“I’m just…” I say, and I clutch onto my own arms so hard that it bruises; my fingerprints will be there for days, where I try to grab at my skeleton.
I can’t say anything else, so I get up and leave.
I don’t get women.
*
Ryan’s apartment complex is still a shithole. It still reeks of soggy carpet and mouldy walls and maybe there is a distinct smell of death, of corpses, of the dead rat that my dad found underneath my sister’s bed when I was eight.
On the door to his apartment the half-number-four is still the centrepiece; the entrance is a glaring off-white, off-coloured.
I don’t think I have ever felt more out of place in my life.
My fingers are too quiet as they rap on the door, but Ryan, he must hear anyway, coz there’s a muffled “coming” from inside.
The door creaks open, and before I can even react, my back is flat on the floor, blood is oozing from my nose and my face is throbbing with the weight of a thousand everything’s.
“Maybe I deserved that?”
I glance up quick enough to see that the fist, it wasn’t Ryan’s, it was this other guy’s; this tall, narrow thing with a face that hasn’t successfully lost its puppy fat. This, I think, this must be Spencer.
“I don’t really think there were any maybes involved,” he says, runs stiff fingers through his hair and sighs so deep that I think he might be about to take off, fly through the roof. He doesn’t though, he just holds a hand out to help me back up.
“Thanks,” I say, and my fingers pinch the bridge of my nose too tightly, I tilt my head back to try and prevent drowning in the blood because even Moses couldn’t part this shit. It’s too thick, and maybe I can’t breathe properly.
“Jesus,” Spencer says, runs fingers over his eyes, apparently deep in thought, because the next minute he’s standing close, has put his fingers on my nose and is gesturing to the seat in the hall. The one that probably has herpes all over it.
“Nghf.”
“Yeah,” Spencer says, “I’d apologise if you weren’t such an asshole.”
Spencer, he pulls a wad of what I pray are clean tissues from his pocket, proceeds to attempt to mop up the blood. “It’s your own fault.”
“Ryan?” I mumble, rest my head on the wall behind me.
“Ryan’s not here right now,” he replies, tears off a piece of the tissue, rolls it around in the perfect imitation of rolling a cigarette and proceeds to shove it up one of my nostrils. I could take a drag. “And we need to talk anyway.”
“About what?”
“When a person is under attack, Brendon,” Spencer starts, and his eyes are really fucking blue, an ocean maybe, and I’m already a little seasick. “Physically or emotionally, our human nature automatically calls us to defend ourselves, to fight back. Ryan just…he can’t. Doesn’t. It’s always been a problem, since we were kids, when someone would hurt him, he could never, would never hurt back.”
“Okay,” I say, and Christ my voice is nasally, throat is almost raw, I can taste blood in my mouth like a hooker can feel the semen caught in her throat. It’s metallic, I’m swallowing coins.
“Not okay,” Spencer says, “very not okay.”
“Where is he?” I say, and I know I must look pathetic, face covered in quick-dry blood, eyes wide and mouth fucking open, gaping.
“Ryan moved out two days ago.”
“Where?” And even I can hear the desperation in my voice. Spencer closes his eyes too tightly, he doesn’t want to see me like this. I think he liked the asshole more.
“I’m not gonna tell you that.”
And that really fucking hurts. It’s a knife to the gut and my heart might be retarding itself a little, but I can’t say anything, coz I understand. I wouldn’t tell me either.
“Look,” Spencer says, and he tucks hair behind his ear, rolls his eyes and maybe is thinking too hard. He digs a hand into his pocket, pulls out a folded yellow post-it note. “He left this for you.”
“Thanks,” I say, grasp it too tightly in my fingertips and pull it open before I can stop myself.
The words, they burn themselves into the back of my eyelids, ignite themselves in that space underneath my sinus until my whole head is on fire, the blood, it’s a fuel. My face will be burnt tomorrow morning, and so will my chest and my lungs and my stomach and my heart, coz this hurts so much more than it was supposed to. This, it wasn’t supposed to hurt at all, but Catherine and Audrey and now this, it just, it builds up too hard and too fast and now my head and my chest are wasting away on the wind, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
It was just a passing feeling.
