Gabe’s 40th birthday is next week. Fucking hell, we’re all getting old- I’m 32, yeah, but thinking about Gabe Saporta hitting his midlife crisis (actually, to be fair he’s probably already hit it several times before hitting the big 4-zero) really threw me for a loop when he sent me a text, clearly sent to dozens upon dozens of others, that invited me to his birthday party. ‘Birthday party’, like we’re all 14, when in reality, the youngest of us (when I say ‘us’, there’s no specific group in mind- perhaps, people big in the music industry in the 2000’s) is probably around my age, early thirties. Well, I haven’t matured other than physically a day over 18 since I hit that age, so. Does it really count? Thinking about it, neither has Gabe. Either way, I considered it for only a second before I sent a quick text in response confirming my attendance. Only immediately after pressing ‘send’ did I start feeling some kind of dread- it’s a big milestone, lots of people will be there, no doubt, which usually wouldn’t be a problem.

The real problem this time was who is likely to attend and when my thoughts strayed in that direction I suddenly felt slightly sick and typed out an entire text to backtrack and apologise but then deleted it, attempting to pull myself together. You’re a grown man, I had thought, throwing my phone down onto my bed, it’s been almost a fucking decade since you’ve seen him, it’ll be fine. It’ll be nice, reuniting.

Ryan Rowe; ex-member of my band, the band in which I am now the only member, my ex-best friend, my almost, my perhaps, my what-if. During the first few years after the split we kept in touch, but. We drifted, as was probably inevitable. And I haven’t spoken to him at all in at least eight years. Seen him, sure, relatively often at events, and it always makes my heartrate increase, but. We’ve never said a word. I remember locking eyes with him one time accidentally and thinking about it for much longer than I should have, wondering whether he was looking at me or straight through me like I just wasn’t there.

Famously reclusive and fame-shy Ryan Rowe meant more to me than I’ll ever be able to explain. I don’t know how he felt about me, exactly. I don’t even know properly how I felt about him. We never talked about it. Though I try to sabotage the memory, I can recall nights alone in the tour bus where we would act without thinking and do things that the just friends he described in his stupid livejournal didn’t fucking do- and yet, he’d always go, we never spoke about it, he’d go back to some girl. I was his dirty little secret. Well, that’s unfair. He was mine too. But then again, we always thought, it doesn’t mean anything. Doesn’t make us gay, or mean we have feelings for eachother. It’s just doing stuff, we thought. No big deal.

We were stupid teenagers, he was just being a dickhead and experimenting like people our age in that time tended to do. Ryan Rowe is not the kind of man that sets out to break hearts or even fall in love in the first place- love, a concept we both would have and probably still did laugh at. I don’t know much about Ryan’s romantic life following the split, but he’s never been too successful. I hate myself for getting so attached to him and letting fond memories of him paralyze me for last decade or more. I hate myself for not saying anything to him while I had the chance and clearing it all up- though in hindsight, I don’t know what I’d say because I don’t know what it was that I was feeling.

Even hearing his name, the name I used to say like a prayer, is enough to make me visibly uncomfortable, as seen in interviews and otherwise. That’s why the thought of this event is stressing me out more than a birthday party should. Here I am, getting dressed, improvising because Gabe never gave me a dress code- so I go black skinny jeans and a tucked-in grey short-sleeved shirt- and I’m seriously considering for the first time in forever breaking into the medication I was prescribed forever ago for anxiety and some symptoms of adhd so I don’t come off too weird or strong with anyone. Thinking about it, I remind myself why I don’t take that stuff, and shrug on an oversized denim jacket before ordering an Uber, because if I want to enjoy myself tonight I’ll have to drink and if I drink I won’t be able to drive myself home.

I’ve pregamed, too, to calm my nerves, and all I can do is convince myself to chill out and loosen up. Despite my outwardly outgoing and extroverted nature, I struggle with crowds, but I’m a good actor and can behave otherwise. Trying to relax my muscles in the back of the car is futile; but if I drink enough, nobody will be able to tell that I’m nervous. And I’m used to hiding my real emotions anyway. I’m a performer. The performance begins when I walk into Gabe Saporta’s house, and he’s there, Ryan, right away, in the hallway. He must’ve arrived just before me. He’s turning around. I freeze. I missed him, I missed him. He’s right there in front of me.

”Hey! Dude, was that your fucking car outside? It’s dope.”

Gabe’s 40th birthday is next week. I remember the first time we met, and he was one of those people you’re sure are making fun of you because they’re undoubtedly “cooler” than you but they still seem to take an interest in you, but he wasn’t, and I was a wreck. We hugged. I’m fairly sure I was a wreck most days, back then. I’m not so sure I have my shit together even now, eight years his junior but still a full-blown adult with no idea where the time has gone, no measure of my accomplishments besides historical music charts and streaming numbers. I haven’t made music in... well, I haven’t publicly made music in years. At this point I’m not sure that I will again.

But I can imagine seventeen year old me hearing that idea, the seventeen year old me who had just released a hit, who was blinded by the incoming spotlight, overcome with the idea of fame. I wish, so strongly, for an imaginary interview with this old picture of myself, an enigmatic figure who still lives in the grainy and color-warped house that I grew up in, who may well spend a lot of his day wondering where I am and what I’m doing now, like an old grandma whose kids live far away and don’t call much anymore. I didn’t see myself like this, washed up and obscure. I’m not so sure he’d like me.

My thoughts don’t always drift to these unsavory, self-deprecating places, but they do when I’m faced with the possibility of revisiting old friends like Gabe, people who remind me of where I’ve been and what I’m doing with myself now. There’s talk of a party, and Gabe’s turning fourty, everyone is coming. Everyone.

I think of him, and there’s a spark of transcendence that punctuates the flatlining banality of everyday life. It’s a healthy kind of ache - like the ache in your muscles after unrelenting exercise - that reminds you that your body exists. None of this is necessarily good. It’s just a unique strain of nausea. I think of Brendon, and I’m sick to my goddamn stomach.

It’s dread, and guilt, and I suppose to some extent shame, though I’d always thought that the whole ‘gay panic’ I experienced in the 2000’s died out by the time I hit my mid-twenties. I’m afraid of what his memory does to me, therefore I keep every reminder of him out of sight, out of mind. My old awards and records and DVDs are kept in a storage unit a 35-minute drive from my house. I don’t check the charts because he manages to stay within the top 50, top 25, top 10. I barely keep in touch with our old bandmates and it’s all polite conversation anyway. I’m safe, pretending there’s nothing there and never was. To think I could see him in person again frightens me and... excites me, beyond explanation.

It’s not like we haven’t seen each other since the split. At one point in my life, I would catch his eye and experience this surge of energy - the kind of thrill that starts in your stomach, arcs up through your lungs and flashes into a spontaneous smile - scrambling every ungrounded circuit, keeping me hooked enough to chase the feeling. The kind of thing we never talked about, of course, and definitely never made known to anyone else. Since then, I have seen him at random events, even once or twice spotted him randomly in public, and it’s. Jarring. He is the missed connection I can’t get out of my head, the one I thought had faded long ago with the split but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the potential to start a forest fire. He’s got some kind of power over me, I swear.

