The Real Story

August 21st 5:00 pm (PST):
Fall Out Boy continued on their tour to Asia and Europe. During their euro-trip they went without my photographic expertise (or lack thereof…) due to my lack of legal documents stating the allowance of passing through foreign lands. Eh, that’s okay, I’d like to go back to being a normal, everyday, boring eighteen year old. I’m kind of over being the “Baby Pete Wentz rocked from the cradle”. I believe it was a good solid month where I was plastered across tabloids right next to Kim K’s pregnancy with Kanye. I have better things to worry about like getting ready to go on to college. (Oh shit! That is actually happening this week….)
I’m more so worried that Mr. Bassist of Fall Out Boy will not be there for me as he promised. He swore he wouldn't let me do this alone,
but I’m not holding my breath.

3:35 am (EST)
It’s always lovely to be woken up rudely by a desperate plea for an airport pick up. I guess the first 3 messages confirmed that he was there and was going to continue to be there through my week of nervous torture.
Okay to be completely honest, I only had my driver’s license for like 3 days. (Yeah, I’m a little late in the game). I had to sneak out of the house and out of the drive way, and of course the only vehicle available was my mom’s fifteen year old minivan that was on the verge of vehicular suicide. Somehow I had to get all the way from my dinky little town all the way to Albany International without being detected. Not to mention I have never driven there alone nor have I ever driven later than 10 or 11 at night.

“Oh I’m gonna kill him! He is going to have a lot of explaining to my bed to do. “

I’ve noticed that I developed a mumbling issue, and I think he is the cause of it.
Luckily I made it there in one piece, so to speak. I may have not realized, however, all four of them needed a pick up and I looked like I walked out of a pajama circus.

“Baby! You made it, but where is your mom?”

He was way too enthusiastic for my exhaustion level.

“She couldn’t come and dad is working the night shift. Oh and why again couldn’t you get a rental?”
“I tried but they couldn’t get us one before Hertz closed for the day”

I nodded and yawned as I motioned the four of them to the minivan on death row.

“Hold on, you drove?! Alone? When the fuck did you get your license or are you driving illegally?
“3 days ago, can you please just get in the car? I need to get back to my bed and apologize for leaving it at such an unearthly hour…”
Well I seemed to gain a good few chuckles in the back.

August 22nd 8:00 am (PST)
Here we go, first week of college. As you can guess my new best friend joined me (like he did for everything now). Let’s just say the nerves about living away from home mixed with the new found neediness was not a very good cocktail for me to be chugging.

“You okay? Do you need me to do something or get something for you?”
“No, I’m fine. Just nervous, extremely nervous.”

Why did I tell him that? Why the hell did I tell him that?! He’d never leave me alone. He knows me but only enough to name me his girlfriend. Even though we were doing better, he still had to learn everything about me because he didn’t care enough to learn during the first two years. Had he cared he would have known to just leave me alone until I needed him. He would have waited for me to come to him to feel better. He would’ve known that I need to sort feelings out alone. But no, no he didn’t know because he never cared. He never loved me the way I needed him to. I was worried about the reputation he handcrafted for me. How were people I’m spending 9 months of my life with going to feel when they walk into the room with the “girl that ‘yoko-onoed’ Fall Out Boy”?
I’m terrified how he is going to be while I’m in college… I hope he doesn’t ruin it for me.

August 25th 9:45 (EST)
So orientation was finally over. We could officially have guest if desired. I’m in a tumultuous debate with my inner masochist on whether or not I choose to tell him about our newly gained privileges. Of course, the masochist really wants him to know just to be set up again, but then there is always the issue of whether he’d come or not. He could very easily ignore me, college is an easy enough excuse for him to abandon everything. There is also the issue of my roommate. She doesn’t really listen to Fall Out Boy, and she’s not exactly the one to read tabloids, so I’m not entirely sure how she would take it. I don’t want to spring it on her last minute but I have to talk about it with her at some point.

“Hey Maryam…”
“Yeah?”
“How would you feel if I wanted to have my boyfriend come over, not to sleep over or anything but to hang out?”
“I suppose that’s fine- are you okay? You seem a little on edge…”

I’m guess I show my nerves a little too much, I am a little too obvious.

“Um well, something you should know about my boyfriend is, he’s um…
I was literally choking, I couldn’t bring myself to let it out. I know it needed to but it felt like I had a huge mass lodged in my throat.
“He’s Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy…”
“I know.”

