Gray - By Pete Wentz Page 0,12

fight, it got out of hand quickly, and it was all my fault—seriously, go back and reread the transcript if you don’t believe me—but it was by no means a pointless one. If anything, it was too pointed. This is how your heart gets snagged, like a balloon on a barbed-wire fence, this is where pieces of you get torn away.

Her roommate is washing dishes in the kitchen, clanging the pots and pans a bit too loudly, just so it’s clear she’s not paying attention to our fight. I hate her so much right now.

The tears have stopped flowing, and she sits up, sniffles a bit, rubs Her eyes with the heels of Her hands. She sighs. “How long will you be gone? Weeks? Months?”

I tell Her I don’t know the answer to that, even though I do. The plan, we have been told, is to load back into the van next month, do a run of shows around the Midwest, then head directly off the road and into the studio. And we won’t be recording in Chicago, either: The label has booked us into a studio in Madison, Wisconsin . . . a redbrick building owned and operated by the guy who produced Nirvana’s Nevermind (they even recorded some of it there). It is going to cost money. It is going to take a while. It is not going to turn out the way she wants.

Let’s just make it through tonight, worry about the rest later. I can see she is coming around now. I am pulling the wool over Her eyes. I am not the wolf or the sheep. I am another animal altogether. This is not dress-up.

“However long it is, I promise that when I come back, you and I will get a place together,” I lie. “And, if you want to move somewhere else—if you really want to go to Berkeley like you’ve been saying—we’ll go. Together. I promise.”

Smart girls always want to go to Berkeley. Most of them never make it there.

“I love you,” she says, sniffling again. “And I want you to be happy.”

She cocks Her head and looks at me with those big, sad eyes, still red from the tears. She’s waiting for me to say something. Anything. All that comes into my head is this bit of psychobabble she had once told me, back when we were first dating: Freud suggests that in order to love someone else, one must love themselves; it’s a classic “needs before other needs” argument. Unfortunately, no one really loves themselves. And, if they do, they need to get to know themselves better. Unfortunately, no one is really happy.

Of course, I don’t say any of that. Instead, I just mutter, “It will be okay. I promise,” and I rest my head on Her shoulder. We sit that way for what seems like forever, in complete, exhausted silence, neither of us daring to let go of the other. Her roommate is washing the dishes. The radiator exhales with a dusty sigh. We fall asleep sitting up.

We leave for tour a couple of weeks later, on a cold, gray morning, the van and a tiny trailer loaded and rattling. Unsafe. I kiss Her good-bye, hold Her tight, promise to call when we get to Davenport. As we head west on 88, it occurs to me that she never actually said she was okay with any of this. We press on anyway, Dekalb and Dixon and Sterling fly by, ghost towns filled with sad people who settled for what life offered them. The road unfurls before us. Everything is possible. I feel sick to my stomach.

7

Des Moines. Van Meter. Neola. I want to disappear with you forever. Omaha. Percival. Sonora. I want to run away with you and never return. Kansas City. Bates City. Wright City. I want to fold you and put you in my pocket and have you with me always. St. Louis. Teutopolis. Indianapolis. I don’t know what else to say except I miss you and I love you.

I write Her e-mails from the business centers of hotels. That’s the reason they’re there, after all. Sometimes we’re even staying at the hotel in question, though usually not. Most times the person at the front desk takes pity on me, lets me type messages to Her without much harassment. One time, this woman at a Holiday Inn in Iowa eyed me up real good and asked me, “Son, are your parents staying at this hotel?” and I lied