You know when your playlist is on shuffle, and you hear the first few notes to a song you haven’t heard in a while but was and will always be so dear to you, and you feel an emotion you haven’t felt in years, an emotion you completely forgot about? Brendon must have learned that opening riff. I see him, and I’m a teenager again, confused and leading some painful double life.

I think of the fleeting moments where we forgot to be guarded, and we’d smile at some shared secret, some inside joke, and what we had was the most intimate thing I’ve ever had in my life. I’m telling Gabe that I can be there before I can truly consider every possible outcome of my attendance.

I was just confused - I had girlfriends who didn’t satisfy me, emotionally or otherwise. I thought he was beautiful, and different, and I appreciated him too much to be a friend, but it was easier to say we were just friends. It was easier to keep things under wraps, and Brendon never made me talk about it, as I suppose he didn’t know how to, either. That was a big plus. It felt like he understood. But - we didn’t understand each other. I still don’t think I know what he felt, what he wanted, if anything, and there’s a huge open door in my life, taunting me. This is why I cannot think about it, because we could have amounted to something, or we couldn’t have. He could have been the best thing that ever happened to me - or I let the best thing that ever happened to me go.

I wear a white button-up, a long black coat, black pants. It’s definitely not casual, but if I do see him, I don’t want to seem like I’m dressing up for him. Maybe this is overthinking it. Maybe I should be drinking, but I don’t.

When I walk through the door and see an already sizeable gathering of unfamiliar faces, with no Gabe in sight, I automatically turn to go back out where I can use my phone in peace, and. There he is. For some reason, I don’t expect to see him as he looks now. My instinct is to see him as I knew him in his youth, this burned-in image of an amateur makeup-stained face, drawn-on Converse, horrendous haircuts superimposed on an adult with a multimillion dollar net worth. The memory of him is still developing in my emotional darkroom, but this close up, the illusion is broken, the door open and the reality exposed.

I forgot how good of a performer he is. There’s a flash of real emotion on his face, like I’m peeking backstage through a gap in the curtains, watching stagehands holding their ropes at the ready, actors in costume mouthing their lines, fragments of bizarre sets waiting for some other production. And then he has it under wraps, and we don’t know each other again, and he’s talking while my whole conscious has lost composure. Hey! Dude, was that your fucking car outside? It’s dope. I’m staring at him like he just spoke Russian to me. Really, we should’ve had a ‘previously on...’ recap moment, because I’d forgotten exactly how important he was to me, but apparently we were going to talk about everything mundane.

”It’s the Trans Am, yeah,” I say, stunned, and glance past him through the doorway at it if only to break eye contact for a moment. The only movement out there is a car at the curb, the telltale glowing Uber sign in their windshield, only just pulling away. ”Looks like you took an Uber. Planning on drinking tonight?” I smile bittersweetly, because I still do know him well, I think. I stupidly wonder if he’s nervous about the same thing - but, yeah, of course he is. We both hate crowds like this, though, so I pretend that’s the main thing that has us both on edge. ”Maybe I should join you. Knowing Gabe, he’s invited, like, 400 people. Not great.”

I remember us all being seventeen, eighteen years old and fantasising about how famous and rich and successful we’d be my the time we were all thirty. The success of our first album thrust us all, just kids, into the spotlight, long before we were prepared; we said and did dumb shit as our egos tripled in size and came dangerously close to becoming entitled brats. Now, I’m over thirty, and I look back on that dream of mine and it is nothing like I imagined now I am here. It’s everything I could ask for, it’s a best case scenario that I am able to continue to make music and earn money and have millions hear my songs, but it’s not what I imagined.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I expected to be, like, fed grapes and fanned with huge palm leaves, I looked up to people who were entitled assholes and I just didn’t know it because I only saw their public persona. Privacy isn’t really a thing I have anymore and sometimes I wish that I’d done the same as Ryan and just withdrawn myself into a shell, living off royalties and whatnot, but then I realise that is selfish when I have so much. We started as a foursome and now I am the soul survivor from the original lineup, but I don’t feel any guilt for that.

I used to. But panic is mine, I played a major part in making it as successful as it was and I continue to make it even more popular even when I am on my own and the only official member. I no longer feel like I have at the wheel of a ship that I had nothing to do with building- at the front is where I belong and I don’t regret anything when it comes to the split or how I have handled it.

Well. There are regrets I have, but they aren’t to do with the band. Rather, the members. Spencer I am still friends with, which is awesome, but Jon and Ryan I haven’t spoken to in years and part of me is always seething that I didn’t make more of an effort to maintain the connection and the close relationships we always had as a band- after all, it was a relatively amicable split, nothing personal, just musical; I have no reason for having let the bonds between us all wear away so fast, but then. That’s life. People grow apart. I try not to let my regrets cling onto me too much because then I would be living in a world of ghosts, constantly yearning for what could have been and not settling for what truly is.

I wish I was as good at moving on as I tried to tell myself. If I had properly moved on, seeing Ryan stood in the hallway wouldn’t hit me like a kick in the gut, wash over me like icy water and leave me in shock for what felt like years but was probably only a half second after I which a response tumbled out of my mouth, trying desperately to pretend that this was completely casual and that encountering Ryan did nothing to me at all. He was just another guest at a party.

Just another goddamn guest out of how many? I thank Gabe for a second, in my head, for having undoubtedly invited more people than I would ever be able to speak to in one night, because it would make it easier to blend in and not see Ryan again for the rest of the night. That said- as my thoughts work a mile a minute and I come out almost immediately with some comment about his car- I find myself wondering if I really wanted to lose him in a crowd again, as I have past lost him in the crowd of life.

He meant so much to me and seeing him now, tall and handsome, so different in his manner and appearance yet much the same skinny introvert I knew as a younger man, is more than I can cope with. But I try, because how mortifying would it be if I turned around and left after speaking to him so casually? I keep eye contact because I simply cannot look away from him, and I register that he is as shocked as I am, and trying to come up with something to say.

And he’s beautiful. Always was, though I never let myself think that too much because I was adamant that I was straight back then and what we did was just physical and superficial, but since I have not seen him in person in so long it is jarring to see him, long legs and honey eyes and thick dark hair and- he has an earring in one ear, his hands are adorned with rings, I notice this all in the split seconds I have before we undoubtedly make our excuses and try and avoid eachother for the rest of the evening. I shouldn’t have come.

No, no, I can deal with this. It’s been eight years, Brendon, I think, sealing the rawness and reality that comes with seeing Ryan again behind bright eyes and a charming smile, and then I am ready, my mask is on. This is no big deal- and if I pretend it isn’t, as much as I can, eventually, it will become true. He’s just another guy I haven’t seen in years. We were dumb teenagers, nothing we did ever meant anything. We were friends. Were.

