The Problem with Patrick || Fall Out Boy

i want to hate you half as much as i hate myself

Patrick hadn't yet made up his mind about the appointments that the label was sending him to with the psych. Sure, it sounded terrible in theory, and he hated that everyone around him seemed to know he was there, but in reality, when that door was closed and it was just Patrick and the psych lady, it actually wasn't that bad.

That might've been because Patrick finally had a chance to talk about things without being judged. He had a lot of things he'd been bottling up for a very long time which he did try to bring up a couple of times, but again his psych would always bring it back to him passing out on stage, which was stupid, but that's what the label was paying her to fix about him so he didn't really mind.

What he did mind though, was Pete's nosiness. Pete was always there, always asking questions about what exactly they talked about and then about whether Patrick thought he was getting better.

How was Patrick even supposed to know that? He couldn't exactly test whether he was still passing out on stage without getting up and attempting to play a song in front of a couple of hundred people, and that wasn't exactly an option. He just tried to brush him off every time, but it was getting a bit annoying.

He loved his friend, he really did, and he really appreciated everything that Pete was doing for him, but sometimes Pete didn't know where to draw the privacy boundary, and that really aggravated Patrick. He just wanted to work these things through by himself, and prove (mostly to himself) that he wasn't as useless as he seemed and was actually able to do things when he worked through them right.

Sure enough, Pete was waiting out in the lobby when he finished his 4th session, and Patrick did his best to quickly drag him out of the place and back to the car. Pete liked to hang around and make conversation, which just happened to be Patrick's least favourite pastime. All Patrick wanted to do now was go home, wash these stupid red tear marks off his face (that session had been quite dramatic) and go back to bed and hopefully get a nap in before band practice.

But, as always, Pete had other ideas.

"Lunch?" he asked, pulling into a mall. "I figured we could drop by the food court and then maybe like, I dunno, do some shopping or something."

Patrick sighed. He didn't argue. There was no point to argue. Pete was just trying to be nice, and arguing would only make him feel bad, which would make Patrick feel bad, and it would just be a downward spiral. So he dragged his feet out of the car, and pretended to be fine with it, despite the fact that he was really poorly dressed (Patrick didn't wear sweatpants out, full stop), and despite the fact that Pete had promised him that they'd go straight back home after the stupid session.

The mall was big, and the food court was right in the middle. Patrick considered running into a department store and finding a decent pair of pants to wear, so he looked like he had at least half of his life together, but from the way Pete was charging straight ahead, it was clear he was hungry, so Patrick just trailed behind and kept his mouth shut.

It was stupid; Patrick thought. He was an adult, he could make his own decision, he was able to do whatever the hell he wanted to do, and yet since the moment that Pete found him in the basement drunk, he'd been avoiding making choices with everything he had. He'd (metaphorically) handed over the keys to his life to Pete, and let him take the driver's seat. Quite literally. Patrick hadn't driven a car in over a month now.

God, that was a weird thought. And there was nothing inside him that wanted him to take control of a car any time in the near future either.

It was so stupid. Patrick was being so stupid, and he knew that. He shouldn't be letting Pete make every decision in his life, he should be standing up for himself and letting his voices and opinions be spoken and heard so he was a valuable contribution to his own life.