Love Will Tear Us Apart

Chapter 11: New Years Surprise

I never want to hear Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah' again - it was playing when I overdosed in 2005. - Pete Wentz

I woke up the next morning super excited. I was up all night getting ready to go to California. I convinced Mandy to check on the cat every day. After I got ready Patrick texted me and said their bus was going to pick me up in an hour. I made sure everything was okay for the cat and that I had packed all the things I needed. Before I knew it someone knocked on the door.

"Are you ready for our crap?" Pete laughed as I opened to door.

"Hell yeah," I agreed.

When we got outside I realized they didn't have a driver so we would all have to do the driving. We were all going to switch every four hours starting with Andy, then me, Joe, Patrick and finally Pete. It was going to take us over a day to get there so we were resting between rotations so we could get there in time. I sat next to Patrick on the couch as Andy started to drive.

"Do you guys want to do anything?" I asked as I sat down.

"We have board games over there," Pete pointed to the top of the closet.

"Board games. Are we seven?" Joe looked at Pete.

"Would you rater just sit here and look at each other," I laughed getting up and looking through the games.

There's Sorry, Monopoly, and Apples to Apples. I picked Apples to Apples and we all sat around the table in the back of the bus. By the time it was my shift we were all laughing hysterically at everyone's choices. I went up to the front to drive. Four hours went by fast and Joe switched places with me. I went back to see everyone asleep except for Pete who was sitting on the floor with several bottles of beer around him. His eyes red like he had just been crying. I can hear a sad sounding song playing on the radio. It's faint, but I can hear some of the lyrics.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

"What's up?" I asked as I sat next to him on the floor and grabbed a beer for myself.

"Bree you know," He stopped for a moment.

"This is the song I O.D'd too," He said slowly as tears came to his eyes. He was obviously drunk.

"But Pete everything's better now, you have a son and-"

"I never see him anymore, with the tour and Ashley absolutely hates me," He rubbed his eyes a little.

"What about Mandy?" I asked.

"I truthfully only started dating her because I had to get over my break up with Megan. I mean I really like Mandy, but she's still sleeping with other guys. She doesn't care, pretty much nobody does," He sipped some more of his beer.

"Pete I care," I said putting my arm around him.

"You know when my parents died I went through a lot. Mandy wasn't there for me either. I had nobody. I did all these horrible things to myself, but you know what got me through?" I asked looking over at him.

"What?" He mumbled drunkinly.

"When I first heard the lyrics you wrote," I smiled.

I remembered back to the time I first heard From Under the Cork Tree. I was kind of a fan at the time, but I wasn't super into the music. Mandy had bought the album because of her little crush on Pete. She never listened to it of course, so I popped it in one time when I couldn't sleep. I was staying at Mandy's until I was accepted by a college, which was not going well. So many thoughts were always racing through my mind so sleep was almost impossible. I had even started drinking, cutting, and occasionally doing drugs whenever I got my hands on them. I ended up getting a full night of sleep that night, the music kind of just tamed my thoughts. I listened to it nonstop until their next albums came out. Then I listened to those nonstop. Their lyrics made me want to turn my life around and now I'm so much happier.