It’s the Trans Am, yeah. All of my facial muscles strain to keep my smile wide, and it is hard, unless you look close enough, to tell that I am coming loose at the seams (though I have only said a few words to him). Brendon Blake and Ryan Rowe, exchanging the first words in a decade, and we’re talking about his motherfucking car- which, by the way, is exactly the kind of car I always expected him to own. Still. His car. When I know I have so much to say. Funny- now I am here with him my mind cannot dispel the clouds that have formed enough to structure a meaningful sentence. So I say; ”It’s fuckin’ awesome.”

Looks like you took an Uber. Planning on drinking tonight? No, I want to say scornfully, I’m going to face one of the ghosts of my past completely sober and just hope I don’t have a full-on anxiety attack at Gabe Saporta’s birthday party. Instead, darkly, I laugh, and glance back out of the door, watching the Uber drive away. ”Oh, yeah. And, I didn’t feel like flexing on anyone tonight. It’s Gabe’s big night, old fucker that he is.” This whole scenario is bizarre and I view in from a third person perspective, like I am detached from my own body and I am looking down on this interaction from somewhere else. My voice is clearly distinguishable but I don’t feel it come out of my own mouth. It’s surreal, Is he even real, should I really have taken those meds last minute before I left- I want to reach out and make sure this man in front of me is really in front of me because it’s beginning to feel like I imagined him all along.

Maybe I should join you. Knowing Gabe, he’s invited, like, 400 people. Not great. By the time he is finished speaking I have zoned out, and I see his mouth moving but my focus has been lost already. All I heard was maybe I should join you and my muscles are seized with panic, and I know I started this by acting like there was nothing off between us, like that decade never happened, but now I regret it. Something did happen. I cannot ignore that.

But I try.

”Uh- Where is he?”

I didn’t picture myself bailing from the spotlight so soon. In the first place, I didn’t expect my childhood role model to respond to my demos, sent to him on a fantastical whim over a now-dead website; I didn’t anticipate pulling together a band to play for him personally, or his record label, or getting signed on to a contract almost immediately. Then, I thought maybe our album wouldn’t ever end up actually coming out. We were thirty minutes away from our deadline and still trying to come up with lines to fill in songs we didn’t plan out correctly. We were a fire that took constant fanning and feeding to actually start and maintain, and we didn’t overtake the forest in glorious flames until a metric fuckton of work had been done to ignite us. Before becoming a hit, we were one bad tender away from collapse, a spark close to dying out. Stepping away from everything I worked for - it’s not what I imagined.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We grow up. Perspectives change. Fame looked to me, when I was a kid holding my first guitar, something simple and easy, where everything was spoonfed to you. I still fooled myself into thinking it after my first taste of fame - I thought, maybe after the initial struggle, I’ll get there. But it never became easy. Things worsened, and my real life continued behind the scenes when I thought I’d escaped all that. We all did drugs that we swore off (though, lucky for us, mostly experimentally). I never left my house when I wasn’t touring because the anxiety was a killer. I lost my father, and on the same night, lamented my struggles with him for hundreds to hear, all singing it back to me as if they understood. Putting my thoughts and emotions on loan to the public, entrusting them to people unentitled, was all too much for me, eventually.

And, though I didn’t realize it at the time, I neglected all of my personal relationships. It’s ridiculous to think of now how often I’d start dating a girl I was only infatuated with, only to forget to keep up with her just the next day. I never checked in back home even though I knew there was support there. And, well. The obvious one. Brendon.

I didn’t admit it to myself, and I still don’t, but. He was such a massive part of my life. On the surface, we were just messing around. Experimenting, because I didn’t get to do that in high school, personally, and of course he’d grown up in a religious household - I can only guess he was making up for lost time, too. More than once, though, it was a bad night, and I was cold and alone, and I ended up in his bunk or on his designated bed in out hotel room and he didn’t shove me away. More than once, we woke up with bodies aligned, arms encircling one another, someone’s nose pressed into someone’s cheek. That, we didn’t talk about. We didn’t talk about any of it, not specifically, but that was especially off-limits. I might have loved him.

But we were just friends.

I didn’t move on, either, but there are ways of thinking about the past that aren’t just nostalgia or regret. To dwell on the past is to allow fresh context to trickle in, fill in the confusing gaps in the picture; to keep the memory alive, and not just as a caricature of itself. I desperately hold on to time as it passes, like trying to keep a grip on a rock in the middle of a river, feeling the weight of the current against my chest while others float on downstream, calling over the roar of the rapids, “Just let go - it’s okay - let go.” It’s not okay, though. He was mine, and I was his, and I don’t know why I let him disappear. But, sure, let’s say we were just friends, it hurts less that way. I yearn less that way.

The only optimistic way I can look at it is by considering Brendon’s success. There’s a possibility he’d be the same or better with all of us still there, or even just me, but he flourished the way things went - the split was undoubtedly good for him. We needed time to mature, maybe, before we met again. And maybe this isn’t the time we reconnect, maybe we never really will, I have no idea. Regardless, seeing him again, I’m happy, among other inexpressable emotions. He grew into himself. His status in the culture seems too impossible to fill in completely, and it’d be way over my head for sure, but he wears his position as a musical icon well. He’s where he’s supposed to be.

In fact, he’s grown into such a natural version of himself that it’s stunning, and it’s not like he’s doing anything particularly special. He’s dressed down, tiny in the denim jacket he’s chosen, barely as tall as my shoulders - but he exhibits an air of confidence, of charisma, of experience. He’s spectacular, gorgeous, larger than life. Or maybe that’s just the teenager in my head, still obsessed and intrigued by him.

Somehow, I’m not panicking, or I’m so distantly nervous that I don’t recognize it. There’s a part of me that still thinks he’s my lifeline and my confidant. A part that didn’t grow up, I guess, or realize that any time has passed at all. We were dumb teenagers, nothing we did ever meant anything - but everything always means something more to me, more than I let on. We were just friends, were.

The same part of me that is comforted by his presence even still believes that it can distinguish the tiniest shift in Brendon’s countenance as something telling. I look closely, and I think, maybe, he’s really unnerved by our reunion. I don’t know how I can do anything to shake him when he stands in front of arenas nightly, when he has millions of critics trying to shout louder than even his most diehard fans. So I shrug it off, because everything always means something more to me, more than I let on. It’s fuckin’ awesome. I’m smiling, and it’s real, because it’s so like him to say that. The tension in my face is easing. ”Thank you,” I say, an easy laugh overlaying my words, and I mean it. Thanks for breaking the ice.

Oh, yeah. And, I didn’t feel like flexing on anyone tonight. I almost forgot - he’s probably filthy rich. He never did it for the money. It’s Gabe’s big night, old fucker that he is. I half-smile, tilting my head at him, and I decide I quite like how he jumped right into easy banter rather than the recap I was looking for. It’s simpler. We have a longstanding streak for doing that, keeping things surface-level, only makes sense that we keep up tradition. ”Careful. He can hear mocking from a mile away.”

