The Piano Knows Something I Don't Know

Can love last forever?

Can love last forever?

The night after Andy and I talked to Patrick about his internship, I found myself at the Aubergine once again. As usual, Brendon was waiting for me by the door. "Hi Ryan," he said. "How have you been?"

"Stressed out," I answered.

"Why is that?" Brendon asked as he wrapped his arms around me. Having Brendon with me always made everything feel better, even in troubled times like these.

"I found out why Patrick has been acting so strangely," I said. "He had to put down a dog at his internship."

"That's horrible," Brendon said.

"I think so too," I said. "He's thinking about changing his major."

"I would change my major too if I had to do something like that," Brendon said. "Luckily, Theater Studies doesn't require anything other than singing, dancing, and acting talent."

I was unaware that Kale even had a theater program, but there were plenty of things that I didn't know about my own school. For example, I had discovered just the week before that there was a movie theater in the basement of the Pendragon Center. It wasn't too unreasonable to believe that Kale offered theater as well. "I didn't know that you could dance," I said.

Brendon raised an eyebrow and said, "You've never seen me dance?"

"No, I've never seen you dance," I said.

"Why don't I show you then?" Brendon said. He stepped away from me for a moment, and he spontaneously broke into a rather ridiculous-looking dance routine. Brendon certainly had more dancing talent than I did, but that wasn't saying much. Nevertheless, he pulled off his absurd dance moves and managed to make it look good. He even did a backflip at one point, resulting in plenty of applause from the other people at the Aubergine. "I once did that shirtless while eating a sandwich," Brendon said once the applause died down.

"I kind of want to see that," I said.

"Ryan, you should dance with me," Brendon said.

"I don't know about that," I said. "I'm not a very good dancer."

"Just give it a try," Brendon said. He took my hand, and I reluctantly began to dance with him. I truly was a horrible dancer, but Brendon tried to help me through the song, and by the end, I was only slightly offbeat. Despite the awkwardness, it was wonderful being so close to Brendon.

I looked at the clock and told Brendon, "It's nine in the afternoon."

"Can I get another drink before we perform?" Brendon asked. I nodded, and Brendon went back to the bar, while I ran off to find Spencer.

As it turned out, Spencer wasn't too hard to find. I nearly crashed into him as I headed towards the piano. "Sorry about that," I said.

"It's okay," Spencer said. "I don't know what you and Brendon were doing out there, but it was fun to watch."

"Thanks," I said, even though I wasn't sure whether Spencer's comment was supposed to be a compliment or not. Did it matter? If I treated it as a compliment, maybe that made it into a compliment.

"No problem," Spencer said. "Is Brendon ready?"

"I think he's getting another drink," I said.

"No, I'm ready!" Brendon exclaimed as he sipped on his drink. He then put the drink down and grabbed the microphone. Spencer gave me a quick glance, and then started banging on the drums. I joined in soon afterwards, and before long, the three of us were back into our normal, comforting routine.