When I asked Pete to take me home, I didn't destine him to stay, but I suppose it's a show for my mother — who always reminds me to make new friends, as if I leave the house on an occasion other than to take my medicine — so having him here isn't so terrible.

That, and I'm too anxious to tell Pete to leave, but after a warm welcome supplied by him to my mom, the idea of hosting him isn't as awful as I had once predicted, and demanding that he gets out is now becoming perverse to my mother's whims.

Not that I mind much, but someone could simply wink at my mom, and she'd be hooked and invite them over for casserole. I'm sure she has good intentions, though.

Stepping through the door, the sharp hiss of the winter air is stifled by the cozy aroma of apple and cinnamon, most likely from my mother's favorite soap, and the small woman scurries out of the living room to greet us.

"Patrick!" she squeals, piercing my cheeks with her fingertips and moving on to Pete without questioning why this strange boy is in her house. "I'm so glad you're here."

My head clicks into an angled stance. "Am I usually not?"

"Perhaps it's because you've brought someone new." The edge of my mom's rose-tinted lips curves towards the sky in an action of secrecy, and Pete reciprocates it for fear of displeasing her.

That forgetful mother of yours finally figured it out, huh?

I don't particularly enjoy my mother's company, but the voices are enough for me to adapt to a newer approach. This woman raised me, and though she might not have done a very good job at it, it's still becoming to be grateful.

"Yes, Mrs. Stump." Pete's grin flickers on and off as my mom's gaze rotates between us. "My name's Pete Wentz."

My mother's hand extends in the most elegant of fashions, and Pete's ironic nature would suggest that he would kiss it like he's also strutting around a sophisticated party, but he doesn't, only acquaints his skin with hers and shakes steadily.

"Will you be eating dinner with us, Mr. Wentz?" My mother strays from our party to boil water for a pasta dish and appear, at least to Pete, as though she has culinary expertise; I've been living with her long enough to understand that the best she usually creates is cup noodles, and even those are from the grocery store.

Pete's eyes flash in a signal to me, pleading for guidance, and I nod. He dispenses a jumpy sigh and answers, "If you'll have me."

My mom's wooden spoon swirls the sultry water around its pot absently, humming at my new companion's reply. "Wonderful. I'd be glad to have you."

After the response to Pete's proposition has been uttered, awkwardness slithers on the walls and poisons the prior mood of jubilance.

"I'll call you when dinner's ready," my mother proclaims by the time thirty seconds have gone by, taking a hammer to the unbroken ice.

My skull oscillates undeviatingly, directing Pete towards the living room until my mother finishes preparing the meal.

Hey, I guess it's not so bad to be trapped with another person, especially when it's Pete Wentz. For a night, though...that's a different story.

~~~~~

"What's with all the bottles of hydrogen peroxide?" Pete pauses his scavenging of my room to ask this simple question.

There is a plethora of answers to this. I could keep them because I get hurt a lot and need to clean up the wounds (though that probably wouldn't pass by him; he's already detected that I don't go outside much). I could keep them because a medical drive had an unwelcome surplus and decided to give them to my family. I could keep them because I like to do experiments. Many options to choose from.

My personal favorite is to say that I donate them to my old school's nurse's office, so that's what I tell Pete.

I'm not positive whether or not he believes me, though, with the quizzical character lurking in his eyes and the compression of his brows, but it'll have to do.

"What were you expecting?" I interrogate a tad too fervidly when Pete doesn't relent.

His nose scrunches up, head swerves to a lesser slope. "It's a little abnormal to stock your shelves with tons of hydrogen peroxide bottles, don't you think?"

"Why is that?" My hands cuddle my hips for protection against the anticipated confrontation in an attempt to reclaim some sort of dominance.

"First of all, you don't even go to that school anymore" — Pete's accusing irises contract under his furrowing skin — "and second of all, why the heck does the nurse need that many supplies? It's a high school, not a survival island."

That may be true, but only to a small extent, because as many deaths occur within that four-year range, if not more, and for the longest time, I was sure I would be one of them, and I was utterly convinced that I wouldn't be remembered, because like a survival island, no one cares, and everyone's only goal is to step on others to achieve the superiority that always lounges in people's teenage mindset, the kind that never comes yet doesn't matter after college.

But even so, I wouldn't stand a chance anyway, because I'm fucked-up, and other people recognized that and acted as though my life wasn't already hell just so they could terrorize me further, and I don't blame them, because it was somehow better than what I was doing to myself.

It's like a migraine, how you bang your head against the floor to block out the other strings of pain that are pulled tauter with each second, and now I'm kind of missing the company of those high-schoolers, because they were the ground that buried the migraine, and now they're absent, so the excruciating condition has returned.

Through this, they were living an irony that cackled on the other side of the mirror, not comprehending that they were doing the exact opposite thing that they intended, which is actually helping someone. For ages, they have been exposed to the barbarity that they have no objectives of denying, and they pretend to uphold that standard so obliviously that they don't know they're performing.

And I've always been against that falsehood, so I was punished for it, and now I'm homeschooled, so that survival island is but a memory, suppressed under other equally as malicious ones, and the students have moved on with their lives, enjoying the haze of being a junior, and I'm here, also a junior but defined by different means, and the distinction is clearer than before.

So if high school is a survival island, contrary to what Pete argued, I was killed by my opponents long ago.

"Why do I have so many bottles of hydrogen peroxide in my room?" I reopen the discussion, molding a canteen of the substance to my fingers. "It's because you often get wounded on a survival island, and you need something to dry up the blood."

A sense of gloom pokes holes into Pete's visage. "And this is it?"

I smirk. "This has always been it."

