Sugarcane Chronicles Volume I: One and Lonely (ryden)

Let's Make Purple

Brendon continued holding my hand as he led me to wherever we were going. After a little while, he pulled another something out of his Wal-Greens bag. Two somethings. He held them up in front of us.

“I got us lollipops, too,” he said, “because the stand holding them said, ‘the world’s best’ and I wanted to test that.” He pulled them closer to us. “Pick one. Blue raspberry or cherry.”

I pulled the blue raspberry from his hand while saying, “Blue raspberry’s my favorite.”

“Good, because cherry is mine,” he said and we stopped holding hands for a few seconds to get the wrappers off. I shoved the square of clear plastic in my coat pocket before grabbing Brendon’s free hand.

“Wow. These really are the world’s best,” I said without taking the candy from my mouth.

“Yeah,” Brendon agreed in the same fashion.

As we got further into town, my wrist started to throb. I thought about asking for the Advil, but I didn’t have anything to take it with. I figured I could wait until we got to where we were going. I could make it until then. He was most likely taking me to a restaurant anyways.

“Ryan, are you ok?” Brendon asked.

I turned and looked at him. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?” My voice sounded like it hurt to say anything.

“You look really angry and like you’re in a lot of pain and your breathing is really sharp,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry I forgot the Advil. Do you want it now?”

“Yeah,” I breathed. “How am I going to take it, though?"

“Um, the restaurant’s just around the corner.” He turned and looked at me. “Let’s run.”

He held my hand as we ran to a restaurant called Stromberg’s. Brendon had taken me here for lunch before.

“Hi, I have a reservation here for seven,” he said to the woman at the podium stand thing. “The name is Urie, spelled U-R-I-E.”

She tapped on her keyboard before turning back to us. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t seem to find—”

“Spell it differently.”

“Sir I'm sorry, but I’m afraid your reservation has been canceled. We have no available tables at the moment, but you can have a seat with your girlfriend over there. You can check back in a few minutes.”

“I-I’m a boy, ma’am,” I said, quietly.

“Oh I’m so sorry. So are you two, like, friends or are you more...?”

Brendon grabbed my hand and smiled. “He’s my boyfriend.”

The woman made and almost face of disgust. Brendon rolled his eyes and we walked to the little waiting area.

“Do you still need the Advil?” he asked, looking at me. Now that I thought about it, my wrist was throbbing and aching even more than before.

“Yeah,” I put my lollipop back in my mouth.

“Alright. I’ll be right back,” he kissed my cheek and stood up, walking to the bar. I watched him order a bottle of water. The bartender asked him who the ‘pretty woman’ was. Brendon told him that I was his boyfriend and the bartender apologized, handing him the bottle of water. At least he was nicer about it than the woman at the front. Brendon then came back and handed me the water.

“Thank you,” I smiled at him and he giggled. “What?”

“Your mouth is blue,” he sat back down.