FicWad

Chapter 3.

Maybe he won’t find out what I know,

You were the last good thing about this part of town.

“No, Trick. It’s not like that.” Pete sighed. He was sprawled on a sofa in his living room, upside down. He liked sitting that way, with his head hanging and all the blood rushing to his brain, blocking out thoughts and memories and whatever other crap was stored in there. His best friend, Patrick Stump, shifted position on the sofa opposite him, moving so that his knees were drawn up under his chin. “So she’s really not just another one of those girls you want to get into your bed?” Patrick asked him. Pete frowned. “You make me sound like a slut.” Patrick chuckled, grinning at the upside-down Pete in front of him. It wasn’t that Patrick didn’t want his friend to get a girl, or get laid or whatever the fuck he wanted to with her, it was more the fact that Pete had a serious tendency to get overly-attached to people, and it wasn’t good for him.

Pete had come home and called Patrick right away, babbling on about dark alleys and bad ideas and roses and red hair, and Patrick had not had a clue what he was talking about. Once he’d had to basically yell at Pete to calm down and breathe, he’d figured out that Pete had apparently met some girl singing one of their songs, who had red hair and whose name was Rose. Well, that had made more sense. Pete had sounded pretty damn excited about it, but then, he could get excited over a box of cookies –this was Pete Wentz, after all.

Patrick chuckled. “You know I didn’t mean it that way.” Pete frowned for a few more seconds, and then shrugged, almost losing his grip on the sofa and falling straight on his head. Patrick snorted. “Dick.” “Shut up.” Pete replied, staring upside down out of the glass patio doors. There was short silence, during which Pete just hung there like some sort of human bat, and Patrick just watched him, not able to avoid a grin slipping onto his face. “I’m going to Charlie’s tomorrow night.” Pete said, his voice distant, almost like he hadn’t meant to say it. He watched as Patrick’s smile wavered slightly, his expression growing a little more serious, even though he was clearly trying his best to hide it. It wasn’t often Pete missed a change of body language or of expression, especially when it was someone he knew like the back of his hand, such as Patrick. However, he was never that good at reading people. Sure, he could pick up gestures and body language, but he wasn’t really that good at getting the meaning behind them, or taking hints that were probably not-that-subtle. The little waver in the grin could have been anything, or maybe he wouldn’t even have noticed it, had it been anyone else. But with Trick, there was no mistaking - it had been there.

“Oh.” Patrick tried to keep his expression neutral, tried not to change it in the slightest, because Pete would just know. That boy could read him like a book. If he had maybe said he was going out to a bar a couple of months ago, Patrick wouldn’t have thought anything of it. He had always been a little unstable, to put it that way, but with Pete, that was what you got – a genius in many ways, but with more issues and problems and fears and insecurities than anyone would ever think. No one had realised just how bad it had got – not Pete’s parents, not any of Pete’s friends, not either Joe or Andy or him, not even him, Pete’s best friend – until recently. And Patrick couldn’t help but blame himself for that. Why hadn’t he noticed sooner? What kind of friend was he, that he didn’t even realise his best friend was on a downward spiral? He was sure that Pete was trying to sort himself out, get himself back on track at the moment – but he still had his doubts, and it was a constant worry to him that Pete would sink back into the easy routine of his old ways. He understood it was hard for him, of course. There had been one or two incidents that had scared the crap out of Patrick, incidents that had seemed like some-sort of relapse.

And Pete going to a bar, in Patrick’s eyes, meant alcohol and drugs and Pete doing something stupid which he’d regret and then beat himself up about for days. It wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened. “She’s playing there. Tomorrow night.” Pete’s voice had changed, it was no longer distant and dreamy, more serious. Patrick knew that tone all too well - it was Pete’s don’t-even-go-there tone. “Oh, cool. Want me to go with you?” Pete sat up straight, squeezing his eyes shut tightly at the sudden head rush from sitting up too fast. “No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine, Trick.” He said quickly, before the younger boy could protest, looking him dead in the eye. Patrick nodded. There was nothing Pete hated more than people trying to ‘look out for him’ or ‘look after him’ like he was some kid that couldn’t care for himself.

