Troubled Soul || Fall Out Boy

~31~

"And then I made a friend! His name is Joe and he's super nice!"

Pete's Mom smiled. "That's great Patrick."

Pete groaned. He was sick and tired of this conversation already.

"I told you you'd enjoy school." Pete's Mom smiled, rubbing Patrick's shoulder affectionately.

Patrick nodded. "The teacher is very nice too! But she gives a lot of hard work to do. I'm not very good at it, but Andy is really nice and he helps me."

"That's great. You and Pete can do your homework together if you want."

Pete shook his head, but his mother gave him a glare.

"Okay!" Patrick chirped.

"I don't think I've seen you this happy... ever." Pete's Dad smiled.

Patrick shrugged. "I'm just glad that nobody is mean to me."

Pete's Mom smiled. "That's good honey. That's really good."

After dinner, Patrick went back upstairs to sit on his bed and draw in his book. Pete's Mom and Dad were sitting with Hillary and Andrew on the couch watching cartoons.

Pete decided to do a bit of exploring.

Since everyone was so relaxed, he figured now was a good time to do some investigating. He wanted to know more about the things that his Mom and Dad wouldn't tell him about Patrick. He put his detective hat on, and snuck into the home office.

Closing the door to mask the sound, he began going through all the draws. Nothing but staples and paperclips in there. He went through the piles of paper on the desk, but only found boring stuff about bills. However, when he opened the filing cabinet, he found the gold mine.

A green folder marked Peter. A pink folder marked Hillary. A blue folder marked Andrew.

And a purple folder marked Patrick.

Pete shoved it into his shirt, and ran back up to his room to hide it.

"What's that?" Patrick asked as Pete shoved it under his chest of drawers.

"Nothing." Pete told him firmly. "Nothing at all."