The Chronicles of James Pete Smith and Alysia Urie-Ross

“Doing lines of dust and sweat off last night’s stage, just to feel like you.”
-- 27 by Fall Out Boy

3:27 AM read the little red numbers on the digital clock next to my bed. My bed. It wasn't the same clock that I had always had. The numbers were less faded. There wasn't a top line missing from the last digit.
My sheets were too crisp and unused for them to even resemble the ones I was used to. The blanket was heavier--the room itself was colder, so it made sense--and it smelled different. They used different detergent than Donna. I kind of liked their stuff better, even if it wasn't the one I had always known.

No. Not always. Sometime, a long time ago, a time I couldn't remember, that had been what I was used to. Right? Something like that. But that was before the car crash. That was two years before the car crash. I wondered how I'd been able to get used to the Smiths. I wondered if I'd had any trouble adjusting to that, from whatever I had been used to. Then again, I had been 2 and a half when the Smiths had adopted me.

According to them, I called them 'mom' and 'dad' at first. Before the accident. I never believed them. Donna and Harry could never be my parents. I realized that as soon as I met Brendon and Ryan--there was something in the way that they looked at Ally that was different from the way Donna and Harry looked at me. Even thinking back to when I first awoke, before they hated me--they'd never looked at me like that.

Not the way that Patrick and Pete--my dads--looked at me. But that was different, too. They looked at me like they couldn't believe me. Like I couldn't be real. I saw them looking at me, studying me, as if I were a fake.
Because they thought that Jimmy Wentz died in a car crash when he was five.

But what if he did? I looked like that little boy as a teenager--but what if I wasn't really him? Physically, yes. Yes, because such unusual circumstances of birth were bound to create problems like the ones I had. But I didn't feel like the Jimmy they had known. I could barely remember anything from before the crash. And how was I supposed to love two men that I couldn't remember having known?

I still woke up from dreams, crying in my sleep. But now I could remember the dreams. It wasn't faceless voices yelling behind my eyelids anymore. Little scraps of memories from what I guessed was my past. There were the arguments--which I dreamt of most often. As I grew to know my fathers again, the dreams became clearer and clearer. I could recognize the voices. And then I could see their faces.

Our conversations were always private affairs in quiet rooms at the Urie-Ross house. Private and emotional. They were awkward at first--then they knew me, and I knew them. Again. We talked about school, the conflicts between the emo kids and the Beliebers. The heartbreak in their eyes when I talked about Donna and Harry and Emma made me shudder.

But what hurt me the most was when I asked them questions about me and them.

"Why’d you leave me with them?" I'd asked. The question was half under my breath. It was a question that had been burning in my mind for a long, long time--ever since the Smiths had told me that I was their adopted son.

Patrick had looked at Pete. Oh, so this was another thing that he had to answer for, wasn’t it? For a lot of the questions concerning my--our--past, it was Pete who answered. Life stuff, that was them individually. Having me--raising me--all of that was Patrick’s domain, for the obvious reasons. The whys, though, that would always earn that look on Patrick’s face, then the uncomfortable shift and regretful answer from Pete. But, at that point, I didn’t care about his regrets. I only cared about why they did it--what ever it had been that I was asking about.

“Well, um. Jimmy. Um. What you have to understand is…” He looked down, putting his head in his hands. “God, Jimmy. I’m sorry.” He’d looked up at me then, pleading. “I fucked up.” His hands got into constant motion, like he was confessing to some terrible sin or something. “I’m sorry--I tried to run away from reality--but--”

Reality. What was reality--to him? Me and dad? No, that wasn’t even a fair thought. Pete was my dad, too. They both were, and nothing felt safer than when I was with them. But why was it that I couldn’t get myself to trust Pete? Why couldn’t I meet his eyes when we talked? Alright, a good part of that was probably because I had seen his dick dozens of times before really meeting him, but it went beyond that. I had trouble calling him dad, even. And it hurt him every time I stumbled through that. He was good at keeping his face blank, but I saw it in his eyes.