Excerpt from ‘Grace’.
Loretta is twenty-five years old when I meet her. Loretta is twenty-five with hair that falls to the space between her shoulder blades, curls around that white-as-white skin. Loretta is twenty-five years old with a head full of ideas, a heart full of grapevines and a belly full of baby.
She’s dating an indie-filmmaker named David Edelflower.
Loretta is tall and snarky and mean, and she’s the Catherine with attitude, the Catherine not on drugs, the Catherine with a burly grasp on her sanity.
Loretta is Loretta, and I wish that I could explain her better.
I remember being seventeen though. I remember being seventeen and stumbling back to my apartment after a night on the town, a night of glitz and glamour and drugs and sleaze and sluts. I remember being seventeen, and stumbling through the front door to Loretta hunched over the sofa, a gargoyle in Notre Dam.
“Loretta,” I murmured, slurred out through my parted lips. “Loretta, ‘m sorry. You didn’t, shouldn’t have stayed up, and-“
“Brendon,” she says, and she stares at me with a face too red, a face too gaunt and angry and sallow. “Of all the fucking nights, Brendon Urie, all the fucking nights…”
Her fingers shake, tremble, quiver, and she reaches onto the sofa cushion beside her, clutches a cigarette packet to her chest, to her arms, before letting her fingers crush it, destroy it. It’s empty, and Loretta, she likes her men pliant, her apartment crisp and her cigarette packets full. Tonight she has none of this.
“Brendon,” she whispers, “I have known you for four months, and you are all I could think about tonight.”
“Loretta,” I say, and I’m about to throw up, about to pass out, I wobble on legs that suddenly are far too reminiscent of blades of grass. “Loretta…”
“I went into labour six hours ago, Brendon,” she says, and her voice is a blank canvas, but her face, her lips and her eyes and her cheeks, they’re paint brushes, paint boards, buckets and buckets of red and grey and black. Colours tinged with despair. “Baby was fucking stillborn.”
“Loretta,” I say, and I almost drop to the floor right there, can feel the liquor eat at my willing brain cells. Pac Man is playing on the computer screen of my mind.
She stares at me, stares long and hard, and her eyes, they’re like daggers, light bulbs. Her eyes are envelopes, bills, tax collectors. She sighs, inhales too hard, so hard her ribs quake and when she exhales she’s a building tumbling down. “Come on then,” she says, “I’ll take you to bed.”
“Bed,” I say, and there are spots behind my eyelids, Dalmatians and snow flakes and the go-go skirt my girlfriend had in highschool.
“Bed,” she says, and she stands up on legs that might even be shakier than mine. She grasps my arm too tight, so tight that her nails, they leave half-moon prints around my wrist.
Together, together we stumble in the dark, fall into my bedroom and onto my bed. She drags us both under the blanket, and my head is on her stomach before I can stop myself. Her belly, it’s softer than I’ve ever felt. Will ever feel.
“All gone,” she whispers, and her fingers are in my hair, across my forehead, around my neck, the other one, it wraps around my shoulders. “I was gonna be a mum. ”
“Yeah,” I whisper back, and my legs are numb where they tangle with hers. “I’m sorry.”
And neither of us say another word, but neither of us sleep either. Loretta, she needs me tonight more than I’ve ever needed anyone, and I’ll oblige her, coz she’s Loretta and maybe I love her already.
“They can shoot a guy into space, they can blow up a country, Brendon,” she whispers, when the clock flickers 3:28am. “But they can’t save my fucking baby.”
That big belly of hers, the one full of baby, she used to draw smiley faces on it when she was bored. Before it’s born, when it’s still wrapped up inside of her, cozy and warm, she tells me that it’s a boy, she says his name is Alistair.
Alistair’s born dead, and I used to wonder if he was ever alive. Jon will tell me years later that babies, fetus’, embryos, they have heartbeats in the womb, fingerprints and eyelashes and toes.
Then again, if no one talks about them, how long can they even be alive in spirit? Loretta, she doesn’t talk about Alistair.
Him being dead, born like that, born with no heartbeat, born with lungs not strong enough to draw breath, it tore her and her boyfriend apart. Ripped at the seams of a maybe-forever.
