A Song in Your Head

Pete receives a phone call right in the middle of his unsuccessful wooing tactic which entails getting way too close to Patrick and talking about jellyfish. His first instinct is to reject the call, but Patrick is looking at him expectantly so he decides he’d better answer it now to get it to shut up. Besides, he wouldn’t want Patrick thinking that he’s a bad friend.

“Yes, Frank, what do you want?” Pete asks when he answers the phone. He’s met with some heavy breathing on the other end like Frank just ran a marathon and decided to call him to celebrate. Then he hears this horrible choking sound and he realizes that Frank is crying. “Whoa, Frank, what’s wrong?”

Frank’s voice comes out short and breathy when he responds, “I don’t know what happened! I just, I got home, and, like, the door was broken, and everything’s gone, Pete.”

“Slow down,” Pete says, feeling anxious at Frank’s words.

“It’s gone, Pete! Like everything. All the important stuff. They took our laptops, and, like, I just...”

“Someone broke in?” Pete asks, and Patrick looks over at him, surprised at those words.

“Yes! Someone broke in, and they fucked up the lock and they took, like, all of our shit.”

“Oh god, shit,” Pete says, jumping up from his seat, and barely even rushing in a goodbye before he’s running out of Patrick’s door.

“And I’m pretty sure they took like our entire medicine cabinet?” Frank says, “Like I don’t know what kind of a high they think they’re going to get from Lactaid, but it’s gone and so is everything else.”

“D’you call the police?” Pete asks, speeding his way down the sidewalk.

“Not yet, what’re they gonna do, they don’t give a shit?” Frank replies.

Pete’s not even really aware of the fact that Patrick is following behind him. He’s aware barely but it’s not registering, he’s far too panicked to consider him right now when all he can think about is the fact that Frank is freaking out and he’s freaking out too, but Frank sounds like he’s having a heart attack mostly and that’s what’s worrying him the most.

“Well like, laptops have tracking devices or some shit don’t they?” Pete asks.

“I don’t fucking know, I’m not a rocket scientist, I’m just... Pete get here quickly,” Frank says.

“I am literally walking as fast as I can while also talking.”

“Then stop talking, and run faster,” Frank says, and the line ends at that.

“Someone robbed you?” Patrick asks Pete, catching up to him, though Pete now realizes that he’s never been to their apartment before. Also, he doesn’t know exactly why Patrick is following him, or why he cares, because Pete’s literally just the weird guy who’s been stalking him for the last few weeks.

“Evidently,” Pete says, hurrying along, not really worrying about the fact that the street is starting to grow a little busier as the day comes nearer to an end. He sees a lot of people scowling at his eagerness to pass them, and usually he’s not a fan of people who run around through crowds either, but he thinks he gets a free pass just this once. If they knew why he was hurrying, they’d probably agree.

“Do you have insurance?”

“I don’t even know what’s been taken, but no to insurance,” Pete says.

“Not any?” Patrick questions.

“Don’t have a car, no car insurance. Don’t have a house, no home insurance. Don’t have anything valuable, no insurance there. Health insurance only covers me, not my possessions. Renters insurance only covers natural disasters, so unless Frank burns down the apartment building, no coverage there either.”

“That’s not good,” Patrick says, which, if you ask Pete, is stating the obvious.

Pete’s normally quick on his feet, a childhood of soccer playing on his side, but today every step feels like it takes years to hit the ground. Every thunderous footstep is a life age and every breath comes shallow and painful. He sees the apartment building looming over him after what feels like years lost at sea and he can’t get to it quickly enough. He can’t pull the front door open, and run up the steps any faster than he is going, but he does is best anyway.

Everything around him is all at once blurry and in high definition. He can’t look at the ground below him and yet he sees every scoff mark of every shoe that’s ever stepped through this hall. He can hear every creak of the building, and yet he can’t hear his own footsteps as the walls around him swallow the sound.