“And that’s where she came in,” he had continued a minute later, sitting up straight and trying to look me in the eye, again. I avoided his glance and stared at my shoes. My everyday, non-offensive, regular old shoes. There was nothing I’d hated more than when they talked about her. We never dared to say her name, even though it was so simple--and she shared it with three girls in my Math class, two in my French class, and one in my English class. I couldn’t help it. Dad always looked so betrayed, almost. And that conversation was the worst of all. “No-one knew about us--no-one knew about you.” A pause. “People guessed about us. But no-one had any idea that you existed, and that was how we were supposed to keep it.” Pete bit his lip, trying to figure out exactly what to say next.
“She was a distraction.” Pete had finally stopped trying to make eye contact with me. "But emotions got... they went all over," he continued, bitterness lacing every word. "As they always do." he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "And before I noticed we were engaged. Married. And then there was Bronx..." Of course. My half-brother.

I bit my lip. Of course, I knew that story--it was a well-known romance on the emo kids' side. Pete had married Ashlee, they divorced, then he and Patrick ran to Chicago and got married. Knowing that they were my fathers made the story that much more romantic. But, as he had said--emotions always get in the way.

Like how I found myself unable to trust Pete.

Thinking like that made me feel ungrateful. Of course, it wasn't like I ever resented either of them--just some of the things that they had done. Well, mostly things that Pete had done. All of my resentments were ultimately able to be traced back to Pete. And that was the last thing I ever wanted to think about, considering the fact that he was my father.

I closed my eyes and rolled onto my other side, staring an unfamiliar off-white wall. It was so much more soothing than the dark brown floral wallpaper that lined the walls of my old room at the Smiths'. Then, I couldn't help but smile as I realized that maybe this place was more of a home to me than the Smiths' house had ever been. It was my first night sleeping there--it was really the only time I had even been there--and maybe it was home.

Two loving fathers and the nearly amnesiac son who acted nothing like his parents. I knew their legacy--I knew it far too well to ever forget it. I saw it every day at school, written on the faces of my peers. How could I call myself a Wentz, when I was nothing like my dads? I looked like them, and that was about it. My personality was so, so different. The way I presented myself to the public, the way I acted in private... I'd even started using Jimmy Wentz instead of Jimmy Smith in my internal monologues.

But how could that be true? I was nothing like they had been when they were younger. Ally wasn't even related to Brendon and Ryan--but she was obviously raised by them. Me? It was obvious that I hadn't been raised by my dads. Just me. But they were my dads and I had nothing to show for it.

No. Not if you try hard enough, I thought, sitting up. And if you can try, you'll have something to show for all of this. I was never one to follow others' examples, but whose example was better to follow than my dads'?

No-one's.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up, gingerly testing my weight on both feet. All I was wearing was an old, loose shirt and boxers--but I didn't mind as I crept out of my room and down the hallway. The bathroom they had showed me earlier was placed between my room (which was technically the guest room) and their room. Silence was key. I pushed the door open and shut it behind me, making absolutely no noise. My elbow had hit the lightswitch as I'd opened the door, and I was set.

Well, almost. I walked to the sink and stared at my face in the mirror for a few minutes. Yes, I could see both of my dads in my face--but it was just a sight thing. The attitude I wore on my lips, in my eyes? It was too different to be their son's.

I crouched down in front of the cabinets, swinging them open and coughing as a cloud of dust flew out at my face. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, then got to searching. It was all disorganized piles of old, old hair products and magazines. I swear to god, I found one dated 2005. And, right under that old magazine, I hit jackpot: a small wicker basket of old makeup. With a grin that was more like a grimace, I pulled it out and put it on top of the counter. I stood and looked through it, deciding on the newest-looking eyeliner pencil in there.

Eyeliner was something I had never dealt with in my entire life. Emma had been using it when I was 13 and going through my experimental phase, but it was never allowed to me. Of course, when I asked, she'd told me that boys don't wear makeup. Then, making sure that Harry and Donna weren't around, she added that you weren't supposed to share eyeliner anyway.

