When All the Stars Align (For You and I)

when all the stars align.

Oh, right. Tomorrow's Valentine's Day.

The thing is—Patrick used to care about Valentine's Day. He did. He cared about it because Pete cared about it, Pete the ridiculous romantic with his candies and his cards and his hallways proposals and his cheesy Communist one-liners ("I've got a five-year plan for you and me, baby" *winky face*). But then there was Ashlee, and then graduation, and somehow all his friends managed to acquire s/o's despite being awkward music nerds, and now—now he's here. Sitting in his room. Talking to Pete, who has a girlfriend.

"Nope," he says. "No plans whatsoever."

"Not even a hot date? No chocolate festival? Commercialized love only comes once a year, you know."

"My hot date is with F. Scott Fitzgerald," Patrick deadpans. "And so help me god, if you mention that festival one more time—"

"I'm just finding it hard to believe that your sweet, sweet ass would be all alone on Valentine's Day, 'Trick, can you blame me?"

"No, I guess not," Patrick sighs. He's about to hate himself for what he says next, he can feel it. "You're excited, I get it. I mean, we can't all date Ashlee Simpson, can we?"

The line goes silent. Patrick looks at his phone, makes sure they haven't been disconnected, then brings it back to his ear. "Pete?" he asks. "Pete, you there?"

He waits a beat, then another. Then another. Then:

"Ash is in Colorado."

Patrick nearly drops the phone. "Wait, really?"

"Yeah, we kinda—kinda fought, y'know, there was this whole huge thing, I said some stupid shit and she said some stupid shit and I might've called her a bitch or whatever, and then—yeah. She said she'd go visit some friends so I could finish 'licking my wounds.' Her words, not mine."

Ash is in Colorado.

Pete and Ashlee fought, and now Ashlee's in Colorado.

Somewhere in the back of Patrick's head, a door opens. A lightbulb goes off. Pete is alone on Valentine's Day. For the first time in two years, Pete has no one to spend Valentine's Day with.

"Do you—" He clears his throat. "You want me to come out there?" he asks.

Part of him feels kind of awful about it, that Pete's having trouble with his girlfriend and Patrick's immediate response is to drive down to visit him, like the clingy mistress or whatever but—it's not like that. They're friends. They can do friend-things on Valentine's Day, like normal friends do.

He taps his highlighter against the surface of his notebook, waiting for a response. "What about your date with F. Scott Fitzgerald?" says Pete.

"He can wait."

There's another long pause as Pete considers, but Patrick can already feel anticipation tugging at his chest. He hasn't seen Pete in six months. He and Pete haven't spent Valentine's Day together in two years. He feels a lot like a preteen girl with a crush, but honestly? He can't bring himself to care.

"All right," Pete says finally. "Suck it, Fitzy. Let's go take on the world, Rickster."

If he wasn't by himself, if he had Joe or Andy or Gabe or whoever in the passenger seat of his hand-me-down Camry, and they asked him what the fuck he was doing up at 7:30 dragging his ass out to Santa Cruz on Valentine's Day weekend to see a college guy who was seeing someone else, Patrick would say he had no clue.

He'd be lying, of course. As it is, he has no reason to lie, because he's by himself and he's got miles and miles of highway to contemplate the millions of little moments and decisions that have brought him to this point. He pulls out of his mom's driveway, and he's thinking of his freshman year, of Love Week and the moment he realized, some seven months after they met, that he's always kind of had a thing for Pete Wentz.