Happy Miserable Mess (FOB/Patrick Stump FanFic)

Chapter 14

"Come on!" She exclaimed as she dragged me along the sidewalk.

"Where are we even going?" I asked her, laughing.

"A really cool place," She replied, glancing over at me with a mischievous smile stretched across her face. I rolled my eyes, continuing to allow her to take me to this "really cool place".

After a few turned corners and a few fences jumped, we finally arrived at the place. It was a small shop with a sign hanging above the door, a simple Gallery etched into the wood that was slowly deteriorating due to the weather. Next to the door was a large storefront window, showcasing all sorts of different paintings. The paintings were nothing like anything I'd seen before, in a good way.

"What place is this?" I inquired.

"My home," She answered, opening the door - causing a little bell to ring - and entering the shop. I had no other option but to follow her in there. Inside, the shop was small, and there were even more paintings. Finished painted canvases were hung on the walls, propped up against the wall on the floors, and there were even a few suspended from the ceiling.

"Whoa," I muttered in amazement.

"Dad!" She exclaimed, tossing her backpack to the side carelessly and disappearing through an opened threshold into the next room over. I jogged to catch up with her, finding her standing over a man who was sitting behind a desk, his head in his hand. "Dad, I want you to meet someone."

The man looked up at her over his glasses and then over at me. I swallowed hard.

"Is this the guy you've been talking about?" He inquired, taking the glasses off of his face and standing up.

"Yes. His name's Patrick. Patrick, Dad. Dad, Patrick."

"Patrick," Her father repeated, approaching me. My eyes grew wide. A smirk crawled up on the man's face and he pulled me into an unexpected hug. "Nice to meet you, Patrick. My daughter's told me so much about you."

"Oh, has she?" I replied, stepping out of the embrace and glancing over at her. She blushed.

"All good stuff, all good stuff," He reassured me.

"Well, Patrick and I will be upstairs if you need us," She interjected, walking over to me and interlocking her fingers with mine. "Bye, Dad!"

"Bye, sweetheart. Remember, we're going out tonight!"

"Yeah, yeah." And with that, she guided me upstairs into the apartment she lived in with her dad above the gallery. The apartment was smaller than the shop and cluttered, canvases all over the floor and sketches scattered about. Along with the canvases and sketches were boxes and boxes of art supplies.

"Let's go to my room," She suggested. I nodded my head and followed her into her room, which wasn't much bigger than the room we first walked into, but it was much cleaner and tidier. The walls were painted with different, very captivating murals. She walked over and sat down on her bed, crossing her legs and leaning back on her arms. "So...what do you think?"

"About what?" I inquired, setting my bag down and walking over, joining her side.

"About this."

"It's pretty cool, I guess," I retorted.

She laughed, "Pretty cool? That's all? 'Pretty cool'?"

"Your dad seems nice," I told her, somewhat irrelevantly.

"Yeah, he is. He's probably the nicest person in my life...besides you of course."

"What do you mean?"

And that was when she told me the story she wished she couldn't tell, the story she wished never was written, never happened. The story was about how when she was born, her mother and her mother's husband couldn't care less about her, and how as she grew up, her mother's husband and brothers - all older, ages seventeen, twenty, and twenty-four - made her life a living hell, as if the people at school didn't already do that.

"My dad, you know, the one downstairs, not the one who wanted me gone...he was the only one who seemed to actually give a damn about me. And it sucks because I didn't realize it until I left that goddamn house and found him on my own."

"Why didn't you live with him from the start?"

She chuckled sadly, "I don't know. Something about how mom didn't want him having anything to do with me. She tried pawning me off as that douchebag's daughter, but he knew I wasn't his. I guess she just didn't like that my real dad didn't have a 'real job' and lived in this shitty little apartment. But...I know I say I wouldn't want to change anything because then I wouldn't be where I am today, but I honestly would've rather much grown up here than in that hellhole."

"I-I'm so sorry to hear that," I stammered, wishing I could change that, wishing I could take all that pain away, make it all better.

She shrugged her shoulders, a smile growing on her face, "It's okay. I have you now." She played with the hoodie strings on my sweatshirt and looked up at me. "And anyways, the past is the past and we shouldn't stay hung up on it. Right?"