Skinny Love

It's a memory

"Remember to take your medication. Have your mom set up appointments with your therapists. Don't forget to use all the coping skills you learned here. Here is a list of help lines you can call if you need to talk to somebody. We believe in you Brendon. We don't want to see you back here so be good to yourself," Dr. Shepherd says as he hands me paper work to take home with me. Now I'm just waiting for my mom to get here. She's probably jumping for joy that I'm coming home. I see someone letting her onto the unit. "Hi mom," I wave at her. She comes over and hugs me. "I'm so proud of you. I can't stand being all alone at home. I needed my little boy back," my mom says. "I'm not a little boy," I tell her. The doctor comes out to have my mom sign release papers then says we're free to go. I wave goodbye to all my friends. I'm going to miss them. I got all of their contact information so I can talk to them when they get released.

We walk out to the car. I put my bags in the trunk. Not before grabbing out my cellphone. I get in the car and check my messages. Most of the messages are along the lines of, "omg I heard what happened. I hope u r ok." Except one. Tyler's message, "I'm so sorry I left you. I swear to god if you die on me I'll never forgive myself. I should've been there for you. I love you B. I will miss you." I feel terrible for making him feel that way. I quickly message him, "I love you too. See you soon." Then I message Dallon and tell him that I'm officially a free man. He messages me back right away. "No you're not. You're taken by me! 😋" I giggle. And put my phone away. We're almost home. I can't wait to actually lay in my own bed.

We pull up to the house. Home sweet home. I walk in the house and turn on the lights. People jump out of their hiding places and yell surprise. My older siblings are here, so is Dallon, Ryan, Tyler and Josh, Shane and Ryland, Patrick, Andy, Halsey, Billie, Hayley, Sarah, Breezy, and Gerard. I'm overwhelmed there are so many people here. I never knew this many people actually cared about me. "Hey we missed you in group," Halsey says. That's surprising. I thought everyone hated me there except Dallon. Speaking of Dallon, he comes up to me. He kisses me. It's just a quick peck but it would be awkward if we made out in front of everyone. "I missed having you home. Spending more than just an hour a day with you," he says. "Me too," I say. One by one people come up to me telling me they miss me and welcoming me home. Eventually my mom announces that there's cake. I think for a second if I should have a piece or not, but then I realize this party is for my recovery so yes I am going to have a piece. "Brendon you get first pick. Which piece do you want?" My mom asks. I point to one of the middle ones. "Of course always making things hard on me," she teases me.

I get my piece of cake and take it to the table which will not fit all of us. Dallon sits next to me with his piece of cake. "We should feed each other a piece of cake as if we  were getting married," I suggest to Dallon. He laughs and agrees to do it. He takes a piece of my cake and feeds it to me. Then I take a piece of his cake and shove it in his face getting it all over his mouth and nose. He the grabs the back of my head and starts kissing me, getting the frosting all over my face too. Somebody coughs and says, "Gay!" I look up to see who it was and Josh is laughing. "Oh really?" I say, "according to what you tell me at school I'd say you're the gay one."  Josh gives me the evil eye. Tyler chimes in, "it's true." He pokes Josh's nose and Josh pretends to bite his finger. After we're all done eating cake we put on the movie titanic and a group of us get together and play BS.

Of course I'm one of the first people out. I then stand behind Dallon and watch him play. So far since watching him he hasn't lied and he hasn't called out anyone for lying. They're all getting down to their final cards. I count around the table to figure out what number Dallon has to lay down. He will have to lay down the number seven and he has two sevens in his hand! Gerard lays his last card and says, "One five." "Bullshit!" Dallon yells. Oh my god he could either lose or win the game by doing that. Gerard goes, "are you sure you want to call BS? You're gonna have to pick up all those cards." "Bullshit." Dallon says slowly. Gerard flips over his "five" and reveals a jack. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in and pretend to wipe sweat off of my forehead. Gerard picks up the entire pile of cards. "You guys do know it's gonna be easy for me to tell who's lying right?" Gerard asks the final three players. Billie lays down one six. "Bullshit!" Gerard calls out. "Whatever." Billie says picking her card back up and putting it in her hand. Dallon lays down two sevens. "Bullshit?" Andy asks. Dallon flips over the two sevens. He stand up and yells, "suck on that bitches!" Somebody in the other room yells back, "Yes sir!" We all break out laughing.