So, to put it shortly, I was messing with something I only knew how to use in theory. Not to mention, the eyeliner I was holding had to be at least five years old--if not even older. But it was fine, right? Because I would teach myself how to do that, and it would all come in time. I would be perfectly alright as long as I didn't poke my eyes out trying.

With a shaking hand, I raised the pencil to my face and to the corner of my closed left eye. This is going to be easy, I thought, dragging the pencil across my eyelid. Look, it's going just fine. And the line really did look good--at least, before I opened my eye to actually examine my work. And then it didn't look so good. I frowned and closed my eye again, pushing the pencil closer against my eye and trying to get the line closer to my eyelashes. Again, it didn't work. I turned on the tap and stuck my hand under it, then ran my hand over my eyelid and tried to wash it all off. Some of it came off, some of it just smeared. But I didn't care. I was so determined to get this shit figured out that I kept at that routine until there was a line that was close enough for me. I was too afraid to try my lower lid just then.

So, onto my right eye. Except that line turned out worse than any of my other lines combined. It was way off the mark, unevener than fuck, and skipped in so many places. It kept turning out that way, too, until I just gave up.

By that point, I was at the brink of tears. I threw the eyeliner pencil at the mirror, and looked up when it made a noise. I saw myself. My very poorly done eyeliner. My messy as fuck hair. My chapped lips and glazed eyes. God, I was such a fucking failure. That one, little thought brought me right over the edge and spiraling down into misery. I was crying, all of a sudden. Sobbing, actually. And not the good kind of sobbing, like when I had first met Patrick and Pete again. Not at all like that. It was the really, really bad kind of sobbing.

And it made a lot of noise.

I didn't even move when I heard the door open behind me. A glance up at the mirror confirmed what suspicions I could contain inside my miserable little head: both of my dads had joined me in the bathroom.

"Jimmy?" Patrick asked, softly. He walked over to me, his bare feet hardly making a sound over the old linoleum. He wrapped me in kind of an awkward hug, hanging to my left side. "Shh. Take a deep breath. What happened?"

I only cried harder at his prompt, looking down at the counter and bracing my hands on it. "I'm a failure. I'm not Jimmy." I took a few shuddering breaths, trying to get my tears to stop--but they refused.

"No," he whispered, "you're Jimmy."

"I'm not your Jimmy."

His frown deepened and he looked back at the door, beckoning with his eyes. Or he must have, because Pete was at my other side not two seconds later, also trying to calm me down. "Yeah, you're our Jimmy," he answered. "I couldn't imagine our Jimmy being any different than you."

"But I'm a failure. I'm nothing like you. Look at me," I said through my tears. They were leaving dark lines down my cheeks, just like in all the books and movies.

"Yeah. Exactly," Pete countered. "Look at you. You're my sweet lil' dude, just like I remember, but older." He smiled at me.

"Our sweet lil' dude," Patrick added, also smiling. He rubbed my back a little.

"I can't do a goddamn thing right." I was going to win this argument. I was going to win and keep myself miserable. "Can't even do fucking eyeliner."

They glanced at each other over my head, losing their smiles.

"Who said you need that to be my son?" Pete asked me. "That's something that takes practice, you know? And you do not have to be me--or something just like me--to be my kid, alright?" His words were firm. Patrick was still rubbing my back. My sobs had slowed. And by the tine that Pete had finished his little pep talk, they were more like whimpers.

Leave it to my dad to prove me wrong just by saying a handful of words.

"You should sleep," Patrick whispered after a while. "It's almost five."

"Don't leave me," I requested, my voice hoarse from crying. I sounded like a five-year-old.

"We won't."

And they didn't. My dads kind of dragged my back to my room and stood at the door as I fell into my bed. The new detergent and the crispness of the sheets were feeling more and more like home as I sunk into them.
And they didn't leave, even after my eyes were shut. I heard singing.

"Louder, dad. So I can hear."

A chair--two chairs, actually, were pulled up to my bed. I heard people sitting. It felt uncomfortably like the hospital when I had first woken up from my coma, but dad's voice silenced that thought immediately.

"How cruel is the golden rule? When the lies we lived are always golden-plated..."