Afraid of the Dark

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"Ugh. Shit."

I closed my eyes and slid my hands over my face, massaging my temples vigorously, as if I could somehow rub away the splitting headache that was making coherant thought pretty impossible. It was almost noon, and I was still groggy and bleary-eyed, still hungover. I had hoped to have the rough draft of the article at least halfway done today, and how much did I have done so far? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," I groaned. "I'm going to kill Pete."

But of course, this wasn't his fault--it was mine. Why had I decided to go to that party with him last night? Why had I drank so much? And why was I sitting here with a hangover, knowing full well that I haven't been doing my job properly for the past few days, and smiling because of it?

This is stupid, Sarah, I told myself. It's foolish and self-destructive and it's not going to end well.

So why couldn't I stop?

The voice in my head was relentless. You're not here to make friends, it scolded me. You're not here to "hang out" with Pete Wentz, to get drunk on champagne at some party for God-knows-what and then stumble into bed with your make-up on at 3 AM. You're here to do your job--and, clearly, he's getting in the way of that--

"No, he's not," I said to myself out loud. "He's not getting in the way. I can still do my job."

Just to prove myself wrong, I got out all my old notes from this week's interviews and flipped to a clean page of my notebook. At the top of the paper, I wrote, "Fall Out Boy, December 2008," in careful, even letters. And then I drew a blank.

With every other article I had written, I had had a sense of what the article would be like before I ever sat down to write it. Even as I was tagging along behind rockstars and starlets, jotting down direct quotes and pushing buttons on my beloved tape recorder, I had a sense of which scenes I would try to replicate in words, which quotes to throw in here and there, what tone to set. I knew exactly what I was going to write before I actually wrote it.

This time was different, though. I was so caught up in the city and Pete and his constant word plays that I had forgotten how I figured into the equation--that I was meant to be merely an onlooker, not an active participant. Pete came along and shook up my whole routine, and now I was left grasping at the thin air he left behind. Words failed me.

Where could I even begin? There was so much to say, and no way to say it. I had only raw emotion, splintered and frayed snapshots from cold, dark nights spent in captivity, bathed in the eerie glow of a fallen star...

I couldn't explain the feelings even to myself. How could I ever explain it to whatever imbecile decided to pick up this issue from the check-out lane at the grocery store?

"Shit, I give up," I sighed, tossing the notebook onto the coffee table. That empty page just sat there on the table, mocking me, as I stared back at it for far too long--and then, in one sudden movement, I lunged forward and flipped the notebook shut. But I still felt just as defeated as I had before.

So it was true: he really had come between me and my job. I guess I should have panicked at the thought of this (after all, it was my dream job, and I hadn't had it for very long), but I was actually quite calm. Mostly, I just felt sort of sad--sad that the first thing to make me feel okay in a while was turning out to be my downfall.

"You know what?" I half-laughed into the silence. "It's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay. I can beat this. I can. I mean, it's just writer's block. People get writer's block all the time...right?"

But there was no one there to reassure me.

"Right," I said, just to fill the void. "You're absolutely right, Sarah."

Maybe I would have been right if I had just picked up the notebook and started writing again, or turned on the TV, or ordered room service, as I might have out of boredom. I didn't do any of these things, though; instead, I leaned forward and picked up the stack of magazines that the hotel kept on a shelf underneath the coffee table.

The first magazine in the pile was an issue of Southern Living, featuring a heinous gingham patio set on the cover. I tossed that one aside--and the next one, and the next one, and the next, and then--

The fifth magazine in the stack was an old issue of People magazine and there, right there on the cover, was Pete in a classic black tux, Ashlee at his side in a designer wedding gown, and his dog, Hemingway, dressed up in some hideous dog outfit and crouched there between them, all of them positively radiant with joy--even the dog--and polished, clean, beautiful...perfect.

There, right there on the cover of that magazine, were Pete and Ashlee's wedding photos.

I think my reaction was so staggering just because it took me so off guard. Before I could even fully process what I was seeing, I felt the rush of blood to my head, my cheeks burning, my vision swimming and yet so sharp at the same time--sharp enough to see every little fold in the fabric of her dress, every lock of his dark hair swept carefully into place, every line separating every perfect tooth that made up their perfect smiles. All of a sudden, I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't speak. I could only sit there staring at that photograph, burning hatred mixing with a disbelief that almost bordered on denial. My thoughts were incoherant, they were all emotion--all shock and anger and betrayal.

I sat there, just reeling, for the longest time. I tried to read the big yellow words captioning the photo, but the letters were all blurry, they kept moving around on me--why did they keep moving around so much?

...Oh. My hands were shaking.

Somehow, I found the strength to force myself to let go of the magazine, and it fell onto the floor with a disheartened plop. The force of my reaction had knocked all the air out of me, and now I tried to focus on taking deep breaths, pumping oxygen to my brain so my mind could start functioning properly again.