~~~~~

Pete laces a noodle around one prong of his fork, not caring to do anything with it, just staring at me as I narrate a fable of the last time I went outside before meeting the person who's sitting right across from me at the table. His gaze is substantial, entranced by my unassuming words and caught so thoroughly in my eyes that I'm not certain a knife could separate the connection, but I don't aim to try, though it grows worrying after a while.

Why is he looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong? Is he actually appreciating my presence? How could that be so? Why am I so whimsical? When was the last time I faced reality?

Silence, or you'll mess up the story, dimwit.

My mother's focus is not nearly as fixed on me as Pete's, but it slides in at a close second. Part of me genuinely thinks that she's interested, but the more practical part knows that she's just searching for an excuse to have me down here, and because I waste all of my time huddled in my room, tales such as these don't drift into her ears as often as she would prefer.

My voice halts suddenly, for a reason not yet deciphered, and the surrounding citizens beg me to go on in a numerous amount of expressions — puppy dog visages, clinquant irises, backs hunched by the decree of intrigue gathering in their complexions.

Why do they care so much? Is it a cruel joke, the vindictive punch-line being that I no longer go outside?

You think so negatively. That's why you're a psycho.

I continue, not because I truly desire to do so, but because I'm endeavoring to prove the voices incorrect.

Standing up for myself is the sweetest revenge.

~~~~~

My mother's nails caress the linoleum surface of the counter, an act that she once described as a nervous twitch, so naturally, panic traipses through my heart. A prolonged moment drags its feet through the sand before she starts. "Patrick, I'm not trying to criticize your choice in friends, but..."

Oh, here we go.

"Are you sure Pete will help you get better?" Her expression is palpable, her eyes shadowed by the nearing storm crawling by the windows.

"Why are you so concerned with my friends? I thought you were all about getting me outdoors." It comes out more defensively than I had hoped for, but I can attribute that to my emotions constantly dangling over the edge.

Pete's vision never falters from his spot near the dishwasher, aggressively caressing plates with a sunflower sponge, so it's plausible to say that he's not listening, but even so, the omnipotent feeling of paranoia does not cease; it never does.

My mom's tone scales down by notice of my safety measure. "I wasn't quite saying that I don't want you to get outside, but I'm just taking precautions. I'm sure Pete is a wonderful guy, but if you become incredibly dependent on him, that's not good for either of you."

"What makes you think I'll become dependent on him?" Residual pieces of my volume dance in Pete's ears, but he doesn't turn around to address them.

"Nothing." Patricia Stump's lips fold into a thoughtful pucker, closing the matter.

Fingertips wind through my hair as a gust of wind leaks from my lungs. "You're lying, but you're my mother, so you have to. If you were really interested in me getting better, you wouldn't be so damn ambiguous."

She doesn't respond, pondering through the clatter of the dishes how her own son became so messed-up, and honestly, I have no fucking idea, but I roll with it like everyone says I should, because at least I'm not living on the streets, and at least I have a "caring" parent, and at least I'm not dead, but I frankly don't accept settling for the things I do have, because the things I do have mean nothing significant when you look at them closely, and it's time someone other than me understands that — but you know what? No one will, because I'm isolated within myself, drawing blankets across my back and hiding from the world, and once again, I'm the aforementioned messed-up son, and now even my own mother knows it.

My mother's face echoes despondency in the way it declines so completely. "I'm sorry, Patrick. I'm just trying to be a good mother."

"Don't make this about yourself," I snap, and she reels back in surprise. "Sorry, I...I just want to have a good night with Pete, okay?"

My mom nods.

"Thank you."

Pete's body swivels to approach us, shooting his hands into his pockets stiffly. "I finished the dishes."

My mom's focus sweeps back to me, as if confirming something. "I'll be going out soon to get groceries and...do other things, I guess. Be good."

A devious look wades in Pete's eyes. "Sure will."

~~~~~

A/N: that last part lmao

I go to a private school so idk what happens in the stereotypical high school but I've read enough fanfiction and met enough new students to understand that it's probably hell so sorry if that section about high school was off

current vibe: when this guy told me that my brother was gayer than me

~Ducknoot