It was a Friday, I remember, the day I got Brendon's wedding invitation. The envelope was kind of crumpled, and a sticker had been carefully placed on its surface, labeled with my name, George Ryan Ross III, and the name of some wedding planning agency.
At first I was thinking, Probably some distant cousin or something, or like a niece or a nephew I don't really know. When I opened the envelope, a single sheet of paper fluttered out and came to rest on the hardwood floor. It was good quality paper, I could tell by the feel of it—it wasn't thin and flimsy like the binder paper I used to write lyrics on when Spencer and I first started out, but stiff, and thick.
Curious, I picked it up—usually, when I got wedding invitations from my family, the paper was printer paper, and the designs were mediocre—they would consist of a stock photo with an image of a bouquet and a wedding cake with the words You're Invited printed beneath it in Comic Sans font, along with an address and a phone number and all that other bullshit.
This one, however, was kept brief—the writing was some sort of spirally cursive, and it was short and straight to the point: You are invited to the wedding of Brendon Urie and Sarah Orzechowski, which will take place on April 27, 2013 at Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, California. Hope to see you there!
The invitation felt so manufactured, so artificial and fake that I almost thought that it was a prank, but something told me it wasn't. Something told me that I had actually been invited to Brendon's wedding.
And I wasn't going to be the one he married.
Well, obviously, I wasn't expecting him to marry me, but I thought that whatever we had had back when I was still in the band at least meant something to him. I never expected him to go off and marry someone else literally four years after I—
Holy shit. It's been four years.
I felt a little dizzy after realizing that, after realizing that Brendon's fingers haven't run through my hair or touched my cheek or held my hands in four years. We've hardly talked since the day I left, the one exception being running into each other at some random restaurant a couple of months after we broke up.
Was there even anything there in the first place? We never even officially had a relationship. It was always just a quick kiss on the lips before a show, or a slow dance in the dressing room to get rid of all that nervous energy. I remembered those dances vividly—my hands looped around Brendon's neck and his hands wrapped around my waist, the whole thing being far more intimate than we made it out to be.
I took a shaky breath, considering tearing the invitation into tiny little pieces and feeding them to my dog, but then thought better of it.
I wasn't going to go, obviously, but just in case I changed my mind, I would keep it in a safe place. Folding it neatly, I tucked it into the little box in which I kept all the mementos from the old days—a keychain, which Brendon had bought for me sometime during our stay in Denver, some old polaroids of us from our first world tour, and a couple of scarves—well, the ones that would fit in there, anyway. A wave of nostalgia coursed through me, and I quickly shut the lid of the box, gripping the edge of my dining table for support.
"Don't dwell on the past," I muttered to myself, closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, and trying to get the scent of Brendon (peach and a hint of lime) out of my nose.
I went back to the pile of mail after that—some of it was sent by fans, but the rest were forgotten bills and discarded advertisements.
It had been Friday, I remember, the day I got Brendon's wedding invitation. It was also, coincidentally, the day after Valentine's Day.
Hello there, reader. This is weird. I've never written a Ryden fanfiction before, I've only read them, but I hope you liked this! I worked hard on it. Also, constructive criticism please. You can tell me that I'm crap, but tell me why I'm crap, too.
That's all. Thanks for reading! Also, this is unedited, so feel free to point out any mistakes. Also props to my friend ryancrossing for helping me edit and stuff.
