Watching Pete Wentz scrub tables in a mundane coffee shop would seem, at least to any regular person, like an incredibly boring activity, but it's already been mentioned that I'm not a regular person, so I'll enjoy myself as much as I possibly can.

The aspect of not having to worry about anything is a plus, too. The only slightly troubling occurrence is when the bell by the door wails for attention — the noise itself is terrifying, but the fact that a new person has entered is an added bonus — though other than that, peace is the supreme ruler.

Pete's hands circle the tables with close concentration, and through this it becomes evident that he values his job excessively. I wonder why that is, but my mother has made it obvious that asking people's introspective intentions isn't socially appropriate, so I don't say anything.

Instead, my eyes bounce over his actions, hollering from an elation that probably shouldn't exist (but nevertheless does) as the auroral ambience glitters around our heads and breathes as we would through our noses.

So mesmerizing is Pete's work that the droning of my alarm narrowly avoids being silenced by my captivity, but at the last moment, the snooze button is bulldozed by my frantic fingers.

"What was that?" Pete inquires, charcoal locks swinging around Pete's forehead as if from coarse jungle vines.

"My alarm," I confess, lips abbreviating with a nervous expression.

"Do you have to go somewhere?" My friend's face is masterfully illustrated with chagrin, colors clashing as if fighting a war for artistic control upon a terrain of matchless creativity and splendor, a war that they will never win, because the vibrance has been overrun by shadowy remorse.

"To my...psychologist." It's an ordeal simply to launch the words out, and perhaps I shouldn't be so grateful to myself for performing a basic human function, but the appreciation is still ubiquitously present.

"Have a good time, and do your best, yeah?" Pete really wants the best for me...

I nod hastily so that my actual emotions won't chew through their leash. "I'll try."

