Afraid of the Dark

When I woke up, it was four o'clock in the morning and still dark outside. Outside, down on the street below, a dog was barking, people were laughing and shouting, cars sped by, a siren wailed in the distance. In the dark silence of Pete's hotel room, wrapped safely in his arms, I felt as if I was floating along unsteadily in the eye of the storm--calm and at peace, but at any moment, he would let go and I would fly away into all the sound and motion and chaos of the city rising up all around us. And he would have to let me go eventually.

I could see a little by the moonlight filtering in through the window, so I lay still and quiet as I looked around the room. His bass guitar sat in a chair across the room, as if it was a person; books and CD cases lay stacked up in piles all around the room; a half-empty bottle of Mountain Dew sat on the table by the door, next to a framed photograph of Bronx and Pete's two dogs. A trail of discarded clothing led from the doorway to the side of the bed, and the bedside table was bare save for an ornate lamp and a tiny gleam of platinum: Pete's wedding ring.

I had thought that Pete was still asleep, but then he pulled me closer and whispered in my ear before I had time to think.

"...Sarah?" His breath raised goosebumps on the back of my neck. Even with his arms around me, I felt cold.

"Yes?"

The words spilled out fluidly, as if we had just been discussing them--and maybe, silently to ourselves, we had been.

"Do you think I'm your soul mate?"

I blinked twice into the darkness and decided to tell the truth. "Yes."

"Are you mad?"

"A little."

"Are you sad?"

"Yes."

We were quiet for a while. His skin was hot and sticky against mine, but still, I felt so cold. I fixated my gaze on the vacant glow of the streetlight through the curtains and tried not to think about anything.

I knew I would probabaly never get to spend another night like this with him again, but somehow that knowledge made me even slower to savor the moment. I was torn between desperation (would I never see him, never speak to him, never touch him again?) and despair and self-disgust, and I could do nothing but lay there and feel conflicted.

"Sarah?" said Pete again, long after I thought he'd gone to sleep.

"Yeah?"

"I think you're my soul mate."

Outside, more sirens. A car alarm. People laughing darkly, hollowly, like ghosts.

"I'm not sad," he told me. "I'm not mad."

"You're not?"

"No. But I'm sorry."

Hot tears spilled over and streamed down my cheeks, leaving tingling trails of thawed emotion behind. The tears, they were so hot. So hot. How could I feel so cold?

Still lying in Pete's arms, I rolled over so that I was now lying face-to-face with him. He saw that I was crying and his face twisted in pain as he reached up to wipe away my tears with his thumb.

"Shhhh," he murmured. "It's okay. Don't cry."

"I wish things were different," I whispered. "I wish it wasn't like this."

Pete didn't say anything. He just clutched me closer to him and kissed me warm again.

-----

I was still awake when the sun came up, and I watched daylight pour in through the windows with a grim heart. For the first time, I was sorry to see the night go.

Meanwhile, Pete slept soundly at my side. I watched the steady, even rise and fall of his chest, touched his face--smooth, untouched by lines of worry in sleep--listening to the rhythm of his beating. Something about the way his dark hair fell in his face broke my heart--maybe because I knew I would never see him like this again.

We were out of time.

I slid out from under his arm and out of bed, stooping to collect my clothes from the night before. I dressed mechanically, pulling on one item after the other: bra, underwear, pants, tank top, sweater. My vision blurred with unshed tears and I struggled with the buttons on my sweater.

"Sarah, come here. Let me help you with that."

I turned to see Pete sitting up in bed watching me, his expression a mixture of sadness and amusement. He was shirtless, and I was momentarily distracted by the tattoos that ran all the way up his arms, winding around his neck and across his stomach--I had never seen them in the daylight before.

I realized I was staring, and felt heat rise to my cheeks. "I didn't know you were up," I mumbled sheepishly.

"Well, I wasn't, until you woke me up." He smirked. "For a journalist, you're not very sneaky."

"Oh." I blushed again. "Sorry."

He laughed and gestured for me to come closer. I crossed the room and knelt on the bed before him.

"So," he said as he buttoned up my sweater for me, "you were going to try to give me the slip, huh?"

"No. I was going to wake you up--after..."

"You put some clothes on?" he supplied.

"Yeah."

"I think it's a little late to worry about that," he said, grinning, and I blushed deeper yet.

I stared down at my hands clasped in my lap--small and white and bare, ringless--and all I could think about was the platinum band sitting just feet away. I could see the gleam of it out of the corner of my eye as it sat there on the nightstand in silent protest, as if to mock me, and then my stomach churned as I remembered the picture of Bronx on the table by the door. Something inside of me rolled unsteadily, and I felt the words rise up in my throat on instinct: "I'm sorry."

But I didn't say it.

He reached up to touch my face, but I pulled away, rolling off of the bed and onto my feet instead. Then I was headed for the door.

