7 Deadly Sins

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Patrick.”

“Oh, hey Patrick. What’s up?”

“I was just wondering if I could drop by right now.”

“Uh, sure, come on over.”

“Okay, see you.”

I hang up a little too sceptically. This hadn’t happened in days. Months maybe. Exactly though, since the release of FAD. It’s like a symbolic date, the day that my relationship with Fall out Boy took a different turn. The day that the bonds thinned so much that you could barely see them.

But they were still there. And I realised that when I opened the door, and Patrick’s face no more looked like the baby face we were all so accustomed to. It was crumbled, and his eyes looked tired, and himself, too. He looked fatigued. And the fact that let it show to me, made me feel warm inside.

“Sorry for the time.”

“Don’t worry about that. Come in, sit.”

To be honest, I didn’t even look at the time when he called me. I was so taken aback by his move, that I forgot it was late at night. It was one in the morning. But he knew I wouldn’t be sleeping, being the zombie I am. He knew everything.

He plopped down on the couch feebly and emitted a small moan. I smiled crookedly.

“That feels so good. I haven’t been at home yet. It’s like everything’s in fast forward lately,” he confessed, and I saw the real meaning behind “lately”. The date that would haunt me forever took over him too.

“I know,” I said sitting down next to him, “It’s horrible.”

He sighed, and looked at me. I didn’t know why, but his eyes, so different from Pete's, looked almost the same with his now, under the dim lights of my living room, and the glow of the moonlight glimmering in them. The same deep emotion was playing hide-and-seek in his blue pearls, but he looked more determined than Pete.

“Why are you here?” I asked him, taking advantage of his presence and sudden tenacity.

“I missed you,” he said sturdily, “I missed the warmth of you, and this place,” he looked around, “I missed the stupid discussions we had, I missed your half burnt meals and impulsive laughter, I missed your opinions about my looks and songs...” he paused and his gaze froze where it was, “I missed the old days.”

And then I felt this chill ran through every fibre of my body, like an electric shock, and it was like I was shaken out of the trance I had been living into.

“Remember when,” Patrick continued, “ when we would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went to speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes?”

Of course I remembered. “We were kids then.” I told him, but he shook his head.

“We were still kids when we played demos in basements. We were still kids when we vainly tried to make breakfast pancakes after we got wasted the previous night. And we were still kids when we weren't followed by bodyguards.”

I could feel my eyes watering, as my vision turned blurry, but I didn’t care. Patrick had been thinking about this, like I had been. Only, we were thinking of it in different ways.

I would just mope about their drastic change into teen idols, while he would ponder over the old days we spent together, missing them, needing them, wanting them back.

“I’m not sure if we are kids anymore,” he concluded.

And this conclusion made the tears I had been saving for so long burst out into raging rivers.

“Shhh,” Patrick hushed me, “it’s okay.” He moved closer to me, clasping me in his arms, and he felt so balmy, so balmy that it made more tears shed, because I had missed it so much.

He kissed the top of my head and rubbed my arm as I bawled, and I don’t know how long it took my eyes to dry, but he was still rubbing my arm soothingly when I stopped weeping.

I closed my eyes and focused on his hand touching me, trying to sleep.

“I promise you,” Patrick whispered, “I promise you I’ll try to change things. I know the guys are thinking about it too. I know they hate what we are now, and I promise I’ll try and bring out the emotions they’ve been burying. I promise you this.”

And then everything went black, and I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well in my entire life.

Waking up, however, is a totally different story. I opened my eyes groggily, smelling something flavoursome. It was a very difficult task getting up, as I was really stiff and inflexible. Patrick had thrown a blanket on me, which made things even worse.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Patrick screeched zealously, when I was in the kitchen. He was wearing an overall and there was flour all over him, and the sight of him cooking made me crack up.

“What?” he asked offended, “haven’t you seen a guy cooking before?”

“Well, not you though,” I snickered, sitting down on the table. “Now where are my pancakes?”

“On their way miss,”

It was weird acting all happy when the previous night I had been bawling my eyes out. But I gathered this was Patrick’s way to make me feel better, or to show me that his promise was not a spur of the moment.

He placed a plate filled with pancakes in front of me, and it looked delicious, all of a sudden. “Are you sure there are no egg shells in this?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” He rolled his eyes.

He sat down across me, looking at me thoughtfully.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I already did.”

I nodded and started eating. It didn’t feel so uncomfortable having him staring at me, and I was sure he needed to tell me something. Which he did, when I was almost finished.

“It’s not their fault you know,” he muttered, “we all changed. I just thought about it a little more, and I found out there’s still a kid in there.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m not sure that's it, though, Patrick. I call it...” I racked my brains for the right word.

“Call it?”

“Pride.”

Patrick was immobilised, to say the least. He stood there, contemplating, his eyes slightly bigger. He didn’t say anything. I got up, picked up my empty plate and proceeded to the sink where I washed it, wiped it, and put it back in its place.

But that was the truth. Patrick was not known for his pride, whereas the other three always left signs of self-importance behind. And that’s why they wouldn’t easily break, like Patrick did.

“That’s...” he stuttered.

“Admit it, Patrick. There’s no better word to describe it.”

There were three heartbeats of silence, until he huffed and said, “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

I felt the worst kind of affection towards him. I sympathised with him. It was so horrible that he was the only one to feel betrayed, and pulled into something he never wanted, whilst the other three were somewhere lost in the maze of fame.

But was there a way out?

Patrick was sure there was. I wasn’t.

I knew Patrick was saved, that he would now change his life, but who says he would be able to drag the others out of it too?

“Pride...” he murmured, “pride is a sin.”

I laughed at that. “Yeah, since they’re all so religious.”

He nodded, hastily, lost in his thoughts. “I gotta go,” he told me, and kissed my cheek. “See you later.”

I sincerely hoped he had something in his mind.