A Hotter Touch, A Better F... Than Any Girl You'll Ever Meet

Chapter 10

I seriously think that pad of paper and pen were the best present anybody had ever given me. I spent hour upon hour in the hospital, writing the pages full of lyrics, lyrics that were honestly too tortured and confused for me to ever want to show them to anybody, much less add a melody and use them in Panic!. This wasn't songwriting really, it was therapy, and while it didn't help me figure myself out, it let me vent and become more comfortable in the situation, even if I was still as confused and afraid as I'd been before.

Pete stayed with me at the hospital all the way through - except for the neccesary trips to the apartment for sleep, showers and clean clothes - for which I'm extremely grateful. I mean, somehow it was as if these events had thrown us together and at the time I was at a point where nobody understood me as well as he did.

Ever since I first met Pete, he'd been the crazy big-brother-figure in my life and this became all the more distinct through these days in the hospital, where he was close to the only person I communicated with at all, well, except for that one incident.

Yes, of course the others visited and talked to me, but even as my throat healed up, I'd still pretend not to be able to talk back.

I guess this was because I knew they all had a great need to understand my actions and I couldn't make them understand, because I didn't myself. Well, I understood that I'd attempted suicide because of the confusion and pain and shock, but I believe that what they really needed to understand was me, and how could I make them understand me when I felt like a stranger to myself?

Pete understood to the needed extent, though. A lot of the things going through my mind I think he actually understood better than I did myself. And he understood exactly what I needed at all times, whether it was to be left alone, to get a hug, or to simply hear him ramble or read some of his new lyrics from his notebook or whatever.

The others each had different ways of handling my silence.

Brent apparently couldn't handle it and didn't shut up for one second when he was alone with me, leading an endless monologue about nothing that was actually important.

Spencer had gotten a habit of pacing the floor of the room, which, honestly, was driving me crazy. And he apologized too much, as if what had happened were his fault. Sometimes he'd curse out my father loudly and violently, placing all blame there. I think he was just generally very frustrated with the whole situation.

Brendon... well, out of the three of them I was for some reason all of a sudden the most comfortable with him. Apparently he understood my need for silence and I admire the way he could sit at my side for hours, keeping completely quiet, either watching TV with me or reading a book he'd brought, once in a while glancing up to look at me, sending a faint near-smile that somehow reached his eyes without touching his lips, so in fact it was probably his eyes lighting up behind the glasses more than it was a smile.

I'm not sure, but I think it was on Pete's orders that I was never left alone. They pretty much worked in shifts the first day, taking a couple of hours each and Pete staying the night again.

The second day, the last full day of my stay, Pete sent Brent home with the order of sorting himself out. Then, upon realising that Spencer had been so busy packing my junk that he hadn't even done his own laundry yet, he sent him home as well.

Then he went for lunch.

I'm pretty sure he was trying all he could to make Brendon and I get completely past what had happened between us before going on tour.

Somehow I was starting to realise that in a way we didn't have to get past it. We just needed acknowledge and accept that it had happened and then move on from there. That was just easier said than done. Especially since I wasn't comfortable with talking at all.