Loretta’s a cynic, but she had it shit even before me, even before Alistair, even before David.
Years later, a millennia later, I’ll tell her that it’s okay.
She’s earned the right to be a motherfucking cynic.
Excerpt from ‘Grace’.
Loretta is twenty-five years old when I meet her. Loretta is twenty-five with hair that falls to the space between her shoulder blades, curls around that white-as-white skin. Loretta is twenty-five years old with a head full of ideas, a heart full of grapevines and a belly full of baby.
She’s dating an indie-filmmaker named David Edelflower.
Loretta is tall and snarky and mean, and she’s the Catherine with attitude, the Catherine not on drugs, the Catherine with a burly grasp on her sanity.
Loretta is Loretta, and I wish that I could explain her better.
I remember being seventeen though. I remember being seventeen and stumbling back to my apartment after a night on the town, a night of glitz and glamour and drugs and sleaze and sluts. I remember being seventeen, and stumbling through the front door to Loretta hunched over the sofa, a gargoyle in Notre Dam.
“Loretta,” I murmured, slurred out through my parted lips. “Loretta, ‘m sorry. You didn’t, shouldn’t have stayed up, and-“
“Brendon,” she says, and she stares at me with a face too red, a face too gaunt and angry and sallow. “Of all the fucking nights, Brendon Urie, all the fucking nights…”
Her fingers shake, tremble, quiver, and she reaches onto the sofa cushion beside her, clutches a cigarette packet to her chest, to her arms, before letting her fingers crush it, destroy it. It’s empty, and Loretta, she likes her men pliant, her apartment crisp and her cigarette packets full. Tonight she has none of this.
“Brendon,” she whispers, “I have known you for four months, and you are all I could think about tonight.”
“Loretta,” I say, and I’m about to throw up, about to pass out, I wobble on legs that suddenly are far too reminiscent of blades of grass. “Loretta…”
“I went into labour six hours ago, Brendon,” she says, and her voice is a blank canvas, but her face, her lips and her eyes and her cheeks, they’re paint brushes, paint boards, buckets and buckets of red and grey and black. Colours tinged with despair. “Baby was fucking stillborn.”
“Loretta,” I say, and I almost drop to the floor right there, can feel the liquor eat at my willing brain cells. Pac Man is playing on the computer screen of my mind.
She stares at me, stares long and hard, and her eyes, they’re like daggers, light bulbs. Her eyes are envelopes, bills, tax collectors. She sighs, inhales too hard, so hard her ribs quake and when she exhales she’s a building tumbling down. “Come on then,” she says, “I’ll take you to bed.”
“Bed,” I say, and there are spots behind my eyelids, Dalmatians and snow flakes and the go-go skirt my girlfriend had in highschool.
“Bed,” she says, and she stands up on legs that might even be shakier than mine. She grasps my arm too tight, so tight that her nails, they leave half-moon prints around my wrist.
Together, together we stumble in the dark, fall into my bedroom and onto my bed. She drags us both under the blanket, and my head is on her stomach before I can stop myself. Her belly, it’s softer than I’ve ever felt. Will ever feel.
“All gone,” she whispers, and her fingers are in my hair, across my forehead, around my neck, the other one, it wraps around my shoulders. “I was gonna be a mum. ”
“Yeah,” I whisper back, and my legs are numb where they tangle with hers. “I’m sorry.”
And neither of us say another word, but neither of us sleep either. Loretta, she needs me tonight more than I’ve ever needed anyone, and I’ll oblige her, coz she’s Loretta and maybe I love her already.
“They can shoot a guy into space, they can blow up a country, Brendon,” she whispers, when the clock flickers 3:28am. “But they can’t save my fucking baby.”
That big belly of hers, the one full of baby, she used to draw smiley faces on it when she was bored. Before it’s born, when it’s still wrapped up inside of her, cozy and warm, she tells me that it’s a boy, she says his name is Alistair.
Alistair’s born dead, and I used to wonder if he was ever alive. Jon will tell me years later that babies, fetus’, embryos, they have heartbeats in the womb, fingerprints and eyelashes and toes.
Then again, if no one talks about them, how long can they even be alive in spirit? Loretta, she doesn’t talk about Alistair.
