Tutorial | Brendon Urie

Chapter Twenty Three

At school, I'd make sure to keep my eyes down every day. The eyes that watched me sneak and slither through crowded hallways were the same ones that haunted Dawn and I after school a few weeks ago. The same eyes that watched Brendon and I speak more than often and stand more than too close to each other. When they stared and they whispered, something was going on, something was being hidden from me.

Every class I went to, my peers became quiet. A word or two may be mumbled under a heavy breath or a cough, but nothing outright, thank God. Brendon was nowhere to be seen. A hint for the gossipers, I'm sure. I hadn't seen him in almost two weeks. There was obnoxious silence between us. There had been since that day. It was impenetrable. My fingertips would grow cold when my phone buzzed and engines growling outside my house would send my heart pitter-pattering like children's footsteps on Christmas morning. I was going cold-turkey.

Ms. Phillips' snide glares during English reminded me of all my sins, so I couldn't go to that class anymore. I haven't been all week, in fact. I don't know what's been happening in that class. For all I know, they could be studying me. They better not be.

This period of loneliness has taxed me heavily. There's a lot that I'm missing. The way Brendon would hold my hands in the cold, the way he'd let his stolen kisses turn my ears from blue to red. A warm drink and white sheets on his bed, a daring glow from his television and the comfort of closeness on his sofa. An out of the blue text telling me to give myself a break or read something for pleasure once in a while. I miss our handwritten notes too. His scribbles were almost unintelligible sometimes. So frantic and desperate and unplanned.

But I have none of those things now, and it's not even in my control. It seems nothing is.

An increasingly loud shrill chime beams from my phone.

"Hello?" I mumble into the receiver.

"Grace, hey, where are you?"

"Who is this?" I've still only barely woken up from my now routine afternoon nap.

"It hasn't been that long has it?" The sarcastic tone is all too familiar.

"Oh, sorry Dawn."

"You've missed English like seven days in a row now. Where have you been? Where's Brendon?"

Even the mention of his name shortens my breath. "Something happened. You should come over tonight." It's time she knew.

"Uh, sure. Are you okay?"

"Just come over and I'll tell you all about it."

Not thirty minutes later, heavy footsteps bound into my bedroom and land themselves in my bed beside me. Dawn's warm embrace soothes my aching bones.

"Hey," she whispers in my ear, a deep breath bringing her chest into my back.

"Hey," I reply.

"What's going on Grace? I haven't seen you in such a long time," she says, seeing me.

"They found out." I roll my body into a sitting position. "Ms. Phillips and my parents, they found out."

Dawn's trademark smile fades from her face as her jaw hangs ajar. Her eyebrows raise in the center and her grasp around me loosens. She rolls into a sitting position as well, next to me.

"Grace, I am so sorry," she says. She is very sorry for my grand loss, for my major tragedy, for my world of hurt. She replaces one hand on my back and turns her head to face me.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do." I heave a sigh from my tired lungs.

"Have you guys spoken since?"