I identify discomfort, maybe, in Brendon’s composure as I speak, and I have no idea what I said wrong. He’s so good at hiding anything he feels that I’m not even sure if I made it up - and if I didn’t, I’m not sure how to deal with the fact that I don’t know him as well as I used to. Yes, we were just friends, but he was my best friend. I may have been hiding a lot of things, or just not confronting them myself, but I would readily admit my loyalty to him. And now I can’t even read him.

Uh- Where is he? I pause, and I’m apparently so sensitive that I feel a sort of hurt, jumping to the assumption that he’d rather see Gabe than continue talking to me. Stupid - it was one simple question, and if he does, it’s because Gabe is the subject of the occasion, come on. I look away when I speak, feeling dumb. ”I didn’t see him - I was about to text him when I ran into you, actually.” I’m looking back at him, and I don’t really mean to, but I’m memorizing his face all over again, every tiny, faint change. One thing different about me: I’m far more honest than I was. ”I’m glad you came. I thought I might see you.” I stop there, because ‘I missed you’ sounds like an understatement. I pause and study him, because I missed seeing him, too, live and in real time, and I’m afraid I might say things brought on by a lack of closure withheld for years, so. I’m already turning as I speak. ”Can I get you a drink? The bar’s just inside.”

We have so much history and yet here I am, talking to him like we’re only sort of friends, the kind that can talk pretty easily but never actively organise to do anything together. He was my best friend- we were polar energies who fulfilled the cliche of ‘opposites attract’; I was always more extroverted, energetic, boundless- he was more withdrawn, though not without his moments of confidence and stubbornness. Oh, and we both hate crowds. Two, in my humble opinion, is not a crowd- and it wasn’t for me back then, either, as I recalled him crawling into wherever I was designated to sleep and wrapping his arms around me for some sort of comfort and I obliged him by not shoving him away as I often playfully did otherwise. I could tell at those times that he needed me to just be and though I overhear very fast and find it very hard to stay still, I always stayed with him.

We went through a lot as eachother’s anchor- when Ryan lost his dad, I made it my personal mission to always be available in case he needed to talk about it. Even then, when he knew full well he could trust me to listen, he barely talked about his father. I knew their relationship had been complicated, and he often tried to pretend it didn’t affect him as much as it did, but. I was there in that interview where he was getting texts about his dad’s deteriorating condition, the interview where his phone was subsequently confiscated and I offered my hand to him to hold just so he had something solid to focus on, to calm down. And afterwards- none of his went with him to the hospital (I offered but he refused and I didn’t want to argue with him)- I waited outside, anxiously waiting to pick him up. I vividly remember that he walked straight past me and into the bus and he didn’t say a word to any of us the entire evening- but that night, probably around midnight, once we had all retired to our hotel rooms for the breaks between shows, he knocked at my door and I let him in and I just. Held him.

Because what else was I there for? We were one another’s shoulder to cry on, partner in crime, and. All of this flashed through my head in seconds and I have to remind myself, yet again, that we were never more than friends. Anything we did or said in the moment where we were just being thirsty assholes didn’t mean anything, there was no substance to that side of things. It happened, we didn’t talk about it. We kissed, usually only in premise to other things, but- there were times that he just kissed me and that was all I needed.

Of course, we never spoke about it. To be honest, none of us in the band ever really spoke in depth about emotions or anything like that- we were under the heterosexual and frighteningly masculine impression that talking about feelings and worries and whatnot was reserved for romantic partners only. I smile cruelly to myself as I meet Ryan’s eyes, scorning my own wistful thoughts. Romantic partners. What if.. Oh, shut up, Brendon. Well, I did pregame. It’s just the alcohol talking, I convince myself, and blink furiously as if trying to physical dispel the thoughts away.

I don’t feel any shame any more, like I used to, because I came to accept my own sexuality years ago- a few years too late, I think, staring at him; He’s so tall, tall enough that the top of my head reaches his shoulders, just, his hair is thick and dark and swept back somewhat and I desperately want to touch it, he’s smiling, god I missed that smile, and now I am here I start to realise exactly how bad of an idea it was to not just brush past him and pretend I didn’t see him. Thank you. ”It’s exactly the car I pictured you to have.” Oh, fuck, that makes it sound like I think about him a lot, and that’s mortifying, but I do, and oh, god, what if he does? I’d like that. I find myself hoping desperately that he thinks of me half as much as I think of him.

Careful. He can hear mocking from a mile away. Ryan and I always tended to keep the same company and even now we have many of the same connections, though the band itself seemed to have split down the middle, Ryan and Jon on one side and Spencer and I on the other. Gabe is one such person that we both remained relatively close to- but then again, that’s just Gabe. ”I don’t doubt it, man.”

Speaking of. It’s typical of him to be absent at his own party, but suddenly I am uncomfortably aware that this is Ryan Rowe I am talking to and maybe I should escape elsewhere. I didn’t see him- I was about to text him when I ran into you, actually. I feel him looking at me and feel small. ”Hey, don’t stop on my account.”

I’m glad you came. I thought I might see you. Now, I’m not usually one lost for words, but it makes me unspeakably nervous and ecstatic that he tells me, to my face, that he is glad I came. And, by consequence, glad that he ran into me. So, instead of saying something smart or humorous or intelligent to deflect the weight of that confession, I just make some kind of choked noise in my throat and feel suddenly like a teenager again with a stupid crush that I can’t wait to tell my best friend about. Only this time, Ryan is the crush, not the best friend. ”Nice to hear,” I manage, only because I cannot manage anything else. Can I get you a drink? The bar’s just inside. No, I’ve spent too long with you already. ”Sure.” Fucking idiot.

It’s been hard trying to find someone that understood my truest self as much as Brendon did. I’ve never sought to replace him, of course; I know I never can. Still, going through life without someone like that, it’s a sad existence. I have close friends, obviously. People from well-off backgrounds who cling to those falling from stardom, mostly, looking to build their own careers, but it’s whatever, I’ll take what I can get, and besides, sometimes there’s a diamond in the rough. Z, for example, we’ve got a special kind of connection. Past that awkward stage where we thought we worked while in a romantic relationship, which we definitely, definitely didn’t, We’re better as friends. I’m only now considering that maybe the reason for that is because I’m still so attached to the man standing in front of me, an attachment longwithstanding on a subconscious level. Or maybe I just missed him so much I’m playing it all up in my head.

He knew when it was okay to mess around with me and when I was sensitive to the slightest provocation. He could distinguish between my ridiculous extremes, even when I was good at putting up an emotional barrier. And then, to top it off, he knew how to deal with it all. Spencer was my childhood best friend, he knew me longer than anyone, longer than some blood relatives; even then, he didn’t know what to do with me as well as Brendon did. Whereas Spence would get fed up with my neuroses and my little depressive episodes and give up, Brendon would practically scoop me up out of my bunk and force a hotel comment card into my hands so I’d get it all out of my head. Eventually he was someone I could rely on so much that I started saying some of it - though definitely not all - out loud. He listened better than anyone, and he never gave me the bullshit predictable sympathies. He was real, and genuine, and I couldn’t imagine life without him - all the way up until I had to re-learn to exist by myself.