To be frank, I was completely bewildered. I had no idea what these feelings were; I only knew that they were irrational, and startlingly intense. I had a hard time understanding my subconscious reasoning behind them. What little coherant thought I managed to entertain at the time ran something like this: "I can't believe this. How dare she. Howcould he? She's not good enough for him. I can't believe this..."

I had known all along that he was married to Ashlee, and it had never really bothered me before. Why was it so upsetting to me now? Why should I be upset about it at all? It was his life. He could marry whoever he wanted to marry, and by the looks of it, they were happy together--

Before I could finish that thought, another hot flush of anger and betrayal surged into my face.

Happy? How could he be happy withher? She's such a bitch. A fake, plastic bitch that doesn't even understand him--how couldshe ever understand him? She couldn't possibly get it, she couldn't see him the wayI do--

The bitter thoughts stopped abruptly as if I had flipped a switch somewhere in my brain as I realized that this feeling had a name. It wasn't anger or betrayal or disbelief, though it felt like all of those at once. It was something much more powerful, the rawest, purest form of an emotion that was largely foreign to me.

Jealousy.

-----

My hometown had always felt like such a trap; the poverty and drug addiction and alcoholism and unemployment hovered in the very air of that place like ghosts, like the sooty, toxic coal dust--snares. Growing up there was like picking my way through the bristly underbrush of the deer thickets at my grandparents' house in the summer, constantly loosening the vines' grip on my hand-me-down clothes, thorns pricking at my skin and drawing blood even as they finally set me free. I side-stepped the ruts all the other small-town girls got stuck in like potholes.

What scared me the most was the isolation, the heaviness that settled over the town when night fell. There were so many tiny houses crammed right on top of one another, but at night they were nestled in close, and we were all separate and alone somehow. I remember being seventeen and driving home late at night, in the dark, the only car on the road. And scared.

And I remember the rush of feeling I got at the headlights breaking over the horizon, up ahead of me in the distance. The rest of the car came next and they were so far away, but at least I wasn't alone anymore. Some nights I lay awake in bed and think about that car, about that night, about watching the two headlights come closer and closer, and then pass me by...

How comforting they were. How comforting it was to know that there was someone else with you on that lonely stretch of road--no matter how much space and darkness lay between you.

When I left my hotel room that morning, there was a note lying on the floor just outside my door. I picked it up and read the messy handwriting.

"how's the writer's block treating you? better? sorry, no hemingway quotes to cure a hangover. i googled it and everything. but stop by my room today and i might think of something. -peter"

I read the note over and over again until I had every last unsteady line memorized, and then I kept rereading it. I was addicted to the feeling I got each time I read those words--that surge of hope that comes with headlights breaking over the horizon on a dark, dark road.

-----

There was a balcony in Hurley's room, and as he told me about growing up in the Chicago hardcore scene, I looked out over that balcony at the gray December morning and remembered standing on Pete's balcony with him, how cold the air was, how new the night... My mind wandered and I didn't bother to steer it back on track. The tape recorder was doing all the work for me (I could always go back and play his answers over again if I didn't pay attention the first time around) and Hurley obviously didn't care if I listened to what he had to say or not, so why bother?

He went on and on about all the different bands he had been in as a teenager, and my ears perked up a time or two at the mention of Pete's name. Both of them had been playing in shitty punk and hardcore bands since they were just kids, so it was no wonder that their teenage musical careers overlapped here and there. Fall Out Boy was only set apart from all those other bands in that Pete had specifically created it with a more "pop-ish" sound in mind.

The way Hurley said the words...he almost made it seem like Fall Out Boy had been made to sell out. And, knowing Pete and his convoluted schemes, maybe it had been.

After all, Pete had always been up front and unapologetic about his "sell-out" reputation. It wasn't so hard to believe that all of this--the disgruntled die-hards and the oblivious bandwagoners, the sarcastic album reviews and snide journalists, the sold out shows and the racks of overpriced merchandise and the VIP parties in dark, gloomy clubs--was just the end result of years of purposeful manipulation. Maybe it was all in the master plan.

Pete always had a plan.

I had plans, too. I had been making them all my life. For years and years, my sole life's purpose was to make sure that these plans all worked out exactly as they were supposed to.

But life isn't about plans. It's about chances and choices and accidents and mistakes, good luck and bad luck and fate. It's about taking whatever life hands you.

The only problem was that life had handed me someone who was already taken.

His note was still balled up in the hand that wasn't holding the tape recorder, and I clenched my fist tighter, grinding the small shred of paper into a tinier and tinier ball. I felt the crinkled edges of his words digging into my hand, and that was the only reminder of him I would allow myself. I put all other thoughts of him out of my mind (for now, at least) and focused on Hurley--my job.

He clearly hated me. Whether he loathed me on principle or because he thought I was stupid or annoying or arrogant, or any of the other negative adjectives that other non-fans have used to describe me in the past, was irrelevant to me. He hated me, and that was that.

