Do I know anything about recovery?

A few days after Brendon's funeral, I found myself in the Shufflebottom Center for my first appointment with my counselor. I worked on my Morals, Values, and Ethics homework while I waited outside her office, reading a used copy of Thus Spoke Zarathrustra by my new favorite author, Friedrich Nietzsche. There were a few other students waiting near the Mental Health Services office, but I didn't recognize any of them. After a few minutes went by, a brown-skinned woman in her thirties called me into her office and carefully closed the door.

She told me to have a seat, and I sat down on the armchair waiting in the far corner of her office. The walls were covered with inspirational posters of every variety, to the extent that it was slightly unnerving how much positivity was being exerted onto me from my counselor's office. I tried to relax, but it was nearly impossible, so I took a breath, read the name tag that my counselor was wearing, and said, "Hello Ms. Harley."

"Just call me Tazanna," she said. "You're Ryan Ross, right?" I nodded, and after asking me a handful of preliminary questions, Tazanna asked, "So Ryan, what's bothering you today? Your roommate has already told me a few things, but I'd like to hear it from you."

That was when it all spilled out. I told Tazanna everything that had happened to me over the last month, and despite my long-winded descriptions and philosophical tangents, she listened to me. It was a feeling that I wasn't used to. Usually, nobody listened when I spoke, and even Brendon had done his fair share of smiling and nodding along. Tazanna, however, was different. She took in everything that I had to say, and when all of the fuzz and stuffing had come out of me, she said, "I can see why you're having a hard time moving past your boyfriend's death, Ryan, but there is still hope out there. We'll work together, and you can make it through this."

"Is it my fault?" I asked her.

"Brendon's death?" Tazanna said. "Of course not. You said that he was an alcoholic, right?" I nodded, and she continued, "It was his disease that killed him, not you. Alcoholism is a disease, just like any other, and you can't blame yourself for it."

"I failed Brendon though," I said. "I should have done something sooner. He could have lived if I had called 911 as soon as I saw him."

"You did the best that you could," Tazanna said. "Ryan, it's not your fault. You have a long, meaningful life ahead of life, and you need to take advantage of that. Focusing on Brendon and any mistakes that you might have made won't help you. You can't be afraid to keep on living."

The rest of our forty five minute session was uneventful, but when she told me to come back at the same time the next week, those words stuck with me. Was I afraid to live? Was that what was keeping me from moving on? I considered the idea, and in the end, Tazanna was right. I was terrified of living a life without Brendon to encourage me and keep me company. What kind of life would I be living without my soulmate? Wasn't a lifetime of loneliness something that anyone would be frightened of? I wasn't afraid of dying alone, but the thought of living alone scared the hell out of me.

That night, I went to the Aubergine a little bit earlier than usual. If I was going to face my fear of living alone, I figured that I might as well start early. However, as soon as I stepped through the doors, memories of Brendon began to haunt me. I still couldn't get used to looking around the bar and not seeing his oversized forehead and goofy smile. There was a whole sea of people, but none of them were Brendon Urie. The Aubergine just wasn't the same without him. It had lost every spark of its magic.

All of a sudden, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and saw Laura. "Hi Ryan," she said. "What's up?"

"I wish Brendon was here," I said.

"Me too," Laura said. "The Aubergine's a different place now that he's gone."

"I agree," I said. "Then again, it's the people that are here that make the Aubergine so special in the first place. Wouldn't the Aubergine become a different place if any of us left?"

"That's true," Laura said. "I think Brendon had an especially large impact though, even if his aesthetic was horrible."

"You don't mean that, right?" I said.

"I meant it," Laura said. "They say to never speak ill of the dead, but Brendon's fashion sense was pretty awful."

"Laura, don't say that," Patrick interrupted. "Ryan, how did your appointment go?"

"I think it went okay," I said. "I have another appointment with Tazanna next week."

"That's good to hear," Patrick said.

I looked towards the clock and saw that it was nine in the afternoon. I ran over to the piano bench, and Spencer and I began to play. The music just wasn't the same without Brendon's voice. Knowing that I would never hear that voice again broke my heart, but I tried my best to press on. I played those chords, just like I was supposed to, and after I was done, I rushed out of the Aubergine. Being there was too painful for me to bear for more than a few hours.

However, I didn't feel like going back to the Kale University campus quite yet. Instead, I wandered around downtown Old Haven, hoping to confront a few more of my fears. I walked past the record store and the Thai restaurant, and even though it hurt, I did feel a little bit closer to Brendon. Wherever he was, I knew that he wasn't as far away as I had thought that he was. Maybe we would even see each other again one day.