Pete throws open the door to their apartment, not particularly hard to do as the lock is broken in and hanging off of the door which is not good. But he can also hear Frank making a bawling sound from behind the door which is never ever a good thing to walk into, but it’s especially worse when you know and empathize with why that bawling is occurring in the first place.

“Frank?” Pete calls out.

Frank raises his hand like a teacher called on him in grade school, because he’s hiding behind the end of the couch which you can’t see from the door. Pete walks over to him, but looks around the apartment as he does so.

“Dude, so what’s gone?”

“Laptops, our drug cabinet...” Frank whimpers after a few moments, and Pete looks down at him, his face stuffed into his knee so that Pete can’t see him. He’s not sure he really wants to, he’s seen Frank cry before, when they watched Titanic, he’s a particularly ugly crier. Most everyone is though so that’s not really a reflection on him specifically.

“Anything else?”

“Everything electronic. Blu-ray, movies, our fucking toaster, who the fuck steals a toaster?”

“Someone who really likes toast?” Pete suggests, feeling a sinking feeling settle in his stomach that he can only think to soothe with third-rate comedy.

“Is this the fucking time for jokes?” Frank snaps, looking up at Pete with an angry glint in his dark pupils. As he’d expected Frank’s face is red and puffy under the eyes, exactly how you would think someone who’s been crying to look. Pete hears the door being pushed aside and turns his head to see Patrick entering, looking a little winded, but then again Pete was probably running way faster than him, and Patrick didn’t know where their destination was so he had to keep up.

“I’m trying to... sorry,” Pete replies, “Why are you so upset, it’s my apartment?”

“Well it’s mine too,” Frank says grouchily, putting his face back in the space between his knees.

“Yeah, sorry,” Pete says, realizing that might’ve been a little short and rude. He’s generally the guy who tries to be the people pleaser while also trying to be the one who makes sure that everyone is having a good time, and those two usually go well together, but in situations where people are sad, he has a lot of difficulty finding where to stand.

“Do you need me to call someone?” Patrick asks, speaking up, and Frank jumps the slightest bit, as he hadn’t known that Patrick was even there, but he recovers well and Pete pretends not to have noticed. “Your super, the police?”

“Well probably both, but I don’t know what either of them can do?” Pete says, “Like, can you find a laptop using a computer or something? I don’t even know, I’d need my fucking laptop to find out.”

“Unfortunately you can’t track a laptop unless you pre-downloaded a software to do so,” Patrick says in a helpful tone which is sort of redundant as nothing he said is at all helpful.

“Why do you know th-”

“I had a friend who worked at a Best Buy,” Patrick replies to Pete’s question before he’s even finished asking it.

“Great so that’s literally no fucking help at all!” Frank announces.

“Seriously, Frank, I just got robbed too, is acting like a dick going to get you anywhere?”

“No,” Frank responds, “but I’m fucking angry.”

“I am too!” Pete says, “My entire fucking life was on that computer, of course I’m angry.”

“Do you not have backup hard drives?” Patrick asks.

“Okay seriously, Patrick, look around. Do you really think two guys who use plastic silverware have enough money to buy backup hard drives?”

“S-sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Pete says to Patrick, “Seriously, Frank, chill out a bit. I’m angry and upset too, but don’t behave like you’re a little kid.”

“But I am a little kid!” Frank says, violently putting his leg out in front of him and forcing his head up to look at Pete, but it’s not very threatening when you consider that he’s sitting on the ground and looking up at Pete who’s standing. “I’m still a fucking kid, okay?”

“You’re not even a teenager anymore,” Pete reminds him.

“No, but I’m allowed to get upset.”

“Yes, you are. I agree, you can get upset. Just don’t take it out on me, yeah?” Pete says.

“This lock is broken, I think you’re first call needs to be to a locksmith,” Patrick says, trying to take tension away from the matter at hand, unsuccessfully so it needs to be pointed out.