Pete sighed quietly, more to himself than anything. He hadn’t missed that slightly worried undertone in Patrick’s voice. He was just concerned about Pete, but it was one of those times when Pete couldn’t bear to have people on top of him, worrying about him, all over him – it was just too suffocating. Funny, because most of the time he would be clamouring for attention, pulling out all the stops to get people to notice him. He was weird that way – he thrived on attention – hence playing in a pretty famous band, and somehow making a fair amount of magazine headlines - but sometimes everything just got way too overwhelming, and he’d find himself snapping at somebody he couldn’t have gotten enough of the day before. He annoyed himself by being that way, but for some reason he couldn’t seem to help it.

“Pete? You wanna play for a bit?” Pete glanced over at Patrick, who nodded his head in the direction of the latest gaming console resting beneath Pete’s TV. He and the band had their own apartment smack-bang in the middle of LA, but Pete had also splashed out on his own place about three months ago, after he’d moved back out of his parents’ house. He still spent a fair amount of time at the band’s place, but he did need his own space and his own time, and he kind of liked living by himself. Of course, there was usually someone round his, it wasn’t often he was actually alone. He even had a spare room with an array of his friends’ clothing, just in case one of them – or more than one of them – decided to stay round for an impromptu sleepover. It happened a fair amount. Pete nodded and flipped onto his stomach, dragging himself on his hands across the room with his feet still hooked over the edge of the sofa. He switched the TV on and then the console, grabbing a controller and throwing it at Trick, then taking one for himself.

***

Pete had wondered if he should wear something special or different to the bar instead of his usual combination of skinny jeans and hoodies, but after ten minutes of just staring at his seemingly endless rack of clothes, he realised that he apparently owned nothing but skinny jeans and hoodies. He wriggled – there was no better way to put it - his way into the over-tight jeans and pulled a t-shirt over his head. Next came the hair-drying and then the flat iron, running it through his hair until his bangs were dead-straight and swept to the side. Pete stared for half a second at the black eye pencil resting on the sink, debating whether to wear any or not, but grabbed it anyway, ringing his eyes in smudged black. His technique was usually just shove it on and hope for the best, although on the days when his hands shook and twitched with nerves or stress or something else he always ended up with thicker circles. Once he was ready, Pete grabbed his car keys and phone, leaving the apartment and jogging down the stairs. He’d always preferred the stairs to the elevator. There was something he didn’t like about the mirrored walls and the small space, the way his stomach always dropped when it jolted to a start, the feeling of being caged in. No, that definitely wasn’t a good feeling. Even if there were four flights of stairs until the bottom floor, Pete would much rather walk them than suffer the constricting press of the elevator.

He was early to the bar. He’d done some digging and found out that the live music or whatever it was started at eight, but he was waiting outside at half-past seven. He sat inside the car for a few moments once he’d parked by the sidewalk near Charlie’s, watching his leg jig up and down – a sure sign he was nervous. Or that he’d forgotten to take some of his medication. His forehead creased into a frown as he tried to recall exactly what and how many pills he’d taken that morning, getting slightly annoyed when he literally couldn’t remember. He had to take so much medication for this, that and every other disorder or illness or whatever the fuck was wrong with him, that he was forever getting confused with what he was meant to take and when he was meant to take it. Pete sighed, the sound loud in the silence of the car, resting his head back against the seat.

By the time he’d convinced himself it was okay to go inside, Pete’s leg was jigging worse than ever, and he was starting to wish he’d actually paid attention to his pills that morning. Pete pulled the hood of his jacket over his head. It was stupid, but he did it all the time, like that was going to hide who he was or make people notice him less. It seemed that it was another one of those times when Pete Wentz didn’t want to be Pete Wentz, but just another blurred face that could be anyone or anything he wanted to be, or, better yet, anonymous.

One of Pete’s biggest problems was exactly what to order in bars. Sure, in a restaurant with food, it was fine to order just a plain coke, or even water. But in a bar? Pete wasn’t supposed to be having alcohol or any other substance that could make him get slightly out of his mind (something Pete thought was ridiculous, because there were plenty of other ways to do that – there were always other ways – but whatever his therapist said), although he drew the line at the occasional cigarette or beer in times of need. And right then, in that very moment, Pete decided that it was a time of need.