She replied without even moving a muscle. She just sat there as if I told her that her shirt was made of velvet, or that our walls were white, or that our room was tiny. She acted as though it was the most obvious thing in the entire world. She sat there still staring into her mac book, not even paying attention to the look of astonished confusion painted in a thick impasto on my face.

“You know?”
“I know.”
“How?”

“I may not be picking up every celebrity soaked tabloid in the stands but I do see things in the news, I’ve watched your relationship for a while. You can’t exactly escape things like that on the internet.”
Well okay then, maybe it is the sick, twisted paranoia I force myself to experience that makes me believe that I’m the most hated person on the planet. I guess I never really took into account that no one outside of this Fall Out Boy fandom actually cares. So, with that I decided to call him:

“Hey, it’s Pete…….”
Definitely not surprising, I got his voice mail as I always do.

“Hey Petey, it’s just me. They officially opened everything up to have guests and what not, and I was wondering if you’d want to come hang out with me. I know you’re busy but I think it’d be nice you know? Call me when you get this, I love you.”

August 26 6:00 am (PST)
I checked my phone, no new messages, but it was time to get up. My schedule for the day mostly consisted of oddly timed classes:
• 3-Dimensional Design, 9 am
• Ithink, 1 pm
• Digital Imaging, 6pm
Throughout my day, I found myself more distracted than 6th graders laughing at a teacher with a “kick-me” sign taped to her back. I just kept checking to see if he actually got the message or if I stumbled into the twilight zone.

9- no new messages
12- no new messages
1- no new messages
2- no new messages
3- no new messages
4- no new messages
5- no new messages
6- no new messages

After my final class, I was one call away from totally giving up. I thought that maybe I’d try to reach out one last time before I called it a night being numb.

“Hey this is Pete, leave a message and I’ll attempt to call you back… Please leave a message after the tone.”
“Hey, um are you made at me? Please call me back when you get this…”
I paused trying not to cry a little.

“…I love you.”

I hung up, tried to get myself back together, and as I rounded the corner, I noticed a familiar shape of someone waiting in the middle of the sidewalk. I quickly ran over to him.

“Hey baby!”
He said catching me as I nearly took both of us down, managing to trip into the hug he had waiting for me,

“I missed you! I got on the first flight I could after you called.”
“I thought you were busy. I was afraid to bother you, so I tried not to leave too many messages.”

I settled into his warm embrace as he kissed my forehead.

“I wasn’t that busy, I was just afraid you needed a little bit of space.”
I squeezed into his hug a little tighter.

I took him on a mini tour of my dorm. Including my very lofted bed. By the looks of it, he cringed a little. He was probably thinking about how I’m a bit less than graceful.

“So is your roommate home?”
“I’m not really sure…”

I trailed off and then noticed that she apparently was awesome enough to let us have the room alone. She left us a note and a signed overnight form.

August 30th 6:30 (PST)
Once again my short-lived duties of a slightly inexperienced photographer “extraordinaire” were in effect. I was asked to once again photograph the guys at a concert playing in my dad’s own tiny town. Just for one night because I was ball and chained to my school in Albany. We were a little late on behalf of my dad’s lack of time reading ability. Oh and let the fireworks begin.
“Where the fuck have you been?!”

I wasn’t even checked in with security to get my back stage passes yet and I was already being grilled. Here we go again. A few weeks of gold and then right back to our cheaper than dirt, tin status.
“My dad was a little late picking me up from school. But I’m here now.”
“Why the fuck can’t you just do one little, simple thing for me?”
Here we go again, He was back and meaner than ever. Back to being a monster.

“I drop everything I’m doing to come out and see you because you feel a little lonely and want me to come rescue you from all of your stupid little problems, but you can’t fucking get here when I NEED YOU?! How fucked up is that. You’re so self-absorbed that you can’t think of anyone else for once. You’re constantly bitching about how everything is so terrible, how I’m always so mean to you. You need to seriously grow up and stop demanding so much shit out of me.”

And like that he caused a massacre. He cut me down to absolutely nothing, he threw away all of the progress he was making. He broke everything.

I did as I was told and took pictures for them. I went with him on his tour bus and as he wanted. On Sunday night he dropped me off and he didn't even kiss me goodbye.