Him being dead, born like that, born with no heartbeat, born with lungs not strong enough to draw breath, it tore her and her boyfriend apart. Ripped at the seams of a maybe-forever.
Loretta’s a cynic, but she had it shit even before me, even before Alistair, even before David.
Years later, a millennia later, I’ll tell her that it’s okay.
She’s earned the right to be a motherfucking cynic.
“Cut,” Spencer calls, and it’s like he’s hit some antique bed, dust-particle-camera-men-and-producers-and-assistants fly everywhere, millions of them rushing around so quickly before settling across the floorboards. “Uh,” Spencer says, and his face clenches up, his fingers seek out the clipboard, and he’s flicking through the pages too rapidly for him to be seriously reading it. “Next scene is at the house. Can someone fix Katy’s make-up? Like, seriously, Marissa, schedule doesn’t leave time for this.”
Some tiny blonde flutters past, her mini-skirt and her brightly coloured shirt, it’s enough to blind.
“Amiel too, actually, please,” Spencer says, hand on hip, and a red-head rushes over to Amiel with a bag full of tricks. Amiel’s flat on her back in seconds, the red-head’s over-eager hands making more ladders in the actresses stockings, plastering fake sweat across her bare midriff and her thighs and her face.
Brandon’s watching from the corner, laughing too hard at the one-line actors, hand gripping at the chair in front of him. “He was begging for it,” he says, and I’ve moved close enough to hear, I have no one else to entertain myself with, so this, it works. “Writhing and shit, I didn’t even have to buy him a drink before he was flat on his back with his legs in the fucking air.”
“He had a condom in his back pocket,” Brandon says, and he runs a hand through his hair, grins, or maybe, maybe he leers at this guy, this audience he has that’s clinging to his every word. “He was gagging for it.”
I scoff in my seat, and one of the assistants, a nice little girl (can’t be older than fifteen, can’t, she’s all wide eyes still, awkward in her freckles and this prettiness that she isn’t even aware of) she’s at my side with a mug full of coffee.
“Brandon’s a bit of an ass,” she whispers, and her fingers are almost shaky around the handle of the cup. “Do you hear what he’s saying?”
“Fucked a guy?” I ask, and my hands almost snatch the coffee, I breathe this shit, and maybe that justifies it a little better.
“Fucked the writer apparently.” And maybe this suddenly feels a little like open-heart surgery.
“What?” I murmur, whisper, grunt out, force it between my teeth. This girl, she’s some doctor with a scalpel, she’s cut open my rib cage, slit off the tissue that lines it, peers in at my insides without even knowing what she’s doing. I can feel freckles slide off her nose into my intestines.
“He like…” And she blushes, deep down to the roots of her hair. “…you know, had sex, ” she says it like it’s a dirty word still, she’s a baby really, “with the writer of this, this movie.”
“Right,” I say, and the anesthetic has worn off, she’s staring at my insides with wide eyes and quaky fingers, the heart rate monitor is flat lining in that forever of a space behind her.
There’s a laugh in the distance, a loud, obnoxious thing that rattles through my head, does a lazy job at stitching me up, and really, really it’s Brandon Fucking Flowers who’s standing with the heart machine that brings my palpitations up to a billion a second. Ba-dum Ba-dum, and I’ve got murder beneath my skin, in my veins, in my heart, and I’m on feet, my fist in the air, and Brandon Flowers is flat on his back before I can stop myself.
I’m not a violent person, I’m not, but all of this, it happens too quickly for my poor little head.
*
Everyone acts like punching Brandon wasn’t that big of a deal. Well, everyone being Loretta and Katy, who both piss themselves laughing, Spencer who just kinda grins like an idiot, and Jon who shrugs his shoulders and leans further down into the sofa in my trailer.
Everyone else, everyone that isn’t everyone, they make it a big deal. Especially Brandon Flowers.
I’ve made an enemy, Katy will tell me, but she says not to worry, says that she’d have decked him too. Says she probably has a better right hook than me anyway.
Last week of shooting rolls around too quickly, and it’s impossibly hard to believe that all this, all of this strife and angst, that it’s over so quickly. Not over yet, I have to remind myself, over on Saturday.