I imagined Brendon walking beside me as I strolled around the town, taking in the spring air. For a moment, I felt whole again. Brendon and I were together once again, even if it was only in my mind. That moment faded away when I realized that there was nothing but empty space next to me. No matter how many times I imagined Brendon being there, I was still alone.

I returned to Flack Hall, trapped within my loneliness. Perhaps Tazanna was right. I was afraid to walk this world alone, but how could I overcome that fear when I still had all of those memories? I knew what it was like to have a soulmate, so how could I go back to being alone? I hoped that Tazanna would give me a few answers, or at least show me how to find them myself.

A few days passed by, and I realized that finals were coming up quickly. My Public Policy grades had improved, but they still weren't fantastic, so I met Pete in Beauregard Library for a tutoring session. He quizzed me for a while on every topic that we had studied in that class, and when we had finally gone through all of the questions in the review book, Pete said, "You're getting a lot better at this, Ryan."

"Thanks Pete," I said.

"I almost forgot to tell you this, but I voted for your motto," Pete said. "'The piano knows something I don't know' would be a pretty cool school motto for next year."

"I'm glad you like it," I said.

Pete laughed and then said, "I remember Brendon's face when I first told him about the fact that our motto changes every year and that it's made up by the freshman philosophy students. He didn't believe me at all."

At first, it pained me to hear Brendon's name, but my curiosity got the better of me. "Tell me more," I said.

"I explained the whole system to him, but he still didn't believe me," Pete said "I had to pull up the Kale University website on my phone to prove it. He had just dropped out of Yale, and I think that school's mindset was still ingrained into him. What's their motto anyways? Veritas or something like that?"

"That's Harvard," I said.

"Whatever," Pete said. "It's pretentious and it's in Latin. We may be getting our degrees in the gutter and our hearts broken in the dorms of the Ivy Leagues, but at least our mottos are slightly less pretentious than theirs are."

"This kind of reminds of that time when Brendon tried to get me to sign up for a musical theater class," I said. "I can't sing, dance, or act at all, but Brendon thought that I would have a shot at it for some crazy reason."

"Brendon did the same thing to me a few times," Pete said. "No matter how many times I told him that I was majoring in political science, he tried to talk me into taking musical theater."

"At least he got me to have some new experiences," I said. "I don't think that I ever would have tried vegan Rocky Road ice cream if it wasn't for Brendon."

"Brendon taught me how to play bass guitar," Pete said. "I'm still not very good at it, but maybe I'll start a band someday or something like that."

"You should," I said. "You could be a rock star, Pete."

Pete laughed and said, "Probably not, but I do have a few pieces of emo poetry that I can use for song lyrics. Then again, the poets are just kids who didn't make it..."

"Don't say that, Pete," I said. "I'm sure your poetry is brilliant. Did you know that Brendon used to have a whole room full of instruments in his apartment?"

"Really?" Pete said. "That's so cool."

"It was neat," I said. "He also had a stack of records that he couldn't actually play. That's why I wanted to get him that turntable."

"He would have loved it," Pete said sadly. "Brendon was a great musician. He always did such a great job of singing at the Aubergine."

"His voice was so beautiful," I said.

"I agree," Pete said. "Remember when he wrote that song for you? I always thought that was so cute."

"I thought so too," I said with a smile. Before long, Pete and I were doing nothing but smiling, laughing, and sharing our memories of Brendon. For once, thinking about Brendon didn't worry me anymore. I was embracing the whole house of memories that I had shared with Brendon, and it felt wonderful.

Perhaps this was proof that there were good things out there. Brendon was one of the best things that had ever happened to me, and although his death turned even my favorite memories of him into bittersweet moments, that didn't mean that they weren't worth remembering. Brendon was gone now, but I could still make more happy memories. Although would take a little bit more time to move past his death completely, I knew that I would be happy again.

After Pete and I finished our tutoring session, I headed off to the dining hall. As I walked, I wondered what the meaning of life was once again. Was it truly 42, like Mikey had said? I wasn't sure. Perhaps it was 42, or maybe it was something deeper. Was the meaning of life even worth searching for anymore? I thought that it was. There was a reason why I was here, and I had to find it. Life did have meaning, even if I had to make it for myself.

There was only one thing that I was certain of. Even if he was dead and gone, Brendon would always be there to guide me. I was never all alone.