The Flier (Patrick Stump)

4 - Trust

/Chapter 4\

"C'mon Zenna, I've got you. You won't fall," Patrick reassured me, smiling. At least it didn't seem like he was just trying to reassure himself; it seemed genuine. Nodding, I took a deep breath and let my left foot step onto his cupped hands.

"Do you have it?" Kamryn inquired, death-gripping my hand as I adjusted my foot.

"Who exactly are you talking to here?" Patrick laughed, looking over at Kamryn.

"Well..." she started before contemplating for a second. "I guess both of you."

"I'm fine," he replied.

"Same," I agreed, trying to balance on my right foot while holding onto Kamryn's hand.

"If you are both fine, then Zenna, you can step up with your other foot," she ordered. What if he couldn't hold all of my weight?

"You've got this, Zen," Patrick encouraged. Internally, I screamed. He already had a nickname for me. This boosted my confidence, and with the help of Kamryn, I let my right foot complete the task at hand. My confidence slipped away when I realized that I wasn't touching the ground anymore and that Kamryn didn't have my hand anymore. I tensed up and kept my arms straight at my sides, trying to remain as still as a board. He grunted, trying to keep up my body weight without letting his knuckles touch the ground. "You know, Zenna, you weigh less than you look."

"How much did you think I weighed?" I questioned, glancing down at him. He was moving into dangerous territory at a rapid speed.

"More than you actually do," he chuckled, still clearly struggling to find a right way to keep me above the ground.

"Do you have her?" Kamryn asked.

"Yeah, but I don't think she really has much trust in me," he replied. "She's all tense."

"I've never done this before, man!" I exclaimed.

"I can tell," he said.

"Zenna, you need to trust him. He'll catch you if you fall," Kamryn stated. "If I know one thing about him, it's that he keeps his word. He'll make sure you won't get hurt."

"Thanks, Kam," Patrick said in a small, high-pitched voice. I just concluded that the voice was because of him struggling to hold me up. Taking a deep breath, I relaxed a little bit, and I felt myself be lifted a little higher off the ground. I heard Patrick laugh from under me. "She trusts me!"

"Don't make me regret it," I warned him, smiling down at him. He grinned his beautiful, stunning grin back up at me. Oh, his smile...

"Okay, so does that feel alright?" Kamryn asked, and both of us looked at her.

"Yeah," Patrick and I answered at the same time, and our eyes quickly met again. His eyes showed the same amount of surprise that I felt. I felt my cheeks start to burn, and I laughed softly as I gazed at the ground beside us. A silent minute went by before Kamryn cleared her throat.

"You can put her down now," she said. Glancing back at Patrick, I saw that his eyes were still on me. Was he looking at me the whole time?

"Oh, sorry," Patrick quickly mumbled before lowering me enough so that I could step down. We both stood up straight, and he awkwardly rubbed his neck.

"So what now?" I asked, looking over at Kamryn.

"Well, there's two things you two could do. You could go back to the rest of the group to learn the flag parts that you two are in, or you could stay here and work on the toss. Which sounds better?" she replied. A moment of silence filled the air before Patrick spoke up.

"We could probably start learning the flag work," he suggested. I nodded in agreement, even though all I really wanted to do was work with Patrick.

<>

"So honey, how was practice tonight?" Dad asked as he scooped a pile of spaghetti onto his plate. The large blob of yellow pasta strands plopped onto the off-white plate with a splat. Looking up from the round wooden dining room table, my head turned the right so that I could look at him.

"It went fine," I responded. His eyebrows furrowed a little as his eyes bounced from the spaghetti-filled pot on the table to me.

"I know you well enough to know that when you say 'fine', you really mean that something amazing happened or something terrible happened. Which of the two was it?" he said. One word popped into my mind: Patrick. Before I could stop it, I felt my lips curl at the sides and my cheeks start to blush. Dad smirked and his eyes narrowed. "Who is he?"

"His name is Patrick," I sighed, glancing back down at my plate. Most of the spaghetti was gone, even though I wasn't really hungry. My fingers curled around the handle of my fork and lifted it so that it was digging into the spaghetti. The fork twisted, and I pulled it back out of the blob only to find a small amount of spaghetti on it. "He and I are going to be doing the lead parts in the show."

"That's great, honey! Is he nice?" Dad exclaimed as I shoved the bland spaghetti into my mouth. My dad isn't the best cook when it comes to certain foods, but he's good enough. I chewed it for a minute and swallowed before answering.

"Yeah, he's pretty nice."

"Is he cute?" My cheeks started to heat up again.

"Yeah."

"How cute? On a scale of 1 to 10?"

"9."

"Wow," Dad breathed out. "That's really cute."

"I know."

"You'll have to point him out to me when I drop you off next time," he said before taking a bite of his second serving of spaghetti.

"Maybe," I laughed.

"What will you two be doing in the show? What even is the show? You haven't told me anything about it."

"Well, the show is based off of Queen's Somebody To Love. Patrick and I will be, I guess, 'in love'," I explained, putting air quotation marks around 'in love'. "We're doing a toss sometime during the show."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean, 'a toss'?" Dad questioned, a look of concern on his face.

"Like... a cheerleading-type toss. He'll throw me up into the air and catch me, simple as that."

"Well..." he started, sighing. "Do you feel comfortable doing it? Do you trust him?" I nodded. "Then I guess it's okay with me. You better be careful, though. Don't do it if you don't feel comfortable."

"Okay. I trust him, though. I'm sure he'll be careful too."

"Good. By the way, do you have practice tomorrow?"

"No."

"Just the normal school schedule, then?"

"Yeah."

"Alright. Then tell me more about show."

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AN: who ships zenna and patrick? :D anyway, i hope this chapter is good, man. it's definitely not the best i can write, but i'm tired. besides, a new character is going to be introduced soon! can you guess who it is?

GOAL: can we get this chapter 5 votes and 3 comments (that don't including me replying)? i will update when that is accomplished.

have a nice day/night. :)

(PS: THIS STORY HAS 1K READS! i'm dying a little of happiness. and there's only 4 chapters so far. wow. i can't wait for the future :D )