The Middle - Volume Two ✔️

Volume Three - Chapter One

Jamie

"Patrick, all this time I thought you were just a heartless slut, when really - you don't date because you never met the right girl for you?" I was excited about this revelation, because it was something I had never considered before. Patrick likes sex, we all know this. So, he hooks up. No dating. I had always thought he was like that because he wasn't interested in relationships. I had no idea that it was just because he was...picky?

I was smiling at him, my eyes wide, eagerly awaiting his response to what I'd just said. This was gonna change everything. Maybe he'd even consider taking things further with the lilac haired girl he took to the Winter Fayre. I was practically giddy. So much so, that I didn't fully register the way his face hardened when I spoke. His smile faded, and he looked like he was struggling. With what, I wasn't sure. I was too fucking drunk and excited to even realise what was going on in that moment. And he was drunk too, which probably explains why he looked away from me, frowning all the while, before downing the remainder of his drink, slamming the glass down on to the bar, taking a deep breath, looking me dead in the eye, and saying:

"No. I don't date because I already met the right girl for me. Around six years ago."

***

"What? Who!?" I asked him excitedly. I was drunk, okay? And I'm a fool.

He opened his mouth to answer me, but the bar tender chose that exact moment to bring over two fresh Jack and Cokes. I continued eagerly staring at Patrick as he paid the bar tender and thanked him.

"Come on, tell me! This is so exciting!" I said, practically giddy. Such a fucking idiot.

"Are you serious?" He frowned at me in disbelief.

"I'm not a fucking mind reader, Patrick!" I said, getting impatient. Then, in my drunken state, a fresh wave of realisation hit me. "Hang on, almost six years ago? You would have been, what, fourteen years old?" I asked, genuinely trying to figure out where he had been hiding this girl.

He nodded his head slowly while sipping from his drink.

"We started the band over five and a half years ago now, I was thirteen when I met you and Joel..."

He nodded again, his eyes fixed to the floor.

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed.

"Jamie, I didn't wanna do this.." he started to say, at the same time I said, "It's Erin!"

"Wait, what?" He finally looked up at me, looking completely defeated.

I didn't say anything, because I already knew.

The moment his eyes met mine, I knew.

I don't know what I was thinking suggesting Erin anyway, we met her four years ago. Not almost six...

I was still standing in front of him by the bar, our faces were only inches apart. I felt my mouth open slightly, I was in a total state of shock. I stood there staring at him for what was probably the longest ten seconds of my life. The past six years of my life flashed in front of me in those ten seconds. From when I first met Patrick, a sad little thirteen year old girl who had just started to recover from the loss of her mom, to barely two hours ago, when I was kissing him before midnight with balloons and confetti falling around us. All this time? There's no way. He did not like me like that. Did he?

I remembered the first time I met him in my garage, when he told me he could play a little guitar even though he was a drummer, and Joel immediately informed me that Patrick actually couldn't play guitar at all. Had he been trying to impress me? I didn't think so at the time.