Once he’d gotten his beer, he found a small table in a dark corner from where he could see the stage. Charlie’s was probably the sort of bar you could have found him in a couple of years back, the kind with the little stage and the empty floor space for supposed mosh-pits, random tables placed around the perimeter. He stared at the condensation forming on the cold glass, droplets dribbling down the smooth surface until they reached the table, forming a small pool surrounding the base of the glass. He was reliving it all: the smell of thirty other people’s sweat, mixed in with the stale stench of alcohol and cigarette smoke; the way your feet stuck to the ground, the floor coated with sticky spilt drinks and God-knew-what else, as you shuffled to get past someone; the burn of a shot of tequila in the back of your throat, or the bitter taste from a pill or tab left on your tongue for too long; the beat of the drums and bass pulsing through your body as you pressed closer against the stranger in front of you, every individual forming part of a humming, throbbing mass.

He missed it. Well, at least, he thought he missed it. He couldn’t really be sure. A good part of those years were a huge blur, like smudged ink on a just-printed photograph. He could vaguely make out what had happened, but the details were vague – very vague. He woke up half the time in a bed that wasn’t his, next to a person he may or may have not slept with, or sometimes he didn’t wake up, mainly because he could never get to sleep. He’d done a lot of shit he wasn’t proud of, a lot of shit he couldn’t even remember, but it had made everything easier, or at least, he’d convinced himself that it had. It was meant to, anyway.

Pete rubbed his thumb over the damp glass, making a clear window through all the tiny little droplets, then lifted it to his lips and took his first sip. The bar had filled with people, he noticed, while he’d been daydreaming – could it be classed as daydreaming if what you were thinking of was, figuratively speaking, a nightmare? There were a couple of people sitting around at tables like his, groups of people standing by the bar, ordering drinks, and then a larger mass of people on the dance floor or whatever it was called. He wondered when Rose would perform. Or if she was even here yet. Was she one of the people there laughing and talking all-too-loudly, or was she in the back tuning her guitar and warming up? Half of him was all set to go search for her, half of him apprehensive and wanting to get the hell out of there.

One of the things about Pete was the way he got such high expectations for people, sometimes people he barely knew, sometimes people he’d never even met, and was constantly let down by it. You’d have thought, after a lifetime of the same thing, the same old shit, he’d have realised that no one is as perfect or as good or as talented or as anything as he expected them to be, wanted them to be. But no, every single time was just a letdown, sending him crashing back down to earth and wrenching his head from the clouds. And he really, really didn’t want Rose to be a letdown. He’d dreamed her up in his head the night before, imagining her personality, her likes and dislikes, her story. People never seemed to turn out how he wanted them to be.

Pete shifted his chair round to face the stage when someone appeared on it, microphone in hand. He presumed that the young guy was one of the waiters or maybe even the barman, announcing the line-up for that night. Pete paid no attention until he heard the words ‘Rose Harper’. Was that her name? Was that her? Was it another Rose? Pete was on edge again, fingers tapping impatiently against the still-cold beer glass.

He sat his way through apparently endless acts of bands and solo artists, some of them good, some of them average, and some of them downright awful. And then she was on stage. His heart began hammering in his chest and his breathing quickened. This was it. She was wearing the same ripped jeans she’d been wearing the other day – Pete had to wonder if it was weird that he remembered the exact pants she’d had on – along with an oversized chequered shirt, and those scuffed-up old boots. Her reddish hair was tumbling in messy waves over her right shoulder, and Pete could clearly see her bright green eyes glittering from his seat in the back. Before he could even register it, she was sitting on the stool on stage, adjusting the microphone, guitar resting on her lap. “So, uh, I’m just gonna go straight in with one of my favourite songs.” She spoke, glancing around the room. Her voice sounded the same as it had when they’d spoken the other day. He didn’t know why he expected it to have changed. Pete wondered if she was looking for him. “It’s called Grand Theft Autumn.”

And then his heart, which had previously been slamming so hard he was sure it was about to fly out of his chest, stopped. That was his song. Well, his and Trick’s, but same thing. His mind began racing with thoughts. Had she known he was coming? Had the policemen told her about the weird guy asking after her? Had she deliberately sung that particular song, for him? He closed his eyes, wanting to watch her sing, watch her talented fingers strum at the guitar strings, but also wanting to get lost in the music, the lyrics, and the sweet tone of her voice. So far, Rose hadn’t let him down.