You're Not Even Mine to Miss [Fall Out Boy - Wattys 2014]

➽ London's Prologue (Part Two).

London’s Prologue (Part Two): I’ve never been anywhere cold as you.

(April 1st, 2008)

Pete and I hadn’t talked much during our dinner – which was weird, because we always had things to talk about whenever we eat together. Honestly, the longest conversation we had was when the waiter arrived and asked if he could get us anything else aside from what we had ordered. After that, our table was enveloped with an ear-shattering silence again.

Even though I was itching to start a little chat with Pete, I wanted him to talk first, since he was the one who said that we would be talking about a lot of things before we left my place, but when we got to the restaurant, we didn’t talk about anything at all.

Dinner was splendid, but the only sad thing about that evening was that Pete didn’t seem to be in a good mood. Probably he was still suffering from a headache. But at least he was still there eating with me in the restaurant. I didn’t know if I could take it if he would just blow me off in our second anniversary.

And then finally, while we were in the middle of eating our dessert, Pete broke the iceberg. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately,” he said quietly without looking at me. He was looking at the remains of a slice of red velvet cake that he was eating.

I inwardly screamed in happiness because he was finally talking to me. Slowly as I tried to compose myself (and not wanting Pete to notice that I was just so thrilled to talk to him again), I swallowed the cake that I was chewing before I asked, “What things?”

Pete licked his lips and lifted his head to face me. “Well, I think I’m going to be really busy on the next few months. And I don’t know if I still have time to keep an eye on you—”

My poor heart was impaled with a huge rolling pin. Or perhaps a huge nail, the size of a permanent marker. Or maybe it was the size of a meter stick. That might be a bit of exaggeration, but it kind of felt that way. Although I was really hurt by what he told me, I tried to look happy for him. “Pete, I’m a big girl. I’m not a little kid anymore, and you know that,” I interrupted him before he could say something else that would hurt me.

“Yes, I know that, Donnie,” Pete answered sadly. One of my hands was resting on the table, and he placed his hand over it, gently brushing his thumb over the back of my hand. It made me shiver. “But probably in the next few months, we would start recording our new album, and we’re going to have a lot of preparations to do for it—”

I was so frustrated already. My eyes began to water, but I was trying to hold the tears back. Pete had always said that he didn’t want to see me crying. But at that very moment, he was trying to make me cry. “Pete, we’ve been though worse things than that!” I hissed at him quite loudly, which brought the attention of the people sitting at the two nearby tables to both of us.

He seemed to notice that, too, and whispered to me quietly, “Let’s just finish our desserts and we’ll talk about it outside, okay?”

But I couldn’t control myself. I was just so mad at him. Fuming, I stood up and grabbed my purse from the table. “Finish your cake yourself! I’m going!” I snapped at him, and even though I was having a hard time walking in heels, I managed to get out from the restaurant faster than he did (well, I had a head-start; he still had to pay for our food).

My feet were killing me already, so I had slipped my high-heeled shoes off, carried them instead, sighed in relief for a while, and walked along the road in bare feet, frantically looking for a taxi so that I could go home and so I could avoid Pete in the meantime. I didn’t like where our conversation was going to.