Katy sighs too deep, and maybe she’s made herself at home here in my trailer. Her fiancé, a nice guy with overactive vocal chords by the name of Justin Burford, he’s sprawled on the floor at her feet. “This has been more fun than I thought it would be,” she murmurs, takes a draining gulp from the soy latte in her fingers. “I never really thought of myself as an actress.”
“Really?” I ask. “You’re better than a lot of the actresses I’ve worked with.”
Katy grins from her seat, crinkles her eyes at me. “Coming from your career, that’s not saying much.”
“ Burn, Kat.” And Justin, he laughs too hard, kisses her ankle.
“I kid, I kid.” She runs a hand through Justin’s hair, before wandering over just close enough to wrap her arms around my neck and press her lips to my cheek. “You know I love you, Brendon Urie.”
Her fiancé, he isn’t worried, so Katy must be like this a lot, must love too many people, must love them too hard, coz she isn’t the sort of person to be anything but genuine.
“And you know,” she whispers, “it’s only because I love you both that I’m telling you this.”
My brow furrows down my face and Katy, she presses her lips to my ear, I can feel her breathing, warm and loud.
“Ryan Ross is here today, he’s talking to Spencer on set.”
My eyes are wider than I ever thought they’d be, and I try to get up, but Katy, she’s stronger than she looks. “Brendon,” she whispers, “Brendon, please don’t make me regret telling you this.”
I nod, and Katy, she lets go hesitantly, watches me with wide eyes and shaky smile. “Okay,” she says, “well, go get him.”
And I do.
I’m out the front of the door before I can stop myself, throwing myself onto the concrete beneath, running as fast as my legs, the tired bastards, running as fast as they’ll carry me.
My feet are heavy on the ground, and the set, the house and the street, the whole ugly thing isn’t that far away. There are people pulling cameras out, art directors making artificial cobwebs out of spindly wires, last minute changes being made to tired (it’s been a month) costumes. It’s still early, very, no actor is due on set for another two hours, but here I am, and there Spencer is, talking to a Ryan who is much thinner than I remember.
A Ryan who I’ve wanted and missed and just, a Ryan that I’ve needed.
“Spencer,” I say, and I shove an arm into the air, wave and force a grin. Spencer’s smile, maybe it’s even more strained than mine, his blue eyes flicker too rapidly between me and Ryan, backwards and forwards, and Ryan, he looks like he’s ready to bolt.
And then he does, turns on his heel so quickly that he almost falls, walks as fast as possible in a not-so-subtle attempt to run away, and me, I follow him before my head can tell me to just give him space.
“Ryan!” Spencer doesn’t stop me as I jog past him, but he does cast me a fleeting glance of wide eyes and furrowed forehead.
“Ryan, wait!” And we’re standing in the middle of the street, in the middle of the set, camera’s whirl past and they’re not recording, but a part of me feels like I’m on screen already. This, it feels surreal.
I grab his arm in my hand, and if I hold any tighter my fingers will touch, he’s too skinny, too unhealthy, and his face is gaunt, eyes sallow when he turns on me. He looks like he hasn’t slept in the two months that we’ve been apart. “Fuck off, Brendon.”
“I’m not gonna fucking fuck off,” I reply, and I can almost feel the blood pulsing in Ryan’s arm, tootighttootight, my grip has to be hurting him, but he’s glaring and pulling away. “We need to talk.
“We have nothing to talk about,” he grits out through his teeth, his fingers, the spidery things, they’re tugging at mine, pulling, shoving, and I feel like I’m in elementary school again, picking on the smaller kids.
“We have everything to talk about.” Because we do, and I don’t give a fuck if he doesn’t want to talk about it, because I do, I need to, I want to.
“Fine,” Ryan says, and he’s pulled my fingers off his arm, only to wrap his own fingers around mine, he’s pulling me away, pulling me off set, pulling me into a side street. He turns on me too quickly, spins on his heel and lets go of my hand, folds his arms tight across his chest. “Start talking.”
And I can’t, all those practiced speeches escape me, fall out of my ears. I open my mouth in the hopes they’ll run out there instead, but they don’t, and I’m left with a gaping mouth and wildly gesturing hands.