But I didn't hate him, especially after that particular interview. We had a lot more in common than either of us had previously suspected, I think.

For one thing, his father died when he was small. Behind the square black-rimmed glasses, his dark eyes squinted up, as if to guard against the tears that hadn't formed yet, as he said, "You know, I used to pretend he wasn't dead. I pretended he had become a ninja assassin and had to hide out from everyone, but once I was old enough, he would come find me again, and train me to be his sidekick." He shook his head, and the squinting didn't help: a tear slid out of one eye and halfway down his cheek before he wiped it away with a rough swipe of his hand. But he smiled anyway, because it was just so stupid--the lengths people go to to keep their dreams alive, if only in the twisted versions of reality that exist in their minds alone.

I knew, because I had done the same thing. After my father left, I used to pretend that he was a spy for the government, away on some secret mission; that he had finally become a famous musician, just like he had always wanted, and he just had to leave without us to go on tour (the record company told him to!); that he had died mysteriously in some heroic way or another. Even imagining my father dead was less painful than believing that he simply didn't want me anymore.

"But that was stupid." Hurley sighed and pushed his glasses up onto his forehead to rub his eyes underneath them. "He really was dead, and I was just...a kid. A stupid kid."

I had forgotten Pete and the balcony entirely at this point--I was sitting there in a plush chair opposite Hurley, staring at him with my heart beating fast, and feeling very much like a stupid kid as I remembered my own delusions. The daydreams that I stupidly kept alive, even now...

I had been very careless. I had thought that I could have anything I wanted. I was sure that my fairytale was in the bag, practically guaranteed, by now. Ignorant and unseeing, I had been stumbling clumsily through fields of flowers that were riddled with landmines.

Because of all my stupid mis-steps, the outcome of my life was hanging in the balance of volatile emotions. To let myself get close enough to someone I was supposed to have a purely professional relationship with--a married man--to get close enough to feel this way--to put all my careful plans in jeopardy without even noticing until it was almost too late--

No, careless didn't even cover it.

We would never be together. We could never be together. We could never even have a shot at being together, because he had Ashlee and the baby and his career, and he couldn't have me too.

As much as I hated it, I was well aware of this. I also knew that the closer I got to him, the more the final separation would hurt. I knew that I should stop seeing him more than was strictly necessary, to somehow revert back to treating him as an interview subject and nothing more.

But I wanted to take him up on his offer and go visit him in his hotel room after this interview was over. And I probably would.

He just turned me so soft. He took all the rigid plans and goals and rules I made for myself and turned them into mush, steering me off course and pulling me towards him, always towards him, while I stood there conflicted--half of me digging in my heels, half of me eagerly bounding after him. When it came to Pete, I was weak. I was easy. I was so pliable, vulnerable, helpless.

It was an effort to pry my thoughts away from Pete and force myself to pay attention to Hurley once again. He had just finished up a vague summary of his college years and I could tell he was getting restless; if we didn't wrap things up soon, he was going to get even more snippy and hateful than usual. I glanced down at the list of pre-brainstormed questions I had in my lap, and blurted out the first one that caught my eye.

"You don't like reporters?"

His eyes bugged out the slightest bit in surprise at my bluntness, but this his expression calmed down and settled into a smug smirk. His reply was equally blunt: "No, not really."

I was careful to make sure that I didn't seem offended or defensive. I was interested to hear his explanation without it turning into an excuse or an apology or an argument. "Why not?"

"Because, I just..." He sighed, wide fingertips picking at the arms of his chair as he averted his eyes. "I just don't agree with the industry. Basically, they're capitalizing off of other people's talent and ability." When he met my gaze again, his eyes were angry, accusing, as if I were the one to blame for every douchebag businessman who had made the media the nightmare it is today. "They're like leeches. They're pathetic. It's so...low. So weak."

And then I was angry too. I was angry because he was exactly right. And that meant that my opaque exterior wasn't so opaque after all.

So hate me, I thought, staring him down with a venemous look that dared him to do it. So hate me, you bastard. Hate me, because Iam weak. So much weaker than you will ever know.

And as much as I wanted to hit him and break his glasses and knock his teeth out, I kind of wanted to cry more. Most of all, I wanted to go find Pete and tell him--tell him everything.

What was there to tell?

Everything and nothing and something...more than I knew. Maybe.

But there was nothing to say to Hurley, except for, "That's it for today. Thank you for the time." So I said it and I turned my back on the balcony that looked exactly like Pete's and I left. And even though I didn't tell Hurley that I was weak in so many words, he must have known by the way I ducked my head, still clutching that damn note in my left hand, biting my lip against the rage and trying not to cry and holding everything inside and failing, and running away. Only the weak duck their head. Only cowards run away. Only stupid, careless people try to bottle up the feelings that are bound to come bursting out of you eventually.