*Extra long chapter today since it's twelve light-years late!*
When I wake up in the morning everything's different.
The sound of cars driving far down below this apartment, the gentle humming of Patrick, fast asleep, the chirping of daredevil birds, soaring around the building: it all seems different.
Melodic. Like I've been given a new, bright view of the world. Like I'm watching it from the clouds.
Had anyone told me this is what it would've felt like, to be in love with him, then I wouldn't have denied it for so long.
And when Patrick eventually wakes up, and his eyes flutter open he'll know how I feel. No more confusion, no more anything.
This is it, this is all there is to it.
To be simple, free. It's nothing we ever wanted, but now we have it, why let go?
Besides, speaking from experience, it's not like anyone gets a choice in what they hold on to.
So we're just happy enough to be pulled along, together.
He murmurs something incomprehensible in his sleep, and I kiss his forehead and pretend it was the same as the confession I made last night.
The confession I'll make everyday until no longer is it a confession but just is.
"What time is it?" He mumbles, voice thick with sleep. He turns his head on the pillow, hair sticking up in wild directions like overgrown grass.
I tell him he needs a haircut while my fingers twirl little strands of his mane into curls. They stick for a brief second and then unravel into brushed-out waves.
"If I have time, maybe I'll get one." He flattens down his hair in the spots I've made unruly and gives me a disapproving look, like I'm trying to stall time.
So what if he's right? In here, in this moment, we've got all the time in the world. Except Patrick rolls his eyes at me when I say it and sits up, stretching halfheartedly before straining his eyes to see the clock on the wall across the room.
"You need to invest in an alarm clock." He comments, his shoulders sloping when he sees that we slept in.
Patrick moves to get out of the bed, and stretches again when he does, as if he's now the one stalling for time.
"I can't stick around, I've got things to sort out before I leave." We both look away from each other when he says it. We look back and he stares at me with pleading eyes and I can almost see the 'don't let me leave' on his lips.
"At least let me make you breakfast." I ignore the look and stand up, being careful not to trip down the small steps in my morning haziness.
"Okay." He says sighing, defeated in our battle again. We make our way to the kitchen, while I tell myself I'm doing what's best for him. I'm letting him breathe, escape.
I sit at the dining table, following Patrick with watchful eyes as he danders around my kitchen, a light, angelic air to his steps, as if he's walking on eggshells.
But then I remember there's nothing left for us to break, no dark clouds looming overhead.
Only one, bitter breath of wind to blow us apart.
But he wants that, he wants to leave Chicago. And who am I to forbid him?
"Do you know where you're going yet?"
"Hm?" He twirls around on his heels to face me, with a momentarily confused face. "Oh. Yeah, turns out there's a company in East London that's looking for musicians to put on small shows for charity. Raise money for the homeless and stuff. It's not really a solid arrangement, but..."
"Figures you'd be doing charity work."
"What can I say? I'm America's sweetheart."
Patrick opens a few more cupboards and his eyebrows furrow. He looks over to me with an amused look, "You still don't have any proper food, do you?"
"I don't? Well, I guess we'll have to go out for breakfast, then."
"Pete, I don't have time." Patrick stresses, checking the, much more visible, clock in my kitchen.
"You can do everything tomorrow." I wrap my arms around his waist, pressing a soft kiss onto his lips.
"I haven't got much time left." He says quietly, smiling dishearteningly at me.
"Exactly."
He gives in, with a swift exhale and tells me he loves me. I smile knowing I can say it straight back.
"We're not going out though, I'm taking you grocery shopping."
"Patrick."
* * * * *
"Right, what do you need?"
"Um..." I look at the shopping list Patrick scribbled down earlier while he was dashing back and forth through my kitchen. "Everything?"
He sighs, pushing the shopping cart forward down the isle, "I know. I realised. What have you been living off?"
"Takeout and cereal." I say absentmindedly, putting some breakfast bars in the cart and asking him if that's practical enough for him.
He says it isn't, and puts it back.
"You don't even have any cereal." He points out and I falter for a second, realising he's right before continuing down the isle, pulling the cart along from the front, to Patrick's dismay.
