Hallelujah

chapter thirty-four

We pulled up outside the apartment building and I felt a lump form in my throat. I took a deep breath in attempt to calm myself down but it didn't work. Patrick reached over and grabbed my hand.

"You're okay," he said, and I believed him. We walked in and I looked at Patrick.

"He doesn't keep his spare by his door because that's too obvious," I said turning down the opposite wing and into the stairwell. Once we reached the third floor I ran my hand underneath the railing and peeled off the key that had been stuck there by a piece of green duct tape.

We then walked all the way back to the right side of the building where his apartment was. I knocked on the door making sure he wasn't going to open it. After waiting a minute I put the key in the lock and opened the door slowly.

My face went pale when I saw the entire apartment fully cleaned up and in perfect condition. Everything was in its perfect spots and it looked like it hadn't been touched for a month even though just a week ago it was full of smoke from a burnt pot of noodles. We walked down the hallway and I knocked on his door, when he didn't respond I opened it slowly and found his bed made and the dresser was completely organized. There were no clothes on the floor, and there was no garbage anywhere to be found. Everything was clean.

The thing that had me most confused was that Brendon wasn't in there. I walked out and checked every room. Brendon was nowhere to be seen and my heart beat sped up as my mind raced with thoughts of where he could be.

"He's not here," I said walking back into the living room, where I had left Patrick. His face was as pale as mine and he held a crinkled piece of paper in his hands.

"I think you should see this," he said handing it to me. I took it and read through the words on the page. "I have no clue what that means," Patrick said. He removed his fedora again and ran his hands frantically through his hair, something I learned he does when he gets anxious.

"I think this means Brendon ran away," I said looking at him.

"Where would he go?" Patrick asked nervously.

"I don't know but if this was the only thing out of place in the entire apartment he left it there on purpose," I said. There was no way Brendon would leave just one thing out of place on accident, especially not a note.

"So he ran away, but he wants to be found?" Patrick asked confused.

"Wouldn't you want to be found if you were running away from your problems? Wouldn't you want to see if anyone would notice? He wouldn't leave a note like this if he didn't want to be found, I know him."

"I mean I guess I would want to see if people cared or even noticed I was gone but I don't know about him. He's always been weird like that. He's spontaneous, for all we know he could be anywhere from a hotel in town to New York. For all we know he just needed a vacation, a break from life and he could be back tomorrow. He's Brendon Urie," Patrick said trying to work everything out in his head.

"That's the thing though; we have no clue how long he's been gone. There's one thing I know for sure about Brendon though, is that he shouldn't be alone, not now. He needs to realize he can't run from this. As angry as I am at him for everything, I care about him more than anything and if anything ever happened to him I don't think I could ever forgive myself. I need to find him and I need to clear things up with him. I'm not saying that I'm just going to take him back but I need him back in my life just as much as he needs me. I need to feel that feeling I had when we would all be together. We need to find him," I said breathing heavily.

Patrick took a deep breath and put his fedora back on.

"Then I guess we're going on a little goose chase."