who else to blame?

IV - you could cut it with a knife

"Okay, what the hell was that?! Have you got arthritis or something, Pete? Cause it doesn't look like your hands are working right now!" Joe was pissed, band practices lately were not working out to their advantage, like at all. With Patrick and Pete still feuding with one another after the night of the interview, they were getting nothing done. Patrick was forgetting lyrics, Joe was butchering his guitar riffs, Pete was out-of-time with the drums and Andy was starting either too early or late. Everything was in shambles.

"Alright, Doldrums one more time and if we get it somewhat right, we'll finish there and come back tomorrow." Joe stated, it only took the first chorus for Patrick to be a whole line ahead of everyone else.

"Jesus, fuck!" Patrick swore, he was getting agitated and had kicked the nearest object closest to him. "What the hell is wrong with us? We haven't been this bad since we first started." He huffed and sat down, frowning.

"You're the one who was out-of-time then, not us." Pete said, putting down his bass.

"Oh, and you weren't the previous 1000 times? Don't blame this on me." Patrick scowled. "Get over yourself, Mr High-and-Mighty".

"Well fuck you too then! You're the one who's jealous of me and everything I do! You believe what the fake articles say when it benefits you, hypocrite." Pete was in Patrick's face now, only a few inches taller.

"You went there with that intention! You admitted it to me, that stuffs easy for you, isn't it? You and your perfect brown eyes and face! You can go fuck whoever you want!" Patrick was riled up now, seeing splotches of red around the musty room.

"Okay, calm the hell down." Andy wedged himself between the two. "Let's just go home. Joe, can you drive Pete back to his place? I'll take Patrick home." Before Patrick knew it, he was in Andy's old Sedan.
"So, you wanna talk about it?" Andy said, his tenor calm and reassuring.

"Uh, I guess so." Patrick shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what's gotten into Pete lately, first he treats me like a piece of garbage, then he kisses me and finally calls me a hypocrite!"

"Yeah, it's confusing. You probably won't like me saying this, but you're also riling him up as well. Though he definitely started it that time." Andy was soft spoken.

"Seriously?! You're going to-... well, I guess you're right." Patrick admitted, holding the bridge of his nose and emitting a deep sigh. He had a massive headache.

"You guys need to have a serious chat, no fighting or raised voices, just an adult conversation." Andy continued, "I also think you need to have a long think about... uh, some of the stuff you said back there and why." Patrick was confused, why would he need to think about that at all? Andy was tapping on the wheel, anticipating Patrick's response.

"Though I don't see the point in doing the latter, I should probably admit that you're likely right and I'll thank you later for it." Andy smiled and gave him a pat on the back. Patrick realised now that Andy was parked in front of his apartment complex. He bid Andy a farewell and eventually got into his apartment and ultimately, his bed.

He pondered what Andy meant by thinking of what he said during the argument. Soon after recollecting his memories, he knew exactly what he meant. Did he just call Pete's eyes and face perfect? What the hell. He'd always thought of Pete as attractive, hell, everyone did; but he never really called him gorgeous or perfect or whatever. This led Patrick to recall the feeling he felt when he saw that blog-post on Pete stumbling out of that club, it was like a trillion needles pinning into his heart with his blood raising in temperature. More importantly than that, the feeling he felt when Pete had kissed him. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was the strangest feeling he'd probably ever felt in his whole life. His heart somersaulted and man, Pete's lips were surprisingly soft.

Patrick didn't want to believe it, but it seemed it was the only reasonable idea. Patrick... liked Pete. Though it must be some silly type of crush, right? Nothing serious, he hadn't even liked a guy before in his life, well that he was aware of, anyway. When he was younger, he thought he could only be straight or gay. It wasn't until he'd started high school and ventured into the local Chicago music scene that he grasped the concept of liking both guys and girls. He'd expected all dudes who screamed for a living and wore black all the time to be as straight as possible, that was where he was wrong. He knew Pete toyed around with the idea of being with a guy, but ultimately classified as straight. But the thought of Pete liking guys seemed to make Patrick's heart beat significantly faster.

He couldn't believe it, he hoped he'd maybe been dreaming. Because the one life-bending sentence that crossed his mind right now was that Patrick was in love with Pete Wentz. Patrick opened his laptop, he needed to vent and possibly get some advice, and a secret LiveJournal account seemed to be the best option. He typed down the first words to emerge from his mind.

patrick (theultimatepariah) wrote,
2007-01-29 19:45:00

I'm in love with my best friend, I think.

Of all the things I expected to be doing right now, sitting under my bed quilt writing a kinda maybe love letter to my best friend was the last thing to cross my mind, in fact, it hadn't crossed my mind at all. As a random person on the internet, I'm not expecting this to go anywhere. It is merely just a place to vent, though venting online to millions of random people is a terrible idea. So, you, random person. Hi. I might as well start from the beginning.

It was all just something for the people to think about for a few days, a rouse. And it worked, for about half a day. With things slightly back to normal, I finally could breathe, until the world decided to punch me in the stomach, again. I saw my friend, someone who I thought I loved (platonically, at the time, anyway) with another person. It bothered me, more than it ever had before. I was dealing with this troublesome demon inside of me and I hated every moment of it. Words swirled around in my head. "Fat, pasty, excruciatingly introverted." My self-confidence hit a new low, and I used that new low to hurt that friend, and I'm not proud of it.

Don't get me wrong, the fighting wasn't one sided. It seemed we both had it out for each other, constantly bickering and hurting others around us bothered me; but I had to keep up the act as I wasn't willing to hurt my pride, stupid, I know. Today sucked, and I hate admitting it to myself because I've got something really important coming up and I can't afford to suck.

Signs kept building up, and a friend who witnessed basically all of it helped me come to this profound realization. I'm terrified, and I have no clue on what to do about it. I just wish that this would all go away, but that isn't how the world works. I can barely type of the L word, how am I supposed to admit it to them? This might ruin our friendship permanently which I don't think I could take. We're kinda each other's halves.

Advice?

p.

Patrick hit post and shut his laptop, burying himself under all his covers and doing everything in his power to filter out his doubtful, unhappy thoughts.