I remember, I visited my father, and he showed me this collection, boxes upon boxes, of our records, our CDs, promotional posters, recordings of interviews, magazines... anything to do with the band. He looked sallow and vaguely unwell, but he was so lucid, and he seemed so excited about a band he once deemed a ridiculous endeavor, a massive disappointment, why wasn’t I studying something serious, what was I doing with my life. He believed in me, after all. He was doing better, even if he had his moments. And then, like pinching candlelight, he died six weeks later.

Brendon was the one I went to, when that happened. First I had my little breakdown, where nobody was my friend, nobody understood, fuck everything, what was the point - and then he let me in, just like that. He didn’t ask questions and he didn’t force me to talk about it, nothing. I remember how it felt, in his arms; safe, like I could stay there forever and nothing would ever hurt again. That was the first time I thought that maybe I’d be okay, that I’d get past this, it was just grief. It was the first time I let anyone see me cry for a very long time, and I’m sure I was only able to stop when I did because he was there.

Funny to think that if we hadn’t been so scared of - what, deviation from the norm? - that would have been the case for us for the last decade. But those tranquil moments were private, just for us, and when they ended we were always back to lustful escapades and snapshots of weakness where maybe we’d border on romantic behavior. We never let it get too deep, and when we did, we never let it last too long. Something about vulnerability was petrifying, even though I know now, reasonably, that he’s the person I was most comfortable being vulnerable around. I was so fucking dumb.

Looking at him now, yeah, I was a complete idiot. I’m fairly sure I heard about Brendon saying something publicly about not being straight, something understated but definite, because Jon texted me something along the lines of ‘wow, can’t believe he did it’ coupled with a link to an article, and I wondered if that meant Jon knew something or if he was making innocent commentary, but whatever. I was happy for him. I’m still not out, and still not really sure. In theory, I’d probably identify the same as Brendon. In practice, I have absolutely no clue. Lucky for me, I’m far enough away from the spotlight that hardly anyone’s putting pressure on me to do what Brendon did. Speculation once may have circled both of us, but at this point I’m pretty much in the clear.

Anyway, the point is: it’s not like there’s... no hope for us. I shouldn’t be thinking about it, because it’s been almost a decade and we’re different people and I’d be stupid and naïve to think we could do everything we were too scared to do back then, and anyway I’m supposed to be moved on, but the thought crosses my mind. I deliberately try not to look at him directly because I know I’ll just. Want. Almost a decade. I’m a dumbass.

It’s exactly the car I pictured you to have. As if can pull off any charm, and without complete control over my mouth, apparently, I smile and say, ”You pictured what kind of car I’d have?” And, yeah, I’m messing with him as if we still talk all the time. But it’s almost easy to slip into that normalcy, with him - partially. ”I’ll take you on a tour sometime.” On the joking front, it’s easy; I doubt we’d be able to talk about anything that actually mattered. A few beats later, to lessen the teasing, I speak more softly, and I can feel myself leaning closer even though I don’t really mean to. ”I think about you, too.” Still. He’s not totally off the hook. ”And the Tesla that’s probably in your high-security garage.” Alright. I’m not funny. I shove my hands in my pockets, shoulders sloping high.

I don’t doubt it, man. Gabe’s predictable. And a little intimidating. I actually do glance around to make sure he’s not gathering intel on us. Hey, don’t stop on my account. I open my mouth for a second to contradict him, but I’m not sure how to say that I really would rather be talking to him than anyone else in the world. Gabe practically never existed to me at this point. Not that I’d say that to their face. I just change the subject - and I’m serious, I’m glad he came. Maybe I’m getting myself into trouble, here, but I’m glad I got to see him. The sound Brendon makes when he hears that is so ridiculously endearing that I grin widely in response, lasting just half a second before I can get it under control into a fond smile, biting my cheek determinedly.

Nice to hear. I chew my lip momentarily before I can work up the stupidity to offer him a drink. Sure. Thank god. I resist the urge to physically guide him by the shoulder or, like, with a hand at his back, because it seems so easy and apparently I’m still this attached, and instead just turn to lead him to the open bar Gabe has set up, people crowding around but easy enough to clear a path through at my size. It saddens me, for a second, that I don’t know what Brendon’s favorite drink is anymore. It could be the same - he was always a beer guy, trying a new one in every city we went to. Even underage, someone on the crew would score something. It was ridiculous. ”What’s your poison now? Assuming a few world tours have changed your tastes.” I smile a little lopsidedly, already pouring out honey whiskey for myself. There have got to be pictures of me on my 21st out there still, this exact drink in my hand. ”I guess I haven’t changed much.” The double meaning wasn’t really intended, but here we are.

I’m sure Ryan and I remember the months before and after his dad’s death very differently, for obvious reasons. It was during the height of our sudden explosion in success and we were a significant part of the mainstream non-mainstream music scene. It was crazy, and we were all so young, and often Ryan was so swept up by the popularity and unexpected good fortune that it took his mind off his dad’s health issues for significant amounts of time. Though- I can’t speak for him. I could read him very well but he refused to talk about it- probably because he didn’t want pity or anyone to have their happiness ruined by his difficult family life. Plus, I don’t think he believed that anybody cared- not because of the fault of others, who obviously did care, but because he went through a phase of hating the world about it all and refusing to accept help. Looking back, I think I was the only one who he properly let in, who he actively sought when he was struggling, and I was always there to help- otherwise, what were friends for? Even if I couldn’t do anything, I’d just. Hold him. And hope he even felt a little better.

That said, I didn’t enjoy it- who enjoyed seeing their favourite person break down and cry? And it was Ryan, who never cried, at least in front of anyone, so it was even more jarring. But it was never about I was affected, I was there, just like always was for me. No, I didn’t enjoy it, I instead enjoyed things more along the lines of having secret inside jokes and the same sense of humour, therefore laughing until our sides hurt; performing together on stage (particularly when we harmonized, which we did so well) and writing music together (though admittedly this was one of things I missed the least as we often butted heads and couldn’t compromise creatively- not having to compromise was one of the major pluses of running this whole thing by myself).

Then there was- well, the other side of our relationship... It wasn’t an arrangement, we didn’t plan anything- like, I didn’t saunter up to Ryan and go ‘Hey, when Jon and Spence go out later, do you wanna fuck’, it all just kind of happened when we were alone. Not all the time- but a lot of the time. Though I try desperately not to let it happen, sometimes memories of what we used to get up to on our lonesome emerge in my brain and to this day it makes me all hot and flustered like some dumb teenager, because I suppose our relationship never matured beyond the point of adolescence, really. Even in our early twenties we were still just kids, to be honest. Is it still me that makes you sweat. Looking at him now, maybe he is. God, he’s gorgeous. I thank the fact we are in public and therefore I am kept from saying something fucking stupid.