"Takeout." I correct myself and I hear Patrick groan deeply behind me.
"I think I need to get you a personal chef." He laughs, and although I know he's joking, you never quite know with Patrick.
"You're a pretty good cook. Why don't you just make all my meals for me?" I suggest, only partially kidding.
"I'm not driving to your apartment every time you want spaghetti hoops in the microwave." He mocks, and I put the hand I had reaching out towards the 5 pack of spaghetti hoops down, sourly.
"Well, why don't you just stay with me?"
Patrick stops the cart in its track and I jolt forward a few steps, off balanced. I turn around, ready to yell at him but he looks so in awe that I'm just as shocked.
"What?"
"You couldn't have asked that a couple of months back?" Patrick asks, and I roll my eyes at him for being so over dramatic.
"Timing wasn't right." I shrug, smirking and Patrick starts pushing the cart again, making me jolt forward, off-balance again.
"Fine, how about this? We'll get groceries, then while you're putting them in your kitchen in their proper place, I'll go home and pack for England." He suggests, emphasising the 'in their proper place' when I give him a look like he's underestimating me.
"Listen, I know where groceries go." I boast in a monotonous tone like he's still underestimating me. Then I pause, looking at the small amount we've got in the cart already. "I think."
* * * * *
It was supposed to be a quiet night in. But apparently that isn't Patrick and I's style because one hour into our 'quiet night' we invite a bunch of our friends over to fill the vow of silence.
And two hours in, one short tour of my apartment and a passive remark to Patrick that next time we're going to his later everyone's moved onto the exciting topic of 'Patrick and I.'
"So it's finally official, huh?" Alex muses beside Jack, who's grinning like an idiot.
"Yeah, guess so." I say with slight suspicion because as soon as I say 'yeah' Alex sighs and digs into his pocket for a $20 note and hands it to Jack who smooths it out on his knee and holds it up to the light.
"Wait, you were betting on us not getting together?"
"Actually," Jack says, "I was betting on you getting together."
"Come on guys, you did actually know we'd always end up together. Right?" I ask to everyone's unenthusiastic faces. "Right?"
"To be completely honest Pete, even I wasn't sure you'd-" Brendon starts to say before I cut him off with a sharp glare.
"I mean, yeah guys, seriously." He corrects, pulling at the collar of his shirt, avoiding my eyes.
"How long is it until you leave, anyway?" Gabe cuts in, to the apparent relief of everyone else, who seemed to be avoiding the topic.
"I think it's ten days?" Patrick looks at me for confirmation, unsure of himself.
"Yeah." I mumble behind my glass. And although Patrick falters at the question, trying to remember, I have it down to a second; like a time-bomb going counting down in my head.
"God, that's soon. Must be tough on you both." Gabe says in a dull tone. I see Brendon squirming in his seat beside him, sitting on his hands as if he's afraid he'll grab Patrick and I and handcuff us together or something if he doesn't.
"We're just trying to make the best of things before I go." Patrick says in his usual positive hosting voice with a broad smile. He almost looks convincing.
Brendon snaps at that and pulls his hands out from under him in an explosion of hand gestures. "Can't you just stay? Why are you both-" He rushes out, eyes wide and desperate.
"Brendon." I say firmly, giving him a small shake of my head. He stops mid hand gesture and slides them under his thighs again, looking like I've pulled an invisible zip over his mouth.
"Sorry." He says quietly. Patrick and I nod at him and the conversation moves forward without another word about it.
A little while later, Brendon and everyone else has perked up again, laughing and joking and suddenly Brendon stands up and downs the rest of his drink.
"I'm gonna get another drink, anyone want one?" He offers, to which everyone replies with, of course, yes - even though no one's finished theirs except Brendon.
"Pete, come help me carry them out." He commands and I raise an eyebrow at him because there's only six of us and Brendon has weird skill when it comes to carrying glasses because he worked in a bar for three summers in a row once.
People called him spindle-fingers, but Brendon was never very into computer technology, and thought they meant the sewing kind of spindle for two of those summers.
Recently he got a job in another bar- which Ryan was pretty pleased with because now Brendon makes him cocktails all the time.