“Can we get one in tonight?” Pete asks. “It’s Friday, I imagine the chances aren’t high.”

“Well you can try, but I won’t make you any promises,” Patrick says, “You can use my computer if you have to, but I think that people used to use phonebooks for this in the olden days.”

“So there’s no way we can sleep here tonight then?” Pete asks.

“No fucking way am I going to stay here tonight,” Frank says, “I’ll go to my mom’s house before I sleep here.”

“Why?” Pete asks.

“It’s tainted!” Frank says loudly. “Everything! It’s fucking tainted. I can’t even look at this apartment at all without feeling like someone pissed all over everything. My entire sense of security, and mind you it was pretty flimsy to begin with because of this shithole of an apartment, is completely shattered.”

“Now that,” Patrick says, “I don’t blame you for in the slightest.”

“No, me neither,” Pete says, looking around and all of a sudden seeing the apartment through the lens of Frank’s eyes, and he feels kind of gross just looking at the barren walls and minimalistic furniture. He feels like he’s got bugs crawling over his skin just thinking about having to stay here. He doesn’t want to be here a second longer, it feels so vile and wretched, and he now starts to really understand why Frank’s on the floor. It’s not even the material things that have got him so down, it’s the fact that everything has changed now. Everything is a putrid smell, everything looks dangerous and nothing is okay anymore.

“I have a spare bedroom,” Patrick says, “now granted, all I have is a cot, but, like, it’s still a room which is technically spare, and I also have a couch.”

“Are you suggesting that we sleep in your apartment, Patrick?” Frank asks, looking around the couch at him.

“Well you don’t have to use that tone,” Pete says, suddenly feeling like Frank’s mother, scrutinizing every word he says.

“It’s obvious that you can’t stay here!”

“But, like, you barely even know us,” Frank says. “Pete could be a serial killer.”

“I’m not though,” Pete says, then looks at Patrick and repeats, “I’m not.”

“You’re a little too smiley and clueless to be a serial killer.”

“Thank you. Wait what?” Pete asks.

“He’s right,” Frank sniffs, “you would never be able to kill a person without getting caught, let alone serially kill people.”

Pete scoffs, “I could so totally... you know what never mind, I think it’s better to let you guys have this one. I think it’s better to not try to prove that I can be a serial killer.”

“Well, my point is that I’m not about to let you two stay in this place, especially if you can’t even look at it, and I have room, it’s honestly not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” Frank says, “it’s really nice, and we don’t deserve it.”

“Both of those statements are true, you really don’t have to, Patrick,” Pete adds.

“But I am volunteering it to you, because you need someone to be nice to you right now,” Patrick says, and Frank’s heart melts a little bit. He almost sees what Pete sees, but then he reminds himself of the fact that it’s gross liking the same things Pete likes, because Pete is Pete. Patrick is great and all, but he’s really more for Pete than he is anyone else.

“It’s kind of ironic that the worst thing anyone’s ever done to me happens to befall on the same day as the nicest thing anyone’s ever offered me,” Frank says quietly, and Pete literally feels his own shoulders drop at the sadness in that statement.

“Patrick, as much as I’d like to say that we can’t take you up on your offer, I’m afraid that we kind of have to, because there is no way I’m going to let Frank go to his moms,” Pete says. He knows that if Frank were to spend just one night at his mom’s house, she would somehow convince him to stay permanently, and he wouldn’t be allowed to do that without going back to college, because she’s definitely not happy about his having dropped out. But when Pete first saw Frank during college it was immediately clear that it has been killing him. He was just an emotionless, lifeless sack of tired old bones and Pete can’t have that happening again. College was literally one of the worst things that had ever happened to Frank, and Pete’s not going to let it ruin him again.

“Good,” Patrick nods, and Frank, vacantly staring at the wall behind Pete, makes a sound of agreement, which is all that they’re going to get out of him at all for the next few hours.