Tutorial | Brendon Urie

Chapter Thirty

I inhale a huge breath as my body slowly catches up with my mind, finally coming to. When I open my eyes, there's no light streaming in from the windows, but absolute darkness in the bedroom. Brendon's body still warms the space beside me, but not enough. I slide myself under the covers and attempt to move them over him as well, without jolting him awake. The one thing he needs right now is an escape from this reality. I don't want to be the one to take that away from him.

The weight of his body is difficult to roll, but I push him over slightly to pull the covers out from underneath. There's not quite enough room to pull the covers completely out, so I push him a little farther until he's teetering under my grasp. I yank at the sheets a little harder, sending Brendon flying off the edge of the bed onto the hardwood floor.

A soft groan sounds from below as I keep a hand firmly over my mouth to stop my ugly cackle from waking the entire neighbourhood. My legs swing over the edge of the bed to join Brendon on the floor.

"What the hell," he says, eyes still closed. "Grace? Why am I on the floor?"

This time I let a giggle escape. "I'm sorry, I was trying to get you under the covers, but then I pushed you off the bed."

He turns over so his back is against the floor and pulls me on top of him into his arms. "Come here," he mumbles into my hair.

"Can we do this on the bed?" I plead, trying to push myself out of his grasp, but he holds me closer. He squeezes me into his body, and I can't wriggle free. Not that I really want to.

I move away from him so that we can see each other's eyes, or as much of them as possible in the dark. The soft pink of his lips beg to be kissed and even my best judgement can't deny them. I lightly drag my thumb over his bottom lip before caressing it with my own. His mouth moves in sync with mine and his head begins to lift off the ground. As I feel a hand begin to tangle in my hair, I pull away.

"Let's get off the floor," I say. I remove his arms from around my back and climb under the duvet.

His head appears over the side of the mattress. "Is everything okay?" he asks.

"Let's just go to sleep, shall we?" I turn over and face away from Brendon. If I so much as see a flicker of his dark brown eyes, I know I'll be putty in his hands. I can't be. What we have is more dangerous than he even knows, and it seems only I can see it. He wants the kisses and the 'I love you's' and the hugs and cuddles and walks in the park, but we can't have any of that. Not as long as we live in this town and not as long as we lead these lives.

Every kiss from now on is a false promise to be together, and I can't make them anymore. I was able to sacrifice the future wellbeing of Brendon to bring us some momentary happiness, but I've seen what this is doing to him. He doesn't want to admit it, but this is running him into the ground. It's running us both into the ground. His entire reputation and image in the public is utterly tarnished and now I have to watch as the glint in his eyes turn into tears and the heart of his chuckle turns into choking sobs. If this is what right now is going to bring him, his future is unimaginable. Finally, it's time for me to stop it while I can. Before we lose every trace of happiness we ever had.

His arm weaves under mine, bringing me closer into him. I won't turn around, but I'll let him have this. Let's at least enjoy the last true moments we'll have together.

Again, I close my eyes in Brendon's arms and hope that sleep can bring us something sweeter than the horrors of our waking days.

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Brendon's phone screams from the bedside table shaking us both out of our deep slumber. Unfortunately, it's time to face the hate and violence again.