I'm sure there's another, creepier, reason for it though, knowing them.
"Uh... okay." I agree, ready to pull out the backstory when we get into the kitchen but Brendon doesn't stop to give me time to speak to him.
He moves surprisingly quickly around my kitchen, finding things quicker than I can. Patrick changed everything when he came back from packing, so I might as well not have put the groceries away at all.
"I'm sorry for the outburst." He says, pouring straight vodka into the glasses after each other, not spilling a single drop.
I think a lot of the reason we invited him around is because he makes amazing drinks.
Patrick and I can only pour wine. And we've already done that every night this week.
"It's cool. I was kinda frustrated at first too." I tell him, watching him whiz about, finding the different liqueurs we bought today, from when we were intending to make drinks ourselves tonight.
The countertop is sticky and strawberry flavoured now. Brendon makes a face when he puts his hand on it for a moment.
"You're not anymore?" He inquires, sounding overly-casual, and I can still hear the shock in his voice.
"Well... it's just what happens, isn't it?" I ask, trying to grab one of the bottles to help him, but he slaps my hand away with his sticky, liqueur-coated one.
"Not really."
"He doesn't want to stay in Chicago anymore, what am I supposed to do about that?" I ask, slightly exasperated. Brendon sighs to himself, pouring weird toppings into the glasses as everyone requested. I don't think that's why he's sighing though. Not until he gets to Gabe's glass who asked for a sparkler in his, then he does sigh at that.
I hand him the matches and he holds them far away from his face when he strikes them, lest he light his fringe on fire again.
It was one time, but he's never forgotten it.
"You can make him stay, Pete." He says like it's the easiest task in the world. "You're in love with each other. Do what's right." I'm a little surprised when he says it, because straight after he goes back to acting like he didn't. Only focusing on the task at hand, acting like he didn't drag me out here to talk about this.
His pretending has gotten a lot better, at least. If this was high school, he'd be scheming right now.
If this was high school I wouldn't let Patrick leave.
But it's not, and it's not my decision.
"I am." I tell him, but I feel like I'm arguing with a brick wall because he's passive in response, no reaction at all like he's rehearsed this conversation already. Maybe this is a scheme.
"You're not." He says shortly, as if that's the only answer.
"It might not be what's right for me but-"
"Who are you kidding?" He asks, and this time he does stop to look at me, but only for a second before he's relighting the match he blew out when he sighed again as I spoke.
"No one. I'm-"
"Being stupid." Brendon finishes for me, smirking slightly, sparkler in hand. He holds it a little too long and it burns him. He yelps and drops it straight into Gabe's drink.
He doesn't seem to care too much.
"Just carry the damn drinks out, Brendon." I snap, tired of having this conversation. Every time I see Brendon we have this conversation. Maybe that's why he's not reacting. Maybe I'm predictable. Maybe I'm in the wrong here.
Or maybe this is another scheme.
"Pete-"
"I don't have time for this." I say, even though I've nothing else to do. "The only reason we invited you all tonight was so we could hang out together one more time. You don't have to stay." I tell him, trying to tug on his heartstrings with the 'one more time.' He doesn't change his bored expression. I almost change my mind and tell him he was only brought because of the drinks. But that's not strictly true.
Although I certainly didn't bring him to have this argument again.
"At least think about it." Brendon grabs all the drinks in his spindle-fingers, proving that he didn't need me after all. I grab a bag of ice so I don't go out empty handed. Brendon gives me an offended look like he wouldn't dare fail to provide the perfect amount of ice.
It's the most emotion he's had in this kitchen so far.
Then again he teared up when he saw the worktop... told me again that he wasn't going to leave, but he sounded a lot more serious that time.
"I don't need to. I've made my decision."
"Then rethink it." He demands, still managing to pull of his random hand gestures while carrying six glasses.
"What's taking so long?" Jack calls from the living room, interrupting our dispute, to my pleasure.
"Coming!" I chime, shaking the bag of ice at Brendon tauntingly before I walk out of the kitchen, setting the ice down on the table in front of everyone.
The clock rings 12 and I look at Patrick, knowing that that's another day I have him, gone.