After The Dance (FOB FanFic ft. Panic! At The Disco)

~PART THREE~ [Chapter 46] At The Airport (Lexy)

(Lexy's POV)

I was sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs that faced the large window that looked out at the runway. In my hands was my one-way ticket for the next flight to New Jersey. I couldn't stay in Chicago anymore, I just couldn't.

So I called Mikey. I talked to him a little, he apologized, I didn't really care - I just needed a friend who wasn't associated with Fall Out Boy to talk to. And long story short, I decided I wanted to move back to New Jersey.

Sure, I didn't have as many friends there as I did here. But those friends here...weren't my friends anymore. I mean, yeah, they were nice to me. They tried to act like I never left. But in the end, they'd moved on with their lives, and so had I. Coming back was a mistake, coming back and trying to continue what I left behind two years ago was a mistake. But the biggest mistake was probably thinking that Patrick and I had ever had a chance.

We were friends. Friends who tried to be something more than we were meant to be. "Only as friends," I had said to Patrick the night of the homecoming dance. Maybe I should've listened to myself.

I heaved a sigh and stuck the ticket into the pocket of my sweatshirt. I had a good half hour wait before the plane I was scheduled to get on would land, so I pulled out my iPod and plugged my earbuds in, going to play a few songs Fall Out Boy had written but hadn't published yet (Patrick sent them to me before I came here).

But just before I could press the first song, my phone started going off in my pocket. I rolled my eyes, thinking to myself If it's Catherine again... as I pulled it out, but to my surprise, it wasn't her. It was Patrick.

I pulled my earbuds out and answered the call, putting the phone up to my ear, "Patrick?"

"Lexy! Hey!" He replied. In the background, there was a faint Put her on speaker! Put her on speaker! "Where are you?" He questioned, his voice followed by the sound of some shuffling. I only assumed he removed himself from the loud room he was in.

"Oh, I'm-I'm just at the airport," I answered nonchalantly, starting to play with the drawstrings of my sweatshirt's hood.

"The airport?" He repeated in disbelief, "What are you doing at the airport?"

"Um...I thought I might see my dad again," I lied to him, "Yeah, I just...I really miss him and I want to make sure he's okay. You know how he is."

"Couldn't you just call him and ask him how he's doing? Not...get on a plane and go back to check on him? Especially at midnight? Couldn't you have waited until tomorrow?"

"I couldn't sleep," I disclosed to him, continuing with my lie, pulling my legs in so I was sitting criss-cross, "I'm just really worried about him, Patrick. I always am. With him and his instability ever since...you know...that." That being my mother's death.

What is she saying? I heard Catherine's voice in the background.

"She's at the airport," Patrick replied to her, "She said she's going to see your dad. Make sure he's okay."

What? No! Let me talk to her. Catherine demanded. There was some more shuffling before Catherine's voice sounded clearly, and very angrily, through the speaker, "What does you mean you're at the airport and leaving to go see Dad!?!"

"It means exactly what it means, Catherine," I murmured, shifting in the chair ever so slightly, "You may not care about Dad, but I do. And I made a huge mistake leaving him back there."

There was silence on the other end of the line before the call was disconnected. She hung up. I removed my cellphone away from my ear and looked at it.

Call Ended
Pat <3
04:56

I heaved a sigh and locked my phone, setting it down in my lap as I leaned back in the chair, staring out at the lit-up runway, where a plane had just landed and was just about to disembark the passengers.

I pulled out the ticket from my pocket and looked down at it, swallowing hard.

Is this really what I want to do?

Author's Note: Apologies for the short length of this chapter (it was even shorter before I edited it). But there's only five more chapters left of this book (two of them being the two-part epilogue)! Can you believe that? It's crazy! Anyways, thank you guys so much for 10,000+ reads and close to a thousand votes, it's really incredible and it makes me feel good about my writing when I see that other people like it. You guys are the best and I love you all so much! -Rachael