sitting on the edge of his bed carefully. He looked so…gorgeous. Innocent, like I’ve never seen him look before. I mean, normally he’s pretty well concealed, keeping whats private, private. But now, I could just reach over, bend a little further and…

Our faces were inches apart, his steady breath against my mouth. Oh, you have NO IDEA how hard it was not to kiss him, when he was so vulnerably ready, just right there. Then I remembered, “THIS IS WRONG.”

There was no fucking way that I could have gay feelings for anyone, not even the all-seducing Ryan Ross. I was Mormon, and homosexuality is looked down upon, deep, deep down upon. Its not necessarily sinful to have homosexual feelings, but it is sinful to act upon them. But its really no big deal, because I wasn’t planning to marry Ryan and premarital sex is wrong for heterosexual Mormons as well as gay ones. Yet, the sense that you like the same gender is looked down upon because it doesn’t continue the ‘beauty’ in having a family consisting of two parents and children. They also blame homosexuality of a child on the parents, in instance that there is a distant father and an overbearing mother, which sadly counts in my family. But I could never tell them that, and they could never accept it, the thought that they wont be able to spend eternity with me because I like dicks as much as boobs.

My belief, and its been said, that God loves all loving relationships, and loves all of his children. So, there should be no reason for me to go to hell for being gay. But people aren’t open-minded like that, and I’m not all supportive of my theory either, so I’m not sure. I’ll be kicked out of the church if I fuck around with Ryan.

But I looked down at him and I guess things made sense. Love is love, and its bullshit if anyone tells you any different. What else is there to say? Its wrong? How? Bias aside, whats wrong with it? Sure, we’ll never have a ‘family’, but I’m not planning on marrying him, and I can pass off as bisexual, right? I can still like girls. And God loves us all, so why would this matter?

There was no way…

But I closed my eyes and stopped breathing for a minute, until he moaned and I jerked back, sitting at the edge of the bed, upright again.

Those toffee and forest green eyes slowly opened and he squinted at me for a second, taking a large breath in.

“You alright, Ry?” I asked, smiling at him widespread.

Groggily he inhaled, yawned, stretched and replied, “Not in a particular sense.” And he rubbed his eyes, sitting up.

“What happened?” I bit my lip, wondering if I was coming off too strong with the questions.

Uncomfortably he shifted, looking down at the hands in his lap, one of them reaching to mess with his hair.

“Uhm, a friend of mine…passed away.” And he pursed his lips, biting back words.

“Oh,” I looked down to my own feet shiftily. “I-I’m sorry. Evan?” I took a wild guess.

“What?” he asked, looking up at me, “How do you know?”

“The, uh, nurse told me.” I shrugged and nodded.

“Oh.” And he didn’t even bother asking how she knew.

“Was he close?” I asked, squinting at him as I tried to understand.

“Yeah,” he scooted to face me more directly though he still looked in his lap. “I guess. I mean, I saw him like, every other day. He had tuberculosis.”

“Really?” Wrong thing to say.

“Really.” His voice grew icy as he looked at me, “But it wasn’t his fault, he just had some problems was all, he…”

All of a sudden he started tearing up, and if there was one thing I don’t think I could handle, it was a crying Ryan Ross.

Burying his face in his hands, I sighed. “I-I’m sorry,” and I hugged him as he cried.


Nothing was said for the next ten minutes as he cried into my shoulder, not hugging me back but allowing me to hold onto him.


The next day at school, I almost thought Ryan wasn’t there. I didn’t see him in the morning, didn’t see him sitting next to me in my classes.

No, it wasn’t until lunch that I saw him. But he wasn’t hanging out with me, he was with the kids he began with, the much more popular crowd.

Spencer was over there, too, attached to his side. My suspicions are that it had something to do with Spencer.

Naturally, Jon was right behind me. Literally.

“Hey.” He said, trying to trace my stare. It took him long enough, but he found it and frowned. “Brendon, don’t get all pissy, I can NOT take your mood swings.”

“I do not have mood swings!” I snapped angrily, “Shut up!”

He looked at me matter-of-factly and I knew he was right; I was not good company when I was angry. “Fine.” I mumbled, taking my food with a snatch and walking out to our table, Jon once again trailing behind.


“Whats up with that?” I sneered, looking at Ryan acting completely too good for us as he sat on the table, yes on the table, smiling and laughing at every joke made.

“He does have a life, you know.” Jon looked at me.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t have to be such a man-bitch about it.” And despite the lingo, Jon couldn’t deny the fact that I had a point. The overnight switch was just..rude.

I know I’m an easy person to forget, I know I can be that way, but he just completely dropped us. Hasn’t spoken a word to us all day.

But I let it slide, angrily eating my extremely shitty food and glaring at him while wishing my looks were sharp as knives.

I let it slide, like I should have.

And slide.

And slide.

And slide.

And slide.

And pretty soon it’s the weekend and I haven’t spoken to Ryan or Spencer at all.

Bitterly swinging my bag of books over my shoulder, I shut my locker and turned, bumping in to someone.

“Ah, shit, I’m sorry.” I apologized, not even looking at who it was.

“I-its okay.”

Very slowly, I turned to look at him. “Ryan?” Now I know I was acting like a bitter teenage preppy chick, but I gave him a death glare as he stuttered at me.

“Hey, uhm, I-I gotta go…” and he almost turned before I snapped.

“Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“Come on, Brendon!” Jon called in the background, at the top of the hallway.

“Us.” And I walked to join Jon in storming away overdramatically.

“Whats up with him?” Jon frowned as we reached the outside, walking to my house only a block away.

“He’s an ass, like he was supposed to be in the first place.”

“So he just decides to dump you, er, us?”

“I guess so.” And I kicked a rock.

“Bitch.”

“I know.”

“Well talk to him,” Jon kept trying to solve this.

“He doesn’t want to talk to me, why should I?”

“Because you and I know that you cant have an undenying hate for Ryan, you like that boy way too much.” Both of us stopped in our tracks and looked at each other.

“On Monday?” I suggested, unwillingly.

“Awesome.” And we walked home; I greeted my parents and ran upstairs to put it on Myspace.

Dear Readers,

Today has sucked ass. You know the Toffee-Eyed kid? He’s being a bitch. He’s totally dumping me for the more popular crowd. So I’m curious, has anything like this ever happened to you guys? Any advice?

--C. Catastrophe


Waiting for a few minutes, playing with the fringe off the edge of my shirt, I got a message from Arron.


Hey Cris. I heard about your issue. What happened?


Sighing, I replied.

Like I said, he’s being an ass. He’s totally dumped me and J for his much cooler friends. I mean, he can hang out with them, fine and dandy. But he hadn’t spoken to us all week.


Does he have a reason?


No, I don’t think so. He probably just likes life high and rich more, like any human would.


You should just talk with him, ask him if he has a good reason. Don’t be so quick to judge.


Arron was away after that and I sat back in my chair, typing up a few more messages in response to my full mailbox.