Sarah Smiles

Chapter 13.

The noise echoed around the large room. A woman stood near us gasped, staring at me. Brendon brought his eyes up to look at, rubbing his face. I could feel tears beginning to escape my eyes.

“Okay, maybe I deserve that.” Brendon said, a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth.

“Maybe?” I snort, the tears now pouring down my face, splashing onto my t-shirt. I look a mess, I feel slightly hysterical and Brendon Urie is once again, stood in front of me, grinning.

“You have a lot of explaining to do. A lot. What’re you doing here?” I demand, still not smiling.

“Let’s go. I’ll explain on the way. I’m staying at your house by the way. Lucy and I are doing a swap.”

Oh poo. This is not what I had planned for the next 2 weeks. Goodbye, girly movie marathons, hello confusion. And yet I cannot deny that my heart is beating so fast and loud that Brendon can probably hear it. My body is having a reaction, separate to that of my consciousness. My head is thinking “DANGER, DANGER, HEARTBREAK ALERT!” and by body is giving in to his mere presence. I am excited to see him, and right now, I’m too angry to feel like its okay.

I stalk off, walking ahead of him quickly. He has to jog to catch up with me. He keeps trying to talk to me.

"Sarah, I've missed you so much, you wouldn't believe. It's broken my heart not being able to talk to you and see you every day. I get why you're angry, but if you just let me explain-"

Thats where I cut him off. That's where my rant starts.

"Let you explain?! Why the heck couldn't you explain 3 weeks ago when my heart was breaking because I thought you just couldn't be bothered? Why couldn't you explain one of those times when Lucy was talking to Spencer and you were THERE. At the other end of the phone. How DARE you say you've missed me when you've made no attempt to keep a link between us. You don't get to be broken hearted Brendon, because this was all on you. I told you that. I told you that if you wanted this, you had to pursue it. I was ready to never see you again. I'd accepted that. And now you just come waltzing back into my life, like just because you're a beautiful rock star, that's okay? Well it's not. I have no idea what you're doing here, but whatever the reason, get on with it and then get the hell out of my way."

I take a deep breath, get in the car and wait for him to load up his bags and get in. I have made my decision. I will show no signs of weakness. I won’t be friendly. I can be a grown up. I’ll let him explain himself before I kick him out of my house.

When we arrive at my house, my head is pounding. I didn’t say a word in the car, and every time Brendon tried to say anything, make any small talk, I turned the radio up. Immature, I know, but I took a sick kind of pleasure from seeing him grimace every time, shrinking further and further into himself until the music was so loud he wouldn’t be able to hear himself think. I slam the front door behind us and walk into the kitchen. I decided against a hot drink. The temptation may become too great to pour it on him. I get a glass of water and sit down at the table.

Brendon almost crept into the room. He looked truly nervous. I felt a little numb. I pointed at the chair, looking at him questioningly. He nodded and sat down.

“Look, Sarah, you I understand why you’re not happy with me. But this is so not going how I imagined it.” He looks at me expectantly. I don’t even blink.

“Was there something you wanted to say to me, Brendon?” I ask, politely. He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. He looks tired, I notice.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. At first, I had no idea what to say to you, and then I couldn’t face speaking to you, and not being able to hold your hand. And then Spencer and Lucy started planning, and Spence suggested a surprise swap, and it sounded so romantic. Now I see it’s been completely unfair. I've had this huge build up of excitement to get used to the concept of seeing you, and us being together, and you've had a month of hurt and no warning. I'm sorry. I didn't think it through.”

I feel myself melt a little bit. But I’m not giving in this easily. I’m going to make him squirm.

He’s looking at me again, searching my face for some softening. I let my eyes relax a little, but nothing more. I keep waiting for him to say something else. It takes him another minute.

“How are you?” is all he can come up with.

“I’m okay. Been busy. Working and stuff.” I reply, quietly.

“Lucy said...she said you’d been lost.”

“You spoke to Lucy?” I ask, sharply. He’d been in touch with Luce, but not me?

“I was trying to keep me coming a secret.” He supplies as an explanation. He sighs again. “This is going so badly, isn’t it?”

He looks so worried and lost and beautiful that I know I can’t keep this up.

“Yep.” I reply, simply. And then I smile. Just a little. I look up, my hair in my face.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers it, like it’s a secret. My smile grows, taking over my face. His eyes are shiny. I hope he doesn’t cry. I reach over the table and grab his hand. As I lean, my elbow sticks out and gently nudges my glass of water. Or I thought it was gentle. The glass fell over, sending water pouring off the table and onto my lap and the glass rolled off the edge and smashed on the floor.

“Oh, poo!” we both say at the same time, jumping up to start cleaning. That stops me in my tracks.

“Did you just say poo?” I ask him. He never says poo. Or rather, he never did around me before.

“I picked it up from you. I started saying it at home. It reminded me of you.” He says as he crouches down to begin cleaning up the broken glass.

I blink.  I breathe. In. Out. And then I launch myself across the small distance between us, knocking Brendon to the ground. My lips are pressed up against his chin and both of our eyes are wide open, which is mildly terrifying. He pulls away from me. I know I’m roughly the same colour as beetroot. I couldn’t even kiss him right. I crawl back, ready to go and hide. But Brendon has his hands on my arm. He pulls me towards him. He’s smiling.

“Does that mean I’m forgiven?” he asks cheekily.

“No.” is my stubborn reply. And then I kiss him again, this time hitting him dead on his beautiful lips. I’m leaning over him, but it’s hurting in this position. I pull away again and Brendon hums his disapproval at my disengagement of our lips. I clamber to me feet, feeling very self conscious. I offer my hand to Brendon to help him up, and he gasps.

“Holy crap, Sarah! What did you do?!” Brendon almost shouts at me. I look at my hand. There is crimson blood all over my hand, running down my wrist and dripping off my finger tips. I can see a small shard of glass still in the cut, which looks quite deep, although these things always look worse than they really are, don’t they? Brendon is looking around the kitchen for a first aid kit. He keeps asking me if I know where it is. I don’t. I keep staring at the blood on the hand. It’s now on my sleeves, on the floor. It’s getting everywhere. There really is a surprising amount of blood coming from such a small cut. I try to pull the bit of glass out. It hurts, and now I can’t see the glass anymore. Oh poo. That can’t be good.

I never realised before how disgusting blood is. The smell of it, like rust. It’s making me feel sick.

“Sarah? Are you okay? You’ve gone pale.”

“I don’t feel very well.” I get out. I really don’t. I put my hand on Brendon’s shoulder to steady myself, and a sting of pain shoots through it. Oh yeah, there’s glass in there. I feel nauseous and dizzy. I’ve got blood on Brendon’s shirt. Oh poo. I’m not even making sense any more.

The room is spinning and Brendon’s worried face swims in front of me.

‘Really. Of all this from such a little cut?’ I think as it goes dark and I feel Brendon’s arms catch me.