A heartfelt smile is the last thing I see before the door separates Pete and me, and what a pleasant closing act that is.

~~~~~

"You seem agitated." The words tickle Dr. Saporta's vocal chords with the intention of being portrayed as a dull statement, confined to a minimal range, and they're more than unnerving.

"How so?"

The man surveys me up and down as if to make it seem like he collected more data. "Your feet are tapping, your hands are squirming around, and you keep glancing at the clock. Do you have somewhere to be?"

A sly smile details my face. "Just here."

The psychologist pushes further. "Then do you have someone to see?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. It's Pete Wentz, about whom I told you before."

Well you seem joyous.

Adversity tears a hole in Dr. Saporta's countenance, speeding through every bit of durability. "You mean right before you slammed the door in my face after walking out and disrupting the other patients' sessions?"

My mouth's inspiration runs dry, and Dr. Saporta views it as an opportunity to ask one of his "philosophical" questions.

"Do you know your enemies, Patrick?"

I've always found it appalling when people would ask me this, because I thought by now they would've grasped the status of my mind and how non-linear it is, how knowing your enemy is by far the most befuddling thing one could require of another. The topic itself is so specific, as if enemies aren't always circling around like vultures, waiting to strike at the most random times, which are the most relevant to them in some inexplicable manner.

So no, I don't know my enemies, but I anticipated more from him.

But Dr. Saporta is a jerk, and whether or not that has already been established is of no importance, because the fact has been thoroughly etched into my mind, the only one who seems to know what it's doing, and because I'm so lost at sea, I concluded a while back that the best option is to follow my brain, considering other ends aren't so available as I had once thought, and judging by the way those voices hold such an authority over me, it's not like I have much of a choice but to comply, and they've made themselves pretty clear that they're the only things present and that they won't be leaving anytime soon.

At least I'm not alone, though. I wonder if I should be celebrating. Dr. Saporta definitely wouldn't, but it's not like I give a care after describing him as a jerk.

I believe it's fair in saying that he's done more harm than help, even if my mother would disagree with her last breath, but she's not the one who experiences first-hand what it's like to need a psychologist in the first place.

I'm notably fucked up, and that's something I have to understand or else suffer an impenetrable layer of ignorance hanging over me, but no one else seems to, only shrugging it off after assuring that I'm just like the rest of them — or better yet, just someone with minor differences that I can overcome by believing in myself; if they were true friends, they would recognize that believing in myself has never proven effective, but someone with the audacity to advise that remedy is far from a true friend anyway.

And relatively, one would assume that a patient and their psychologist must have a significant bond that excludes phrases such as those, but there is no separation between normal people and people who require treatment. We're all just humans, which entails emotions, and erasing them is somewhat ironic, because maintaining vigorous emotions is most likely what landed the patient in psychiatric care, meaning that they should possess a stronger judgement on the person most suited for their needs.

But I didn't receive my choice — my mother chose for me — so I might as well answer Dr. Saporta's query.

"Maybe."

"Well is Pete one of them?" Dr. Saporta pries, irises fluttering with an interest unfitting for a psychologist towards their patient.

"He challenges me." And for the most part, it's true.

Pete Wentz isn't afraid to counter me, to remind me that I'm not the only person in this world from a perspective other than my social anxiety's, while other people are terrified of me, maintaining a cautious distance like I carry a pathogen that will give them Ebola or something, never questioning me, and for the longest time, I viewed that as a benefit of being so jacked up, because I wouldn't have to talk to people, and they wouldn't have to talk to me, but in reality, it's not healthy to be sheltered from the world. Pete knows that I am a person, and people have a substance beyond their cognitive stability, which I don't as a result of perpetuating that aforementioned mentality, and it's beautiful just to feel.

I am a human. I have emotions. I have friends. I have other humans that are made of lots of the same atoms and genes and structures that I am, and Pete has made me aware of the fact that I'm not so abstracted as I had one thought.

"And do you view that as a flaw in your relationship?"

Pete Wentz challenges me more than anything I've ever encountered, and I am extremely indebted to him for it. Previously, I counted that as a flaw, but it's axiomatic that I was completely wrong, like I am with most things these days, and I'm emerging from my shell a tad more each second — revealing myself to the more disreputable of people, however, could be cataclysmic.

"No, I can't say that I do. He's made me think on many occasions."

Head tilted, my psychologist concurs, "It's always good to think." Dr. Saporta's sunflower-tinted pencil drums with shallow whispers on the diagnostic sheet, the one that makes me hesitant to visit this office, orchestrating a steady, monotonous harmony that attacks my ears with its balanced perfection; someone such as him doesn't deserve excellence, not after everything he's done to my mind, repercussions that can't ever be reversed.

"Thinking...it's been a risk for me, though," I grant, appointing an aimless mark of burgundy to my skin so that it may wallow around and vacate at its leisure. "My thoughts are messy, especially when I have voices laced within them, and I've found those anecdotes to be frequent."

Dr. Saporta's hands mesh together, like a net to catch my constant shade. "That's why we're here, Patrick."

My windpipe is then fractured by an incredulous laugh splitting away. "I thought we were here so that you can tease me about how crazy I am."

"You're not crazy—"

"Then explain my hallucinations! Explain the person in my mind! Explain my paranoia! Explain why I heard you talking to my mother about sending me to a fucking mental hospital!" My breathing requests pulses as hollow as the ocean in which I hope to drown myself, the nebulous depths of the New Jersey coast, but it's all so far away now, suppressed by other memories of hardship and sin.

I desire to return to it, to feel the dismal water slipping through my fingers as a metaphor of my life slipping away like it has been for two years, and just know that nothing will ever matter anymore, because I'm practically dead anyway. This has been clear as the sea which I never want to observe, because it advertises the lies I fall for temporarily, and I hate the aftermath of realizing that they were never tangible.

"You're not crazy," Dr. Saporta repeats, peering down at his fingers looped in a gesticulatory cage of flesh.

My head's genuflection defies him. "You can't turn me against something I've known for a while, the harsh opinions of the people at school and at home and in public, because they've been ingrained within my mind, and they'll be here forever, so you have no place to tell me that I'm not crazy — you're just one person amidst a world of people who contradict your statement, and you'll soon understand that your ideas about me won't mean a thing later, because you're transitory, but I bear the judgment for as long as I'm alive, and with the current state of things, that period won't be long.

"Your job is to guide me through this rough time, but you're receiving a bad grade as of now. Step up your game, Saporta, or you won't have a patient to help, but you will have a funeral to attend."

The impact of my speech is pronounced on Dr. Saporta's regularly neutral visage, his brows contorting with mixed emotion, his mouth thinning like wearied hair dyed a salmon hue. "If you're having suicidal thoughts—"

"No," I cut him off, beryl oculi burning with candid heat into my psychologist's copper ones and not once aiming to liberate them. "I'm having contented thoughts, and I can impute that to a special someone. Pete Wentz is not my enemy, and he will never be."

The sounds of the room desert us, punching through the walls to evade the futile doctor perched on the desk until he crushes them within his grip to transport them back to the area. "Well that's settled," the man expounds rather dully.

Once again, you've made a mistake.

~~~~~

A/N: it gets happier in the next chapter I promise (but not for long lmao ur all dead)

current vibe: when I repeated a song on spotify so much that it couldn't play it anymore

~DaCUNTa