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the notebook had been buried in a cardboard box labeled “old shit - do not open” in ryan’s looping handwriting from back when he still dotted his i’s with little stars. the box sat at the bottom of a closet in his current apartment, the one with too many plants and not enough light, the one he’d moved into after the young veins fizzled and the cocaine haze finally lifted for good. it was march, cold rain tapping the windows like impatient fingers, and insomnia had him up at 3 am again.
he hadn’t meant to find it. he’d been looking for an old guitar cable, something to plug into the acoustic gathering dust in the corner. one box tipped, another slid, and there it was: black moleskine, edges frayed, spine cracked from being carried in back pockets through too many airports and tour buses.
ryan sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor, the notebook open in his lap like a wound. the first page had a date scrawled in messy scrawl: january 2008. pretty odd era. the time when everything felt like honey and thorns at once.
he flipped slowly. the handwriting changed depending on the mood: blocky capitals when he was angry, smaller cursive when he was soft, ink smudged where tears or sweat or spilled coffee had hit the page.
the first few were recognizable fragments.
“your eyes are the size of the moon” crossed out, rewritten, crossed out again. next to it: “too obvious? fuck it.”
then something new.
“i chase your shadow down the hall / but the lights are always off / so i can pretend you’re still here / molding me in the dark”
ryan read it aloud, voice cracking on the last word. the room swallowed the sound.
he kept going.
half the pages were love songs disguised as metaphors. sun and moon imagery everywhere, brendon had always been the sun, bright and burning, ryan the moon, cold and distant, reflecting what he couldn’t generate himself.
“you burn so bright i forget how to breathe / but when you leave the room goes black / and i’m left staring at the ceiling / counting the ways i fucked this up”
another: “spinning stars on your fingernails / but they never land on me / because i run every time you reach”
some were goodbye letters in verse.
“if i disappear into the static / will you still hear my voice in the chorus? / or will the melody forget my name / like i forgot how to stay”
ryan’s throat closed. he remembered the cabin, late nights with acoustic guitars and whiskey, brendon humming melodies while ryan scribbled. they’d laughed then. they’d touched without thinking. shoulders, knees, fingers brushing over frets.
but the later pages hurt more.
dated june 2009, right before the split announcement.
“love me. love me. say that you love me. / i can’t care about anything but you.”
below it, in smaller letters: “he won’t say it. he never does.”
ryan stared at the words until they blurred. he’d remembered his own tweet back then, june 23, 2009. the exact phrasing. brendon replied days later with “i love love love you.” three loves, matching the plea. he’d told himself it was a joke, a callback, nothing serious. fans ate it up. he pretended it didn’t carve something out of his chest.
the next page was torn halfway, jagged edge like it’d been ripped in anger.
“you left the ghost in the bed / the one i can touch but can’t rest beside / because touching means admitting / and admitting means losing”
ryan whispered it to the empty room. his voice sounded foreign, thin.
there were more.
“i’m the fever you can’t sweat out / but you’re the cure i never took”
“your smile is a spotlight / and i’m still hiding in the wings”
one page just said: “brendon” over and over, like a prayer or a curse, ink bleeding where the pen pressed too hard.
ryan closed his eyes. memories crashed in waves.
brendon in the studio, headphones on, singing ryan’s words back to him with that voice, like velvet wrapped around broken glass. the way brendon’s hand would linger on ryan’s wrist when correcting a chord. hotel rooms shared because “it’s cheaper,” doors locked, lights low, breaths syncing.
the fights. the silences. the way ryan pulled away because closeness felt like drowning. the drugs that made everything sharper and then softer. the night he chose the high over the conversation brendon begged for.
“i’m sorry,” ryan said to the notebook. “i’m so fucking sorry.”
he turned to the last entry. dated july 5, 2009, one day before the press release.
“if i go to hell / will you come with me? / or will you stay in the light / where you belong”
below it: “i think i already know the answer.”
nothing after that. the rest of the pages were blank, like he had run out of words. or run out of hope.
ryan sat there until his legs went numb. the rain kept falling. the clock ticked past 4 am.
he thought about texting. he still had the number, though it hadn’t been used since 2011. “found something,” he could type. “your love still feels the same in my head.”
but he didn’t.
instead he read them again. aloud. every one. voice breaking on the love songs, steady on the goodbyes, like saying them now could rewrite the ending.
“you already did,” he murmured at the last line of one. “at least enough to keep me smiling from south carolina to virginia.”
he remembered writing that himself once, in a livejournal post years ago. brendon had quoted it back to him once, drunk and laughing. “poetic fucker.”
ryan laughed, short and painful. it sounded like a sob.
when dawn crept gray through the blinds he finally closed the notebook. he didn’t put it back in the box. he set it on the coffee table, open to the first page.
maybe tomorrow he’d scan the pages. send them anonymously to brendon through some mutual friend. or maybe he’d burn them. or keep them forever, proof that once upon a time someone loved him enough to write it down.
he stood, knees cracking, and walked to the window. the city was waking up. somewhere, brendon was probably already awake, kids running around, husband making coffee, life moving forward like it was supposed to.
ryan pressed his forehead to the cold glass.
“i loved you more than the music,” he said quietly.
the words hung there, finally spoken.
no one answered.
but for the first time in years the silence didn’t feel like punishment.
it felt like forgiveness he hadn’t earned yet.