Happy Miserable Mess (FOB/Patrick Stump FanFic)

Chapter 6

I pulled my cellphone out from my pocket and scrolled down to her name. I pressed the call button and put the phone up to my ear. It rang and rang and rang and I honestly thought she wasn't going to pick up.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and checked the time. It was eleven in the evening where I was, on the East Coast, so that would make it eight o'clock where she was. I put the phone back up to my ear.

Little did I know was that she had faded away into her world. The world she had hidden from everyone else. The world she went to when she was alone. When I wasn't around.

At this time, Parker wasn't born. So she was truly and utterly alone. And she was just sitting there, in the corner of our room. Her knees pulled into her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She was staring across the room, her dark thoughts the only thing on her mind, beating her up, whispering in her ear that everything that happened in her past - everything bad that happened in her past - was her fault. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she found it harder and harder to breathe.

"Come on, come on!" I muttered as I stood up and began to pace back and forth. "Pick up. Please."

Through the loud whispers in her ears, she heard her phone ringing, but she couldn't bring herself to go answer it. She was in too deep.

"Come on..." I muttered under my breath as my friends popped their heads into the dressing room I was in.

She was staring at the phone on the nightstand. The ringing was becoming increasingly louder as it slowly began to replace the voices in her head.

"Patrick?"

"Shh!"

She unwrapped her arms from around her legs and rose to her feet, staggering over to the nightstand and looking down at the device lighting up in the cradle.

"What are you doing?"

"Shh!"

Her hand wrapped around the phone and she picked it up. It felt like a hundred pounds as she raised it up to her ear but she did it. Her thumb hovered over the answer button for a little before pressing it.

"Hello?" Her soft voice sounded on the other end of the line.

I sighed in relief (for I was holding my breath for no reason) and fell down on the couch, running my hand through my hair. I chuckled, "Oh my god, thank god you picked up. I thought something bad happened to you."

"No, I'm fine," She lied to me.

I don't think she ever really told me the truth. The only time I think she was honest with me was when Parker was born and she said that he was the best thing ever to happen to her, to us. I just remember the way she looked down at him when she first held him. I'd never seen her so happy in our entire relationship.

"Are you sure?" I inquired, "It took you so long to answer me..."

"Yes, Patrick, I'm okay," She reassured me. "I was just, um...doing the laundry. The phone was upstairs and I was downstairs and...you know."

"As long as you're okay."

"How many times do I have to tell you?" She laughed, "I'm fine, Patrick."

I heaved a sigh, "Are you going to be okay till I come back?"

"When are you coming back?"

I looked back at my three band members and Joe held up two fingers. "Two weeks," I answered her.

"Two weeks?"

Joe shook his head and I raised my eyebrow in confusion. Pete pointed upward. "Three weeks?" I guessed. The three of them all shook their head no. "Four?" Andy smacked his forehead and Joe mouthed "two months" to me to the best of his ability. But luckily I got the notion and told her, "Two months, not two weeks, sorry, babe."

"Two months...that's...that's a long time, Patrick."

"I know, and I'm sorry. But do you think you're going to be okay?"

There was a moment of pure silence that resonated between the two of us before she murmured, "Yeah. I'll be okay."

She wasn't okay. She went mad being on her own for that long. But thankfully her mom paid her a visit about a week and a half after this call and found her before she was going to do something bad to herself. The same thing she did to herself that killed her. Only difference between that time and this was she didn't succeed. Her mom found her in the nick of time and took her back home with her, keeping a close eye on her until I returned from the tour.

When I came back, it was like nothing ever happened. She wore that same smile, laughed those same adorable laughs, acted like she normally did when anyone was around. She didn't tell me what happened when I was away. Her mom had to. And hearing what happened because I wasn't there broke my heart.

Sometimes I even considered not going on tour because I was afraid of what would happen while I was gone. But somehow she always convinced me in to going, telling me she didn't want to hold me back from doing what I loved.

But she held me back by not wanting to hold me back. By lying to me, by telling me she was okay when she really wasn't, by wearing that mask she always wore. She didn't mean to, of course, she didn't know she was doing it. But she held me back. And she still was. Even after she died.