Soon people start leaving. My mom start cooking dinner. We're having Chinese food. And my moms not a professional cook or anything so she just makes egg rolls from a box. Last time I had egg rolls I hated them, but I've forgotten what they taste like and am interested in trying them. While my mom is cooking I ask her if Dallon can spend the night. "Of course. But you're not sharing the bed. One person lays on the floor the other on the bed," she says. "Really mom?" I ask. She has to be kidding right? "Really," she says in a serious tone of voice. "Okay," I say. I mean at least she's letting him stay the night. I go back out into the living room and tell Dallon what my mom said. Until dinner is ready me and Dallon cuddle on the couch watching Game Of Thrones. "Okay boys time for dinner," my mom calls for us. I walk into the kitchen. I mean it smells fine. There's chicken with sweet and sour sauce, egg rolls, rice and soy sauce. I take a bite of the egg roll first. It's not that bad. I eat the entire egg roll. Then I have some rice with soy sauce. I don't like sweet and sour sauce so I just eat the chicken plain. I finish my meal around the same time as everyone else.

After we clean up the kitchen me and Dallon head upstairs. "So this is the infamous bedroom I've heard of," Dallon teases me. "Okay look, it's nothing like your layer but there is some cool stuff in here," I say defending my room. "Yeah like those band posters," he says. "Exactly!" I giggle. Dallon pushes me down onto my bed and hops on top of me. "I've been waiting forever to do this," Dallon says as he lowers his face closer to mine. Our lips touch and this is the first time today that I can actually kiss him the way I want to. It starts out sweet and gentle. Then Dallon sticks his tongue in my mouth. I moan I little. Not too loud that my mom can hear. The kiss becomes rougher I start running my hands under Dallon's shirt. He breaks the kiss to remove his shirt. I just look at him admiring his body for a second. Then he reconnects our lips. We go right back to where we were. I wrap my legs around Dallon. He starts to remove my shirt then asks, "can I?" I nod my head. He removes my shirt. He doesn't look at me for long knowing that it might make me self conscious. He slowly starts kissing down my neck.

"Brendon time for-" my mom says opening the door. I quickly push Dallon off of me and use my shirt to cover my stomach. "If you two can't stay off the bed together then Dallon has to go home," she says. Of course she would walk in on us. Well at least I wasn't fully naked. "Anyways, Brendon it's time to take your medication," my mom adds. "Okay I'll be there in a second," I tell her. She closes the door and I put my shirt back on. "I'm so sorry," I say to Dallon. "It's fine. I'll just be waiting right here," he says. I go downstairs. Ever since my mom found out I was flushing my meds she's been making me take them in front of her. I swallow my pills then run back upstairs.

"So since we can't both be on the bed I'll let you sleep on it," I tell Dallon. "No it's your room, your bed, you get to sleep on it," he argues. "No you're the guest. you get the bed," I insist. After going back and forth for a little while he finally agrees to sleep on the bed, which means I'm on the floor, but I'm okay with that. Once we get our sleeping spots put together and are finished getting ready for bed I turn off the light but we stay up talking for at least three more hours before falling asleep.

"I don't want to go to bed mommy," I whine. "But little boys need there sleep to become healthy, strong, big boys," she tells me. "But what if the boogeyman comes in my room tonight and hurts me?" I ask. "There's no such thing as the boogeyman Brendon," she tells me. "Then what else do I call monsters that come into my room late at night?" "No monsters are going to come into you're room late at night," she tells me. "Promise?" I ask sticking out my pinky. She hooks pinkies with me then leads me to bed."

Dallon's POV:

I wake up to Brendon screaming he's saying, "You lied!" Over and over. "Brendon. Brendon. Brendon wake up," I say shaking him. He opens his eyes and grabs onto me sobbing. I hold onto him, shushing him, and telling him it was just a bad dream. "No it's not. I-It's not a dream. I-It's a memory," Brendon says calming down a little, "I-I think I need to tell my story now."