-It's July, year 2020 (Brendon is back to the present year)-
Brendon arrives at the modern pantry pizza shop ten minutes late, because he'd just finished filming an episode of his show. He spots Terra's goofy smile and she's there, fiddling with her phone at a table, crossing and uncrossing her legs. It's something she does when she's nervous.
Brendon wishes he could say he's not nervous at all, but that's not true. His heart was probably going to beat right out of his chest and onto the floor.
He tells himself over and over that this is no big deal, that Terra is just being kind. That even if Terra wanted to restart a relationship with him (which seemed impossible) Brendon would say no thank you and walk right out of this stupid pizza place which he has never even heard of and never, ever come back.
With that knowing that, Brendon reaches Terra in no time because he is a fast nervous walker and says "erm... Hi." (Said like a pro Brendon.)
Terra looks up from her phone, her whole face lights up in a smile, and life is just not fair because she can't smile like that while looking at him...her eyes can't crinkle like she is actually happy to see him. Terra can't be happy to see him. not Brendon.
Anyway, this girl was married, for god's sake. To a man...A man that's good for her.
"Hey," she says. She motions towards the empty chair across from her. The corners of her mouth perk up playfully. "You can sit down, y'know.."
"Right," Says Brendon, in a tone of voice that almost seemed vile. He pulls out the chair a bit too fast because it squeaks loudly. "erm, Hi..."
Brendon thinks that he's never made such an idiot of himself in his whole twenty-six years of existence.
Ter grins, but it's kind of a "Hey look, I know I used to be in love with you and all, but you're kind of acting nuts" kind of grin. She sprinkles some pamasean cheese onto the pizza sitting in the middle of the table that seemed to small.
"So..." Terra trails off. "What's new?"
"Er, I..Um. Just finished an episode of my show. I dunno if you've heard of it. You might have."
Ter laughs. "Don't be daft. Everyone's heard of it."
"Oh. Is that so?" asks Brendon and he mentally kicks himself. Maybe playing humble would have been all right if his show wasn't the most popular tv show in the whole world. It was like Justin Bieber or someone saying, "Oh, really? You've heard of me? That's so strange!"
Terra's phone pings with a new message, and Brendon can't help but wonder if it's Tom...Terra is smiling not-so-discreetly as she types back a response.
If this was something like six years ago, Terra would never have texted on one of their dates. 'But this isn't a date' thought Brendon... 'I don't know what this is..'
"So, uh, how about you?" Brendon asks after a prolonged and un nessasary feeling silence spreads out.
Terra looks up. "Sorry..What?"
"How've you been? Lately, L mean." and damn has Brednon never felt more awkward.
He's never felt awkward around Terra in his whole life.
"Oh." Terra takes a bight of her pizza, then glimpses at her phone. Almost like I was an inconvince to her being there. "I got back from paris two weeks ago. Went with a few mates."
"Um..That's cool," Brendon says.
Teera smiles a little. She looks down at his phone again. "sorry about that. It's my manager. Kinda can't ignor then, ya know?" She pauses for a second "I'm getting all these rolls and parts practically thrown at me right now. They're saying I'm a slut and all that. Bad move on my part, shouldn't have been so public, I s'pose."
Wait. Wait...What?
"What?" Brendon says after he finds his voice again.
Terra looks at Brendon, her eyessorry and kind of sad.. "How long have you been out of the loop?" She asks. Brendon blinks at her. Terra smiles a really sad smile "Havn't looked at the newpaper latly huh..?" She reaches into her bag. She pulls out a newspaper article and wordlessly hands it to Brendon.
He flips through it untill he finally find her name, and he thinks, what the fuck. What the actual fuck. He does the only thing he can think of. He leaves.
"Brendon!" Terra calls. Brendon is basically just too shocked to function, he can't even think so how the hell is he supposed to make words come out of his mouth?
"Leave me alone" is his go-to response for right now, It's all he can think of to say.
"Brendon, please," is Terra's go-to reasponse of trying to get Brendon to listen to her.
"Did I ever even know you?" Brendon bursts out, and now that he's started, he won't be finished for a while. He turns on Terra and his fucking stupid blue eyes that he's still slowly drowning in. He's not even looking at Terra Johnson anymore! At least not the Terra he knew. He's looking at a complete stranger. And it breaks his heart to think this. A stranger. Terra.
Terra's blue eyes start to water. "Brendon, please, of course you do, or did. You know me, you-"
"Terra, I don't know you at all!" He screams, Terra's image becomes blurry. He angrily wipes his eyes and continues, "You told them we were just friends with benefits! friends. with. fucking. benefits. So okay, fine, maybe this is all my fault, right? because i'm such a fucking idiot who doesn't even know that his girlfriend of five years was using him for sex!"
"Brendon..No, I would never-"
"Shut up!I don't even want to hear "The truth"" Brendon has compleatly turned on Terra now and he wants to slap her, he wants to so badly but he could never, never hurt Teera...no matter how much this sickening image of beauty kicked him or punched him or tore his heart apart, into tiny peices..He would never fight back. "It's too late for all your lies. All i'm asking for is the truth. I want the truth, Terra. But I guess that might as well be from a stranger off the streets, because if you tell me the truth, that's exactally what I will get. A stranger telling me more lies."
Tears stream down Terra's cheeks. It takes so much not to cup her face in his hands and make all the tears go away. A sick, anguished part of Brendon is glad, he's glad that Terra is hurting as much as she is. The rest of him wants to cradle Terra in his arms and murmur sweet words into the shell of her ear and gently kiss away her tears.
"BB..." is all Terra says.
The old nickname rips Brendon apart. Something inside him crumbles, his heart probably, and he just can't.
"I'm so sorry," Terra whispers as she takes a small step closer to him as if she was waiting for Brendon to burst out the door and she was ready to grab his arm.
Brendon turns away from the girl standing in front of him, but it's not the girl he's loved for ten years. He is turning his body from a stranger. H e turns away from Terra Johnson, the actor, Tomr calder's wife. Not Tear, not Brendon's Tear bear, the one who loved hot showers and roses and reading and.....and him.
"No, you're not," he says to the stranger, so quietly he doesn't think she hears.
