Status: Will update in free time.
You're Magic
Chicago Is So Two Years Ago.
The fact of the matter is, I left Pete. When I left Chicago, I left Pete. I didn't want to, but I did. When I left I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do. And the reason I left I haven't really figured out, so I'm praying to God that Pete will never ask me. It broke my heart to leave because I loved Pete and Patrick and Joe and Andy, I really did. Especially Pete. I think that's part of the reason that I HAD to leave, though.
I remember the late summer nights that we spent in my backyard toasting marshmallows when my parents were on business trips and they trusted Pete and me to stay home alone. Pete and I would sit outside at the fire pit with our friends and we'd toast marshmallows and drink and eat chocolate and just have fun. And then they would leave and it would just be me and Pete sitting together, staring at the coals from the fire. He would keep his arm around me and kiss my face and smile whenever I said something "cute" and we would fall into bed really late and wake up really early to be together. I always felt better being with Pete, if you want to know the truth. In those times we lived like we didn't care.
Then at some point we started fighting. He was never this, he was never that; he did this, he didn't do that. I worried too much, I cared too much. We would always make up after the fights, which was good, but they happened too frequently and they were too severe. I knew he never meant to hurt me, but it didn't change the fact that he had. Everything I wanted to do and say built up inside until one day it all came out in a flood in the worst fight Pete and I ever got into. After that fight, we never fought again and everything was great, it couldn't have gotten better. Then one day Pete and I fought again, and I was scared of fighting and losing him. That's the same day that I left Chicago.
I didn't know what I wanted or where I was going to go. I left my parents' house on a hot, sunny summer morning with $950 and a suitcase containing what I felt was most important to bring with me (clothes, laptop, some toiletries, a notebook and two pens, a photo of Pete and me). In two hours I ended up on a flight to New York and I spent a week crashing wherever I could until I found a slummy apartment and landed a job at a record store that allowed me to pay rent and barely feed myself. I couldn't say I liked it more than I liked Chicago, but it was a change.
After two months I was hired to work at a magazine office as a music journalist where my pay was infinitely better than what I was making at the record store and the people were nice. Now with my paycheck I was able to pay for my shitty apartment, feed myself, and buy myself things like new clothes that I needed desperately because where I worked was competitive and I needed to work (and look) my best. And boy, did I work my ass off.
In a year Pete's band was doing far better than I remembered. They were signed to a new label and their new singles were decent.
Each time I got assigned to interview them I denied it. It's not that I didn't want to see them again, it was just I was afraid what would happen if I saw him again.
In two years I was living in a fancy Manhattan apartment and my salary per month was more than I was making in a year at the record store. Pete was dating this girl, her name was Ashlee Simpson and she seemed nice enough to me and he seemed happy enough and I was fine, so it never really bothered me.
In three years Pete was married at 30 to Ashlee and had a baby named Bronx. At 27 I was working at the magazine and hadn't dated since Pete. It's not that I didn't have chances, I worked with plenty of nice boys and I had gone out with plenty of them, it's just that being with someone never really appealed to me since I'd left. I had friends and we always went out for dinner or lunch or drinks and talked about work things, but none of them were quite like Patrick, Joe, Andy, and Pete.
In five years Pete got divorced, and I was still in New York.
If you want to know the truth, I was miserable. I am miserable working at the magazine. I hate it. I hate everyone. I love the job, I really do, I just hate the glamour and the glitz of living in New York and working for a magazine and going to parties. I just wished I could leave. Almost a week after I started to notice this change in myself, coincidentally, I received a call from Pete.
He called to say hi and ask me how I was doing. I knew he was sad and I knew he was lonely. I was too, and I told him this. We talked on the phone for hours that night about everything from the weather to what we ate for dinner to what we were thinking about in that moment.
It made me really happy to talk to him and he called me again the next night. And the night after that. And then every day for two weeks we talked on the phone until I was practically falling asleep and he'd tell me to go to bed and that I'd have good dreams and sometimes I could hear the Baby Boy in the background playing or watching TV and it made me smile. It made me really happy to talk to him again.