"Wait--Sarah--"

I turned just in time to see Pete pulling on his boxers. He pulled a T-shirt over his head and was in the process of putting on a pair of socks he had found lying in the floor when he looked up and asked, with an anxious quirk of his eyebrows, "Where are you going?"

"I have to pack and shower and change my clothes..." I swallowed hard. "My plane leaves at noon."

"Oh." He looked away. "Right."

Then silence. My hand found the doorknob, cold and hard beneath my fingertips. It was time to go, but somehow I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Not yet.

"Do I get to say goodbye?"

Pete was watching me with this horrible wounded look on his face, and my gut twisted with sadness. Why did it have to be so hard? Why did I have to go and make such a mess out of everything?

"Of course," I said. "I'll--I'll meet you guys in the lobby before...before I go."

He nodded. "Okay. I'll see you then."

All at once, tears pricked my eyes, so I ducked out of the room before he could see them, pulling the door shut behind me without a word.

-----

All in all, our short whirlwind romance (of sorts) was anticlimactic. In the end, days of late-night conversations, conflicted emotions, charged revelations, and sexual tension, culminating in the night before, all came down to one moment: Pete and his three bandmates and I standing in the hotel lobby awkwardly, with my suitcase at my feet and my backpack slung over my shoulder.

It was obvious that none of us knew what to say. Patrick and Joe and Andy stood there shuffling their feet, looking around at each other uncomfortably and making strained jokes that no one laughed at. Pete and I kept stealing glances at each other, and then pretending to be looking somewhere else when we got caught. Clearly, my hope that no one else would ever know what had happened between me and Pete was a false one. While Pete and I tried to act like our relationship was strictly professional, the other three were trying just as hard to pretend like they didn't know there was something between us.

The whole situation could be summed up in two words: extremely awkward.

"So, um, it's been fun," I said finally, and all four members of Fall Out Boy bobbed their heads in agreement. "I'm gonna miss you guys."

"Yeah. We're gonna miss you too," said Patrick.

Joe and Andy nodded again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pete rub his eyes and look away.

I hugged Patrick and Joe and Andy, and they each told me goodbye in their own way: Joe with a smile and a cheesy salute; Andy with a curt nod; Patrick with a cute little wave. Then I turned to Pete.

I went to hug him as he went to shake my hand, so after an awkward little shuffle, we ended up shaking hands first and then hugging--a strange way to say goodbye to someone you had slept with the night before. He tried to smile at me, but it came out looking more like a grimace, and then suddenly I was crying.

To their credit, Patrick and Andy and Joe reacted in the best way possible by slowly inching away from us, subtly giving me and Pete a little privacy. When they were halfway out of earshot, Pete glanced around to make sure no one was watching us, and then he reached up and wiped my tears away.

"Don't cry," he whispered. "Please don't cry."

"I'm sorry," I choked out through my sobs. "I'm making a scene."

"No, you're not," said Pete, even though I was.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. He handed me a Kleenex, and I wiped my eyes with it. "Thanks," I muttered. I stared at the tissue, perplexed. "Where did you get this?"

"I thought it might come in handy." He shrugged, gesturing to the bulge in the pocket of his tight girl jeans, where he had stuffed about half a box of Kleenex.

I couldn't help but laugh, though my chest ached. "You're so retarded."

"Hey," said Pete, "that's not a very nice thing to say. I thought journalists were supposed to be politically correct?"

"It's not politically incorrect if it's true. And I'm not a journalist."

"Oh, really? So, what, you're a reporter now?"

"No!" I laughed. "I'm... I don't know what I am. But I'm not so sure I want to be a journalist anymore. After this assignment, I mean."

He gave me this very quiet, intelligent look, like he knew exactly what I was trying to say. Then he lowered his voice and murmured, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

He shrugged. "You know..."

I knew.

"Here," he said, digging around in his pocket for his phone. He pressed a few buttons and then handed the phone to me. "My number changes all the time. But if you give me yours, I can get in touch with you."

The top of the screen read New Contact. After a moment of hesitation, I entered my name and my cell phone number. Then I stared at the two options at the bottom of the screen: Save and Cancel.

I chose the second option and gave the phone back to him.

Pete hailed a cab for me and loaded my luggage into the trunk, then held the door for me while I climbed into the backseat of the car. He didn't know what I had done, but I think part of him must have known that we would never be together again, because he leaned in the open window of the cab before it drove away.

And he said, "Sarah, I want you to know that...I love you. I do." He paused for a few seconds, and then he breathed, "You changed everything for me."

I'll never forget the look on his face in that moment.

There was so much I wanted to say to him then, but I couldn't. I just couldn't get the words out.

"Hey," he said finally, as he stepped away from the cab, back onto the curb, "say hi to your mom for me, okay?" And his grave tone spoiled the grin on his face.

