Rain

•10•

Ohhh my god. Pete has another child!!! (I realize this is late to you but I wrote this on Sunday.)

Patrick twirls in his chair, watching yet another documentary, this time about the coral reefs. He finished all his school work within 4 hours. Online school is a lot quicker than public school but it's still pretty easy stuff. He reaches over and grabs a handful of Cheetos from the bag on his desk. Right away the florescent orange powder dusts his hands and pants. He ignores it, still so absorbed in the documentary.

"Patrick! Your friend is here!" His mom yells.

He dumps the rest of the Cheetos from his hand into his mouth, chewing quickly. He wipes his hands and mouth with a napkin and rolls up the bag. The documentary is still going, but he doesn't want to miss a second of it so he pauses it.

"Send him up." He yells, wiping his pants.

"Hey dude." Andy walks in a few second later.

"Hi Andy." Patrick smiles.

"I think the black fedora would match better..." Andy scans Patrick's outfit.

"I thought the gray kinda split it up." He pulls his fedora off and stares at it.

"Oh yeah..." Andy cocks his head. "I see it now."

Patrick nods and puts the fedora back on his head.

"Sooo..." Andy rolls back on his heels and pops back up onto his toes. He repeats the motion. "Guess who I had to sit next to today?"

"Who?" Patrick flops onto his bed.

"Pete Wentz."

Patrick's heart freezes.

"He didn't even say anything to me." Andy shakes his head, falling into Patrick's twisty chair. He smiles at Patrick's Cheetos and almost opens the bag but he pauses, hands hovering over it.

"You can have some." Patrick smiles.

"I've been having some hard cravings since I went vegan. Trying to cut junk food out has been awful." Andy shakes his head.

"I'm sorry." Patrick frowns. "I don't think I could be vegan...so if it makes you feel any better you're already healthier than me."

Andy smiles.

"Hey and you look better too! Less tired looking." Patrick nods.

"You look pretty good too." Andy pulls his phone out and shows Patrick a picture.

His eyes widen. It's a picture of Pete and him, running, smiling. Patrick's cheeks instantly flush. He looks so happy...it's weird. He doesn't even remember smiling when he was running.

"We hung out." Patrick shrugs it off, trying to return his face to its normal paleness.

"I...I can see."

"He's nicer than his friends." Patrick looks at Andy.

Andy looks up and clicks his phone off. "Doesn't seem like it."

"He is..." Patrick remembers the yelling from the night before. "He was talking about me, last night he was yelling."

"Explain."

"I don't know...he was mentioning that I was giving up and-"

"That's a douchey thing to say."

"Listen." Patrick says, annoyance growing. "He said I was giving up and people were treating me like I'm fragile when I can actually do things...and..." His memory lapses. "He said more but I forgot...but it was nice stuff."