When he first brought up the idea of me visiting him I was a little weary. I didn't know if I would get carried away or say something wrong or do something wrong or mess everything up or what. I was scared, I guess. But I knew as soon as he booked my flight and my hotel and told me he couldn't wait to see me each time I called at one of my layovers that I'd made the right choice when I decided to get on the plane. I knew something good was going to happen.
I remember the late summer nights that we spent in my backyard toasting marshmallows when my parents were on business trips and they trusted Pete and me to stay home alone. Pete and I would sit outside at the fire pit with our friends and we'd toast marshmallows and drink and eat chocolate and just have fun. And then they would leave and it would just be me and Pete sitting together, staring at the coals from the fire. He would keep his arm around me and kiss my face and smile whenever I said something "cute" and we would fall into bed really late and wake up really early to be together. I always felt better being with Pete, if you want to know the truth. In those times we lived like we didn't care.
Then at some point we started fighting. He was never this, he was never that; he did this, he didn't do that. I worried too much, I cared too much. We would always make up after the fights, which was good, but they happened too frequently and they were too severe. I knew he never meant to hurt me, but it didn't change the fact that he had. Everything I wanted to do and say built up inside until one day it all came out in a flood in the worst fight Pete and I ever got into. After that fight, we never fought again and everything was great, it couldn't have gotten better. Then one day Pete and I fought again, and I was scared of fighting and losing him. That's the same day that I left Chicago.
I didn't know what I wanted or where I was going to go. I left my parents' house on a hot, sunny summer morning with $950 and a suitcase containing what I felt was most important to bring with me (clothes, laptop, some toiletries, a notebook and two pens, a photo of Pete and me). In two hours I ended up on a flight to New York and I spent a week crashing wherever I could until I found a slummy apartment and landed a job at a record store that allowed me to pay rent and barely feed myself. I couldn't say I liked it more than I liked Chicago, but it was a change.
After two months I was hired to work at a magazine office as a music journalist where my pay was infinitely better than what I was making at the record store and the people were nice. Now with my paycheck I was able to pay for my shitty apartment, feed myself, and buy myself things like new clothes that I needed desperately because where I worked was competitive and I needed to work (and look) my best. And boy, did I work my ass off.
In a year Pete's band was doing far better than I remembered. They were signed to a new label and their new singles were decent.
Each time I got assigned to interview them I denied it. It's not that I didn't want to see them again, it was just I was afraid what would happen if I saw him again.
In two years I was living in a fancy Manhattan apartment and my salary per month was more than I was making in a year at the record store. Pete was dating this girl, her name was Ashlee Simpson and she seemed nice enough to me and he seemed happy enough and I was fine, so it never really bothered me.
In three years Pete was married at 30 to Ashlee and had a baby named Bronx. At 27 I was working at the magazine and hadn't dated since Pete. It's not that I didn't have chances, I worked with plenty of nice boys and I had gone out with plenty of them, it's just that being with someone never really appealed to me since I'd left. I had friends and we always went out for dinner or lunch or drinks and talked about work things, but none of them were quite like Patrick, Joe, Andy, and Pete.
In five years Pete got divorced, and I was still in New York.
If you want to know the truth, I was miserable. I am miserable working at the magazine. I hate it. I hate everyone. I love the job, I really do, I just hate the glamour and the glitz of living in New York and working for a magazine and going to parties. I just wished I could leave. Almost a week after I started to notice this change in myself, coincidentally, I received a call from Pete.
He called to say hi and ask me how I was doing. I knew he was sad and I knew he was lonely. I was too, and I told him this. We talked on the phone for hours that night about everything from the weather to what we ate for dinner to what we were thinking about in that moment.
It made me really happy to talk to him and he called me again the next night. And the night after that. And then every day for two weeks we talked on the phone until I was practically falling asleep and he'd tell me to go to bed and that I'd have good dreams and sometimes I could hear the Baby Boy in the background playing or watching TV and it made me smile. It made me really happy to talk to him again.
When he first brought up the idea of me visiting him I was a little weary. I didn't know if I would get carried away or say something wrong or do something wrong or mess everything up or what. I was scared, I guess. But I knew as soon as he booked my flight and my hotel and told me he couldn't wait to see me each time I called at one of my layovers that I'd made the right choice when I decided to get on the plane. I knew something good was going to happen.
♠ ♠ ♠
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