She's My Winona (Patrick Stump Fanfiction)

Sugar We're Going Down

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

I've been dying to tell you anything you want to hear,

'Cause that's just who I am this week...

~

Do you know what unrequited love feels like?

Yeah, you probably do. I think everyone experiences it at least once in their life. So I guess you're familiar already with the symptoms associated with one-way affliction.

It eats through you, burning your chest until it burns your whole body everytime the person is near. It makes you want to cry―break down in desperation, because sometimes it gets too much, it gets too much just how much you love them and you know you will never get them. It makes you want to just get up and be brave, and get up and kiss them. You want to kiss them, every minute of every day of every week of every month of every year. It makes you want to change, so that you can be better for them, so that maybe they'll feel the same. But you just gotta bottle all these feelings up, to avoid embarrassment and, inevitably, insanity. You can't let these feelings ruin your life.

Now, I'm not going to bullshit you and tell you there's "plenty more fish in the sea". Because yeah, that's true in a sense, but if you're in love then nobody else will even compare for a very long time. You won't be able to look at anyone in the same way. It takes ages to get over being in love with someone. Sometimes you never do get over it.

Trust me, I know. I'm not over it, and it's been about 5 years. I'm in unrequited love right now. With, even more awkwardly and frustratingly, my best friend in the whole world.

His name is Patrick.

I have my two best friends, Katie and Izzy. Then I have my other friends, Pete, Joe and Andy. But Patrick has always been the friend.

You know what I kind of friend I mean? Where you've been friends with someone for so long, you just feel so connected with them. Like you and the best friend share something so special that you could never share with anyone else, and you don't know what the something is, but it still binds you together. And you let it bind the two of you. Because you want it to.

We've been friends since we were kids. We live in a fairly big city called Evanston, not far from Chicago, but still we found each other. Two people destined to meet found each other by chance. What if we'd gone to different kindergartens? I mean, where would I be without him? Must be fate.

Pat believes in stuff like that. He believes in fate and destiny, because he says he doesn't believe in God, but one should always believe in something.

We're both now sixteen. About eleven years of friendship. Same kindergarten, same schools. And now we're both Juniors. And the more time goes on, I love him more and more, and it hurts more and more. Because he's the kindest, funniest, sweetest, most talented, gorgeous and thoughtful person I have ever met.

I wish I could tell him. I've been dying to tell him. But I know my feelings won't be reciprocated, and I'll be crushed from the rejection. I'm not sure I'm ready for that pain at the moment. I've only told Izzy and Katie about my feelings and I don't intend to tell anyone else.

Still, at least he's single. I know that sounds stupid, but there's always that to take comfort in. I don't have anyone to be jealous of and feel any worse about it. Also, I'd be scared of losing our closeness. Every morning we walk to school together, spend recesses and classes together, then walk home together. All together. If he got a girlfriend I don't think she'd like us being that close.

Thank God he's single.

~

I'm on my way to his house right now, actually. Dressed in an old, plaid flannel shirt over a black vest, both equally as unexciting as my caked-in-mud Converse and skinny jeans. I never wear make-up, but lately I've been wearing a little flicked eyeliner in the hope it would make me more appealing to Pat. So far, no progress. In fact, I'm not sure I will get any progress on that front. I don't look any different, truth be told.