Running out of the coffee shop was the easy part. Now Ryan was faced with the decision of where he should go. All his friends are either at work or with their girlfriends – or in Will’s case with his boyfriend—so it’d be pretty damn uncomfortable to barge in with his sob story about Brendon not remembering their love. Tears were close to falling and Ryan needed to get out of the public’s eye and somewhere private before he lets his tears fall.

Now, his options aren’t as wide; he cannot go home, the note is there and he still hasn’t read it. No friends to turn to at this moment to run to and use their shoulder to cry on. He turns his head a few times to look around him only to notice the small cluster of trees not too far from him. The park was indeed only a few blocks away from the coffee shop, and it was the perfect place to get away from things.

A small chime brought him back to reality and he made the mistake of looking to see what it was. The door of the coffee shop was open and Brendon was walking out, and he looked determined to say the least. The second their eyes locked Ryan started running as fast as he could, which is pretty damn fast. After years spent running from problems one becomes a great runner. Within five minutes Ryan is turning to a little hide-away in the trees and collapsing on the grass. The tears are hot on his cheeks and his heart is pounding away in his ears. His sobs are borderline hysterical and he’s sure that anyone who may be passing by will hear. Not that he cares very much.

“George Ryan Ross, where the hell did you learn to run that fast?” a voice asked him. The voice was hesitant yet bold, everything was beautiful when that voice spoke, but that wasn’t enough to help Ryan calm down. Instead his heart rate increased tenfold and he couldn’t catch his breath. No one called him by his first name unless there is something wrong or the person just met Ryan. Even then they soon learned that Ryan hated the name George and couldn’t stand being called that so they too started calling him Ryan as well. Even Suarez rarely remembered that his name isn’t really Ryan.

So back to the voice and how it called him by his full name and mentioned that he ran faster than before. It was true, in high school Ryan was the slowest kid in gym, and that bothered most people because they had to wait for him to finish before they could do any other activity. Only the people who knew him back then knew this fact, and only a select few knew his full name. Ryan slowly lifted his head off the ground to look at the person who was standing at the entrance of the small clearing. There stood Brendon, his hair slightly winded, his breath not quite regular. No one could have helped him with those facts that he knew, which meant one thing: Brendon remembered.

A sudden shock of anger shot through Ryan. If Brendon remembered then why the hell did he pretend not to know him back in the shop? Why would someone do that to the ones they loved? That was simple, loved being the key word in the sentence. Maybe four years ago Brendon wouldn’t think of doing something like that, but now they were strangers who used to know each other. It’s slightly unsettling to think that way about Brendon. He was so used to only remembering love that they shared during their relationship that the thought of being forgotten made Ryan’s stomach turn in very uncomfortable ways. The tears are still running down his face, but the sobbing has subsided, which in Ryan’s opinion is great news.

“You remember? You fucking remember?” Ryan all but screamed at the other boy, his face a little splotchy from the anger bubbling inside as well as the tears that were running down his cheeks.

“Of course I remember, Ryan. I just—” he began to speak only to be cut off by Ryan.

“No, you don’t get to explain, you knew that I love you, and you still left leaving a note to explain things. Honestly, did you think that’d be enough? Did you really think that a note will make things ok?” Ryan stopped his speech to take a breath that he desperately needed. It was almost too much to be going through this. He imagined hundreds upon thousands of scenarios about this very moment, but this was by far the very worst.

Brendon looked so small with his shoulders hunched over and his head lowered. His eyes were dull and pained, he looked like he was about to give up. But he spoke again; his voice sounded broken like nothing could ever work out in his life.

“I knew it would be like this, but I couldn’t not leave,” his voice broke off for a second before he started again. “You didn’t read the note did you? Of course not, I should have known better than give you something to read before leaving.”

He shook his head slightly, disappointment showing easily, but what made him so upset? He wasn’t the one who was left alone! But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t miss you, dumb ass. A small voice in Ryan’s head told him. It could be true; maybe Brendon really did miss him while he was gone. A small sigh left Ryan’s lips.

“Where did you go, Bren? Why didn’t you call or visit or something, anything? It hurt to lose you, you know, I’m not that strong, or at least I wasn’t four years ago.” Ryan’s voice held no anger that was there earlier when he spoke, looking at Brendon right now would make anyone go slightly mushy. He looked that defeated. Plus it’s not like Ryan could be mad at him for more than 10 minutes. Things are still the same in a strange way. Things change and they stay the same, well this is very much the same as before all this happened, like they are still together and they had their first fight. Maybe things could go back to the way they were. 

A/N: Ok, so this chapter I’m not completely happy with, but that’s fine. I am very sorry for the wait on this chapter the flash drive that had all my slash stuff on it decided to randomly disappear on me and taking the half written chapter with it, so you’re getting this one. I want to thank those who comment this fic, and encourage those who read it to comment it. =] I always love to get comments and always reply. What else was I gonna say—oh yeah, I have posted a Request a Fic feel free to stop by there. If anyone wants or gets really bored could someone make a banner for this story? If not then it’s fine. Again thanks for reading and commenting it really keeps me going.

-Natasha.