Public. I’m nervous, I look around, god knows what people would think if they saw us conversing like this when everyone knows we haven’t spoken in years. There were rumours back in the day already, for fuck’s sake. I steady myself and look back at him, and he’s smiling. So I smile. It’s really that simple. You pictured what kind of car I’d have? Usually I’m very quick on the draw with retorts to provocative comments like that, from anyone, but suddenly I feel a wave of embarrassment because I’ve just exposed that I think about him. In enough depth that I imagined the type of vehicle he’d own. There’s no escaping that kind of shame, so I just shrug and grin sheepishly and stutter through an excuse, ”I mean, you’re predictable, that’s all. Don’t flatter yourself.” Deflective, but lighthearted. The best I can do. I’ll take you on a tour sometime.

I’ll take you on a... Holy shit, is he hitting on me? Unsure, I meet his eyes and gauge his expression, and suddenly I’m very interested in this apparent tour, even though I know I shouldn’t be entertaining him and playing along will not end well. However, since I’m a stupid slut, I play along. ”Oh yeah?” I murmur, raising my eyebrows, ”Show me the leather seats?”

I think about you, too. I choke, on absolutely nothing, because even if I had a suspicion it has floored me to hear Ryan say that he thinks about me. Not past tense. Thinks. As in, regularly at least, for a decade. We’re fucking stupid. Why did I ever let him go, again? I rack my brain searching for answers but nothing relevant is being dragged up, Just career things, lame shots in the dark at shit like ‘people grow apart’ and ‘it just wasn’t meant to be’. In my eyes, that’s giving up.

When did I become such a believer in that?

”That’s sweet.”

And the Tesla that’s probably in your high-security garage. I don’t know if he’s a stalker or a mind reader or he just knows me that well, but... ”Oh my god, no fucking kidding, dude, I have a Tesla. That’s super creepy, man.” I pause as I start following Ryan to where the bar apparently is, ignoring the common sense part of me that’s telling me to stop being such a sentimental thot. ”D’ya wanna trade cars? Yours is actually cooler.”

We’re at the bar, and he’s pouring himself a drink, honey whiskey, I don’t want that because the taste will just bring back so many associated memories, Ryan’s 21st a big one on that list. That said, with Ryan right by me, there’s no use in attempting to forget. So I give in and I tell him ‘same as you’ before he can even finish asking me what I want. He’s right, world tours have changed my tastes, but I’ve always been and always will be a bourbon man. An Old Fashioned, on the rocks- that’s my poison. I settle for straight whiskey, though, so to not be complicated. I guess I haven’t changed much. ”You may not believe it, but me neither.”

When we met, I didn’t anticipate the impact Brendon would have on my life. Jon knew him from high school and had dragged him to practice one day, unbeknownst to me, because of course if he had the brilliant idea to audition a singer for a band I was already the vocals for, they weren’t going to tell me about it. But when I heard his voice, it didn’t upset me, not at all. This was not an amazing, radical moment; it wasn’t like the two simple words, ‘I’m Brendon,’ were definitively the start of something great. He was just another person filing in, assuming we were going to do a few gigs, play for a few years before most of us went to regular, reliable jobs, maybe one went on to bigger and better things in the way of music.

I did know, however, that when Brendon sang one of our very few demos, he was the answer. This was what completed our band, whether we stayed a lame high school dream or not. I knew that even if we didn’t go very far at all, he was going to be doing something. Something. You can’t predict what greatness will develop into. I certainly had no idea that Brendon would be where he is now.

Needless to say, I’d resigned my post as lead vocalist a good minute into Brendon’s audition.

I’d never let myself accept the fact that I thought anyone not-a-girl was attractive, but then, they were never anyone I spent hours in practice with, then days on tour with, once we’d reached that point. Brendon was the difference. And maybe it was a little cliché; he was charming and charismatic and outgoing, maybe too hyperactive for his own good in those days, and I was shy and introverted and reserved even when it was just the four of us hanging out. I think it was the fact that he was everything I wasn’t that drew me to him. I’m confident that even before our ‘thing’ started, he must’ve caught the odd looks I threw his way, or picked up on the way I looked to him for input before anyone else, or noticed how I always chose a spot closer to him. It wasn’t until I got to look at all of this in retrospect that I realized I behaved a little like a clingy puppy around him - if I’d known, I’d be beyond embarrassed, because I was the kind of kid to think that even hugging a guy friend was ‘totally gay.’ Ridiculous. Especially considering how we ended up.

He never said anything about it, though. That was another thing. He was completely nonjudgmental, and I’d never encountered anyone quite the same way. Even when I’d proved myself a complete hypocrite and began pursuing him in different ways, he didn’t turn his nose up at me, make fun of the double life I led. He wasn’t that kind of person. Apparently, he still wasn’t - Brendon had every right to turn tail and run from me, no doubt a reminder of an awkward, uncertain period of our lives, as soon as he saw me, but he didn’t. I really have missed him.

I mean, you’re predictable, that’s all. Don’t flatter yourself. I smile, and it’d probably hit harder if he didn’t look almost sheepish. Oh yeah? Show me the leather seats? I can feel myself looking slightly more serious, because I didn’t realize we were being this playful. I definitely started it. There are so many inappropriate responses to give to that, but I take in a breath, purse my lips before deciding on the most boring reply possible. ”Sure. We’ll see if it’s all you imagined.” ...okay, maybe that’s a little suggestive too, but my train of thought in regards to Brendon is no longer so limited to ‘absolutely no gay wonderings’ as it was when we knew each other. There’s been a lot of time to let my mind wander, and I know realistically we probably won’t reconnect beyond catching up for the next few minutes, so. Playing out everything I wish we’d been is far too easy right now.

Brendon seems almost surprised by my admission. I do think about him. We’re real people with separate lives, so of course, I haven’t thought about him every single day for the last almost-decade - not even every single week, or every single month, but he crosses my mind a stupid amount for someone I don’t even speak to regularly. And it’s a whole range of thoughts: not just the nights spent together, or caught moments in a dressing room, or the dubious moments onstage just for an act, but also every drawn-out, sentimental conversation, every played out in-joke, every minute we wasted in a recording studio fucking around with songs that never made it to release. It’s not like missing a best friend. I know how that feels, because I hardly speak to Jon or Spencer, either, and how I miss them is a completely different realm of feeling. Missing Brendon, it’s like missing a boyfriend, except worse because I never got to call him that. I never got to tell him it’d be nice to call him that, or publicly act that way with him. We never got that chance.

That’s sweet. It’s my turn to smile sheepishly, keep every thought in my head to myself. I duck to look at my feet for a second, no reason at all.

