Grand Finale || r.r. + b.u.

Ten

When I woke up, everything seemed a little bit too normal.

I sighed as I picked myself up, looking at the clock on my bedside table, 9:15 am.  That's honestly one of the most normal times I've woken up recently.   As soon as I stand up a realize that something is terribly wrong.  So wrong that i just feel like I'm going to throw up.

There's one little flower in a vase on my dresser, that's all I have as a memory of something that I just can't put my finger on.  The worst thing about this all is that I don't know how the hell I'm still alive when everything was so perfectly planned out and i listened to my own breathing stop and I felt my own heart stop beating.  I watched myself die and here I am standing in my room that's just a little more empty than it usually is.

I shuffle into the bathroom and look at myself, finally understanding why I found everything so terribly wrong.  The first thing that caught me off guard was the lack of flowers.  I found myself throwing up and and gasping for air out of complete shock.  I can see both of my eyes and for some reason I just look sort of, alive?  The second thing that scared me is that I look just a little bit older.  Maybe that's just the toll being really sad takes on you, but it's not like I look wrinkly or old, I just look slightly better than before.  My reflection tells me time has passed, which is something I'm not particularly fond of because last time I checked I was lying dead on my bathroom floor.

Almost out of instinct, I grab my phone and run downstairs.  I take a look at my empty house, everything looks a lot cleaner and a lot more empty.  All I really want to do is run to Brendon's house and apologize and hug him and cry but I know none of those things can logically happen because I'm supposed to be dead.  When I check my phone again, that's when the last wave of shock sets in.

It sure as hell isn't 2005 anymore, it's July 19th, 2007.  This certainly isn't fucking normal. Nothing about anything in my life has every been normal but this day, or at least the past hour, has been the weirdest shit I have experienced in my entire life.  Disregarding my own thoughts, I still walk to Brendon's house, probably looking like a completely idiot because I'm nineteen, a whole adult, walking around the neighborhood in my pajamas in the middle of the summer and I've been dead for two years.

I tap on the window of Brendon's room, seeing him pacing around with a cigarette placed between his lips.  I think I might just be lucky that he didn't hear me knock because I'd much rather just open his window and start apologizing and rambling like an idiot because I'm so fucking scared and I'm supposed to be dead but I'm sitting here at the window of someone I'm somehow still in love with.

I open the window quietly and place my feet on his floor, finally getting the attention I needed.  A mixture of shock, fear, and joy spreads across Brendon's face, but the most prominent emotion out of anything is confusion, and i can honestly relate.

"Holy shit." Was all he could say before I pulled him into a hug and I finally just fucking cried.  "You were dead Ryan, I was there when everything happened and your fucking funeral.  I came to your house that afternoon and I saw that fucking note and I didn't know what to do and I started smoking again and I-". I cut him off as I pull him closer to me and we both just cry for a little bit.

"I'm so fucking sorry."  I whisper because that's all I can really bring myself to say.  I don't know why any of this happened or how it's even possible, but it's not like I'm complaining that I'm here again.  All I can really think about it how awful I feel because I hurt the one person that's never done anything but care for me.

I wonder, though, that if I hadn't ended everything that day if I would've been flowerless at nineteen years old.  I wonder if I could still be alive if I hadn't ended everything that morning, would the flowers have just persisted and killed me themselves or would they have just died?  I wish I knew all the answers but all I can really think about is the fact that I'm here with Brendon Boyd Urie instead of dead, six feet under ground.

"How the hell?" I hear Brendon ask, and he shakes his head that was buried under my shoulder.  "Never mind, I don't know if I even want to know I'm just glad you're here." Somehow he ends up pulling me tighter and for once I don't mind the smell of cigarettes.

"I wish I knew how this all happened." I try to justify everything, mostly to make sense of it in my own head because nothing about today should be happening, but I don't want to believe that this is all some sick dream form my dead self.  I doubt it is some sort of death dream, when you're dead that's really all you are.  I don't know how the hell you're supposed to dream, let alone think, when you're not even alive. 

We sit on Brendon's bed, and he still hasn't brought himself to let go of me.  He has my hand in his as we just lay there as I desperately try to explain everything, probably sounding insane.  As usual, he just listens to me.

"Wanna tell me about all of the shit I missed while I was dead?" I ask, trying to change the subject so I don't need to think about dying anymore.

"Nothing ever happens here, Ry." He says, tracing circles in the back of my hand.

"Just let me have an excuse to hear your voice, Bren.  I've been having withdrawals." I laugh to myself.  The pain in my chest from convincing myself everything is fine is replaced with something else.

I'm happy, and I'm alive.