How could he know...?

I guess it was just one of those Pete Things.

I choked back tears and said, "Goodbye, Pete."

"Goodbye, Sarah."

I rolled the window up before I could be tempted to say anything else I knew I would regret later. As we drove away, I glanced back in the rearview mirror and saw him standing there, still, his eyes dark and vulnerable like a child as the distance between us grew.

"I love you, too," I said to him, but he couldn't hear me anymore.

-----

The airport was terribly lonely.

Despite the noise and the masses of people that surrounded me on all sides, dragging suitcases and screaming children, some of them running to catch a plane, their heels clicking hysterically against the tiled floors, I felt more alone than I had ever felt before. And I often felt alone.

As I stood in line to board the plane, I retreated into the daydream world that Pete was always so quick to tear down. I imagined that, at any moment now, I would hear someone shouting my name, and turn to see him running towards me, rushing to stop me before--

But no. An old man behind the desk scanned my boarding pass and then I was walking alone down the narrow hall that led to the plane waiting to take me home.

I took my seat in business class. Two men in suits in the row ahead of me were discussing some business venture in low voices. The stewardess stood near the front of the plane and greeted each passenger with a smile. I didn't think I had ever smiled that big, and I doubted that I ever would.

My head hurt.

I watched all the other passengers' heads bobbing in time as the plane sped down the runway. My fingers moved to my pocket instinctively, and my heart gave a little jolt of horror as I realized I had forgotten something back in Pete's hotel room.

My lighter.

I felt the plane rise up beneath me, beneath all of us, and then we were airborne--a simple act of God. And I leaned my head back and closed my eyes and pictured Pete in his hotel room later that day, packing up his things, and finding my lighter. I wondered if he would keep it.

And I pictured him pulling out his cell phone, scrolling through his contacts list again and again, searching for my name in the blurred column of text, sure that he must've just overlooked it...how could he have overlooked it...? I wondered how long it would take for him to stop looking for what wasn't there.

And I wondered if he would feel sad, knowing that he would never see me, never hear from me again. I wondered if all the managers and publicists and personal assistants trailing his every move would even notice anything, or if he could keep that mask in place, just like always. I wondered if I had the power to make his fake smile slip in front of all those people, all those cameras.

But, then again, I guess we both knew we would never be together, not even in the small ways. So maybe he saw what was coming with that bright, bright laser vision he called logic long ago--maybe he had started numbing himself for the blow so early that it hardly stung once it hit him.

So maybe he wasn't even sad.

I was sad, but at the same time I had never felt more at peace with my life, somehow. It seemed to me that this was just how things played out--how they were always going to play out. Pete and I had fallen into our places in the universe and that was that. It was over. Done. And there was nothing either of us could do about it.

It's strange how someone can come into your life and change everything so suddenly--in just seven days, in my case. But I guess if you believe in soul mates, like I do, it's not as strange as it may seem. In fact, it makes perfect sense.

Why did we, two completely unrelated people, who grew up and lived and existed thousands of miles away from each other for most of our lives, meet almost randomly and fall in love within that short space of time? Because we were supposed to, that's all. At least, that's how I rationalize it to myself.

I like to think that everything is meant to be. I'm not really a fan of nihilism. Personally, I like explanations, I like reasons, I like meaning--maybe that's why I ended up as a journalist, digging to find the rationale behind the biggest and weirdest celebrities' fucked up lives.

But I guess I can't really say for sure. Pete was always so insistent on the absolute truth, and the truth in itself is that we met and things that maybe shouldn't have happened happened and I loved him. I still love him. That's the truth. And that's all I know for sure.

The rest is just me filling in the gaps, the way I like to see them. Fantasizing, as I'm sure Pete would say.

Halfway into the plane ride, I got tired of overanalyzing the past week and tried to sleep. I couldn't. I listened to music on my iPod, I couldn't focus on it--I was still preoccupied with Pete. So I decided to just get it over with and start on the article already.

It was rough going at first. I tried a few of the usual cheesy openers, but none of them felt right. This piece was special; I didn't want to reuse all of my old formulas. I wanted to do Fall Out Boy justice. More importantly, I wanted to do Pete justice.

So, after an hour and a half of struggling with an introduction, I decided to start out with a description of Pete. He was going to be the main focus of the article anyway, so I might as well just cut to the chase already, right?

Unfortunately, describing Pete was just as impossible as coming up with a decent introduction had been.

After all, how could I possibly explain Pete in a few words in a magazine? Pete, who was such a bizarre conglomeration of the most unrelated adjectives? To readers with strong preconceived notions of him, and not all of them positive?

What could I say?

Then I remembered that Hemingway quote Pete had shared with me the other day: "Write the truest sentence you know."

The truest sentence?

Pete Wentz is an enigma.

Well, not even that said it all, but it sure as hell came close.