Oh my god, no fucking kidding, dude, I have a Tesla. That’s super creepy, man. I’m laughing, and this is all somehow so normal, easy. ”You’re predictable, too. I bet you haven’t driven it more than a few miles.” As we enter a more crowded area, music thumping, I slow, letting myself be closer to him now that I have a good excuse. D’ya wanna trade cars? Yours is actually cooler. ”Get your own, Blake. I knew you were after my car this whole time,” I say with another laugh, turning to grin at him as he’s teased. A moment later and I’m pouring us both drinks, handing him his delicately, guarding our little space against the bar from other partygoers. I’ve realized, judging from passing glances, that there are definitely people who want to talk to him, probably one of the biggest names here - so I decide to hog him all for myself.

You may not believe it, but me neither. I pause, considering this over a sip from my glass. ”I believe it. When we went platinum you were still drinking Capri-sun. You’ve always been pretty humble.” I smile fondly, because thinking about us in ‘06 is still endlessly amusing. ”Brendon -“ I start, then stop, because the song has changed over the speakers, and apparently it’s a hit because almost everyone around us has started cheering and moving more enthusiastically, and the place is too loud to be heard in. I pause before looking brazen, reaching over the counter and grabbing the entire bottle I’d just poured from to take with us. ”C’mon. I promised you a tour.” Bottleneck in one hand and a full glass of whiskey in the other, I’m comfortable enough this time to hold the hand with the glass behind Brendon’s back, guiding him with me back to the curb.

I got a good spot arriving as early as I did (and apparently there are very few other designated drivers in attendance), so it’s barely a minute’s walk from where we were until I’m at the passenger side of the ‘76 Pontiac Firebird, setting the bottle on the hood so I can open the door for Brendon. I make a grand, sweeping gesture at the vintage interior, ridiculously mismatched from the other cars lining the street, and grin back at him. ”I know. I’m very cool.” I lean against the door, taking another drink. ”You can have a seat if you’d like. I’d invite you to take it for a test drive, but if memory serves, you’re kind of an awful driver, and I haven’t updated my will.”

My hindsight is impeccable and when I look back on mine and Ryan’s relationship, the more-than-platonic way we interacted with one another became clear, staring me in the face, mocking me for not being able to admit it then and only realising too late that the feelings I had (have) for him did not correlate with being... just friends. When I was developing my skills as a lyricist I looked to Ryan for help; not just because he was the most superior out of all of us, like I used to tell myself, but because I valued his opinion the most. He was gentle with me, and we had complimentary personalities, and I always stole the seat next to him in whatever situation, interviews, for example, whenever I could. I held his hand even in public just to make sure he had something solid and present to hold onto, to anchor him physically and emotionally.

Obviously, our relationship went further than just holding hands, something that started maybe a year into meeting eachother, a little less, perhaps. We weren’t even drunk- we’d had a drink each, at the point where we simply had increased confidence, and I’d playfully insulted him, and he’d said ‘suck my dick’, and I’d said ‘sure’; and it was so funny, so funny that I burst out laughing and got onto my knees and he was laughing too, and I unzipped his jeans much more surely than I probably should have but at that point it was just a funny joke. Then some kind of barrier dissolved, our laughter faded away, I looked up into his eyes and it wasn’t funny anymore. Afterwards, I felt much less awkward than I had expected to feel. We just joked about it, laughing, saying ‘imagine if we were actually gay’, and it was supposed to be a one time thing but then the next evening we were alone again and he kissed me. Things just kind of went in from there indefinitely.

It’s bizarre how much I remember, how apparently significant that memory is to me. Here we are, ten years later, and we’re both being playful, like the decade we have experienced completely apart is void, and we’re toeing the line at flirting just as we did so many times all around the world on tour buses and in dressing rooms and and hotel suites. Just like back then, we don’t dare at ask ‘hey, what’s going on here’? I don’t want to ask any real questions. I want to enjoy his company, the company I knew I missed but the absence of which I only now realise affected me so fucking much. I don’t miss him like a friend should- even a best friend. He smiles at me and I melt a little, time of no consequence, the only thing mattering that he is here and so am I and we are together again and what the fuck is anybody going to do about it?

Sure. We’ll see if it’s all you imagined. I want to laugh at that, shoot back a smart comment, but the weight behind his words... I don’t know if I’m reading into it too much, so I say nothing instead and just smile faintly, wistfully. If only. We are nothing like I imagined, so I’m expecting to be wrong.

You’re predictable, too. I bet you haven’t driven it more than a few miles. The accuracy of that judgement is startling and I pout a little, caught out, nudging him in the shoulder playfully. ”I don’t even leave my house, Ry, so you’re damn right.” Get your own, Blake. I knew you were after my car this whole time. ”Okay, okay, so we won’t trade- I’ll buy it from you, it can join my Tesla in being a car I have just for the sake of it, because I’m too lazy to leave my home.” I pause. ”Seriously, come over anytime, guarantee I’ll be in.” Crazy how we live in the same state, convenient.

I know people want to talk to me but I don’t particularly care. Surely they understand the significance of me and Ryan being together- the idea that people might be whispering about exactly that both terrifies and excites me. I believe it. When we went platinum you were still drinking Capri-sun. You’ve always been pretty humble. ”Well, yeah. I was a good boy.” A pause, and I’m about to say something like ‘I was underage, I had to drink something’, but instead I make a comment more open to interpretation. ”You know that better than anyone.” He’s saying my name but the music is being cranked up and people’s voices rise in excitement, and suddenly his hand is behind my lower back and he’s leading is back out of the front door. C’mon. I promised you a tour. He did. And because I am stupid, I let it happen.

His car really is gorgeous and I admire it as we walk closer, brushing my hand along the hood and then laughing as Ryan makes a grand gesture about opening the door and presenting the interior to me. I know. I’m very cool. ”You are. Hey, how much was this thing?” I ask, walking around to stand too close to him and peer inside, my eyebrows drawing together, impressed. You can have a seat if you’d like. Without waiting for him to change his mind, I immediately climb into the back, settling against the leather seats, still grinning. I’d invite you to take it for a test drive, but if memory serves, you’re kind of an awful driver, and I haven’t updated my will. Should’ve expected that, really. Ten years on and he’s still bullying me about my driving. Nothing had changed. ”It’s a good job I make up for it in other areas. You gonna sit?”

I don’t even leave my house, Ry, so you’re damn right. I smile at him fondly when I hear my nickname, and I know it’s too bright, too affected, but somehow I’m just. Comfortable. More than I’ve been in a long time, I’m so comfortable right now, with him and joking around and just basking in one another’s presence again. I forgot how this felt. I thought I played it all up in my head before, but I didn’t. He really just does have that calming effect on you. Like everything in life is easy and simple - ironic, when nothing between us had ever been that way before. But it’s easier to pretend around him.