“Let’s start with Catherine,” Ryan says, “let’s start with the fact that she went into rehab almost two months ago now, and the fact that you haven’t visited her.”
“I just…” And my tongue has found itself again. “…how the fuck would you know that?”
Ryan flushes a little, his eyes hit the concrete beneath us, but his posture, he still stands tall. “I visit her.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because she needs someone, she needs you, and-“
“Fuck, Ryan,” I say, and I rub at the bridge of my nose, at my eyelids with exhausted fingers. “I don’t want to argue about my fucking sister.”
“Well what do you want to argue about then?”
I don’t want to argue about anything, I really, really don’t, it’s just, well, I’ve always been a person led by my head and my heart and my instincts as opposed to any form of common sense.
“Brandon Flowers?” I say, and my eyes are dark and my tone is tight and my fingers fist at my sides. “Brandon fucking Flowers.”
Ryan’s eyes widen too quickly, but then he sighs hard and closes his eyes so tight and so fast that the tears, those drops of seawater, they get caught amongst his eyelashes. “It’s none of your fucking business.”
I reach over to grab his arm again, because his feet are carrying him away from me, but he’s faster now, he knows what I’m doing, and he dodges like a jackrabbit. “Ryan!”
But he’s moving faster, he’s walking too quickly across the set, those tooth-pick legs of his can move, can dodge and race passed equipment, and I’m following him like a hunter. Like the coyote after the roadrunner, and this analogy makes my head hurt, because if it’s right then I don’t stand a chance.
Ryan’s pulling keys from his messenger bag, and the carpark is just over the ledge, just over the hill, and I’m sprinting before my head can catch up. Running as fast as my legs (they’re still fucking tired), running as fast as they’ll let me. I catch up sooner than I thought I would, because Ryan, he doesn’t run to get away from me, just walks faster and rubs at his eyes and his cheeks and his face.
“Ryan,” I breathe out, and he’s staring at me with eyes that are at the ready, eyes that are waiting for me to fuck everything up again.
I’m exhausted though, and I huff and puff and maybe I blow Ryan down, coz suddenly he’s sitting on the grass beneath us, dragging me down with him.
“You’re less fit than I thought you’d be,” he murmurs, rolls his eyes and pulls a bottle of water from his messenger bag. I drink like a dying man, and Ryan flops onto his back. “You’re an idiot,” he mumbles, and looks up at me through his bangs.
“I try,” I reply, run a hand through my hair and stare back down at him. He doesn’t look tired, but he does look worn out, like he’s been hit by the brick wall of reality, because I’ve been hit by that thing too many times, I recognize the symptoms.
“Talk to me, Brendon,” he says, “talk before I remember all the reasons why I don’t want to be around you.”
“I was fine before you came,” I start, and I am thinking this out for once, this is the beginning of one of the practiced speeches. “But you left Build God on my coffee table, and suddenly everything was shot to hell.”
Ryan’s still staring, but his eyes are half-lidded, the sun, big and full and hot, it’s reflected in his irises.
“I’m suddenly thinking about shit which I didn’t think about before, and that must scare me a little, understandably of course, so-”
“Brendon,” Ryan starts, and he rolls onto his front. “Brendon, this isn’t a fucking film, there isn’t a script to it, so stop sounding so fucking rehearsed.”
“Point is,” I say, and this feels like a revelation in itself, I feel like a prophet, like a scientist discovering the cure for cancer, like a paleontologist finding a new species of dinosaur. “Point is, I think I like you.”
Ryan closes his eyes, breathes in so hard that his t-shirt is lost in the crevice of his stomach. I can count his ribs; see the blood pulse beneath his flesh. “No, Brendon.”
“What?” And my mouth is dry, because really, I don’t know what I was expecting, but this probably wasn’t it. “Why?”
“Because you don’t give a shit about me,” he says, and he stares at me with big, sad eyes. “You don’t give a shit about Catherine or anyone other than yourself. You’re selfish beyond reason, and some 13-year-old girls might think it’s cute, but I sure as fuck don’t. So just…” And I don’t think he knows what to say, he closes his eyes too tight again, and digs a shaky fist into his messenger bag. “Just, here.”
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