Okay, okay, so we won’t trade- I’ll buy it from you, it can join my Tesla in being a car I have just for the sake of it, because I’m too lazy to leave my home. I laugh dubiously, about to comment on the fact that he probably has plenty of awards shows to be at or otherwise some invitation someplace that keeps him occupied, out of home. [i[Seriously, come over anytime, guarantee I’ll be in.[/i] My smile fades, by just a notch. I imagine us being people who actively hang out, spend time together. I imagine us being friends - and whether that means being “friends” the way we used to be, or actually friends, it didn’t matter, I’d take any excuse to be around him again because Brendon did mark the most wonderful, exciting, awful, emotionally tolling time of my life. Nowadays I didn’t feel much of anything. I’d appreciate his company again, yeah, if it meant that this short space of time together wasn’t just going to be a fleeting taste at what could’ve been. ”Maybe I will,” I say, and not mysteriously. More contemplatively. Maybe I will.

It seems like he knows, too, how valued a member of this party he is, how much people would love to whisk him away for conversation, and yet he’s not making any move to cut me off and make his exit. I’m almost flattered. Not like he’d ever be above talking to anyone, but still - I’m from the past, he could move on if he wanted. God knows he has all the options in the world. Well, yeah. I was a good boy. You know that better than anyone. I stare at him for a moment, wondering if I should pretend like that’d gone right over my head, but we’re so painfully obvious. We are so, so ridiculously obvious that I crack a smile straight at him, gaze warm and knowing, and the way I welcome him back outside is as if I’m actively agreeing.

We’re back at the car, and I’m aligned against the door, body sloping from the curb comfortably as if I’m already drunk, but really - I’m just this relaxed, for once. I watch him admiring my car, and vaguely, I entertain the idea of what it’d be like to kiss him again. Not the storybook yearning, not something desperate and wanton and hungry, just. I wonder, distantly. It’s the kind of affection you’d have for someone you’ve only met a couple hours ago, who you’ve laughed with in a bar a little. It’s not all-consuming. But I register, belatedly, that I probably shouldn’t be thinking about that. You are. Hey, how much was this thing? I raise my eyebrows. ”Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to ask that? Don’t know why, but people say so.” I grin, then actually contemplate the question, knowing he’d come closer and forcing myself to keep cool about it. ”Around $40k, not too bad.”

I make fun of him as he climbs into the back, utterly charmed by how he’s smiling the whole way through. It’s a good thing I drove in. I don’t have much else to impress with. It’s a good job I make up for it in other areas. I chalk up my interpretation of that to my drinking, even though I’d probably had the equivalent of just one shot up until now. I hate my brain. You gonna sit? I’ve been bold up until now but at that I pause, finish my drink, then climb in. A little more gangly than Brendon, it takes some contorting to actually get into the back, and when I settle in I calculatedly attempt to keep some distance between us - I don’t know how comfortable he is with me, even if I am very much so with him. ”I bought it after figuring out that there wouldn’t be another Young Veins record,” I say, for lack of anything better, and my smile is bittersweet. It doesn’t suck to talk about anymore, but I still have to treat my shortcomings like a joke. ”It’s my mid-life crisis purchase. Yes, 24 is mid-life for me.”

I imagine him coming over- maybe getting to the point where he doesn’t even have to knock, he just comes in, having parked his fancy ass car in my garage, we laugh and play music and I crucify him at video games, eat snacks, talk, make out a little. That last part, Shit. I really shouldn’t be having those kind of thoughts seeing as I haven’t seen him in almost a decade. And we have only been reunited for under an hour. He’s just so... he’s the same, his gorgeous eyes and his uncertain, boyish smile take me back to ten years ago when we were crammed into one bunk laughing, but cautious because we were the kind of kids to think even touching a guy friend was ‘gay’. A lifetime in the critical spotlight plus a journey of self discovery over the years lead me to the conclusion that I was just that. Gay. Or, at least partially. My exact label is up for debate. Thinking about that, I consider Ryan- and I wonder whether it’s appropriate to ask. Everything feels comfortable, but. It’s a leading question. I file it away for when i have consumed more alcohol.

Maybe I will. A surge of earnest hopefulness and joy shoots through my body and I crack a smile, faint, praying to the god I don’t believe in that he isn’t just saying that in a jokey way because I would give anything to see him again after we have reunited. It feels like coming home. It’s not like throughout the past decade I have felt empty or even lacking- but here Ryan is, tall and beautiful and smart and funny and suddenly I yearn for what could have been- and now, what could be. ”I’m serious,” I say, just to make sure he doesn’t think he’s just playing along with a joke. ”Come over sometime. Whenever.” No going back from that, I muse distantly- it’s an invitation and it was not open to interpretation. It was a direct offer. Somehow, beyond my better judgment, I don’t regret it.

I am wondering whether ‘I want to see if you taste like I remember’ is acceptable grounds for kissing someone when Ryan responds to the question I forgot I asked right after asking it, mostly because I’m not even a big car person and I don’t really care how much the car is. It’s pretty, the interior is gorgeous, it’s just the kind of car someone like Ryan should have. I remember to listen to him instead of just staring. Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to ask that? Don’t know why, but people say so. ”Those people have six foot poles up their asses, don’t listen to people who have a weird thing about cars. They fuck the exhaust pipes when nobody is looking,” I reply, matter-of-factly, flashing Ryan a grin. Around $40k, not too bad. Not too bad- that’s a bargain, in my opinion. But then I don’t know much about cars. Thankfully. I have a goddamn Tesla, for fuck’s sake. ”That’s alright- and worth it, it’s fuckin... sexy.” The alcohol had gone to my head already- or at least that’s the excuse I’m using. ”...The car, that is. Although.”

I’m inside the car leaning against one of the windows and Ryan climbs in, folding up because he’s so tall and gangly in order to fit properly. He stops short of moving any closer than pretty much the edge of the car seat, and I notice, my gaze flicking down to the space between us as I wonder exactly why he won’t move closer. Because he doesn’t want to? Because he thinks I wouldn’t want him to? I’m reading too far into this, I realise- like this is a silly high school crush. I bought it after figuring out that there wouldn’t be another Young Veins record. ...Take a Vacation. Vivid memories of listening to that album when it first came out rush through my head like some kind of montage- I remember sitting and obsessing over the lyrics like a lovesick fool. Not that I have ever been in love. ”I love that record,” I say plainly, smiling at Ryan. ”It’s a real shame you stopped with just the one.”

It’s my mid-life crisis purchase. Yes, 24 is mid-life for me. ”Well, It’s not the worst mid-life crisis buy I’ve ever seen. It’s dope. And shut up, you’re still young and hot.” Still grinning, I down the glass in my hand that I’ve been carefully balancing and then I shift closer to Ryan. ”You know.” It’s meant to be the opening of a comment but it sounds more like a flat statement. ”It’s really good to see you again.” We’re closer now, and suddenly I feel that the most sensible course of action is to cut myself off there and make excuses to leave. Instead, my eyes linger stupidly on his mouth, so I take initiative and move a little further away to save myself any embarrassment. ”Everything feels the same.”