Gray - By Pete Wentz Page 0,14

disappearing into the night. About smelling terrible and never remembering people’s names. About never having to say you’re sorry. We exist outside of society. We stay up late and sleep even later. We are bandits, pirates, serial killers. The dregs. Someone should lock us up and never let us out again. But instead, they give us their money, they offer us their beds. We are not going to pay for the beer. We are not going to be back here for a good, long while. We have prior engagements. We have the money in a duffel bag. We have no shame. Fuck guilt. Back to life.

8

We are reunion sex. We are a freeze-dried wet dream. That’s it, like an old song with a great chorus that never dies. Reunion sex is like Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It’s like AC/DC’s “Hells Bells,” only with foreplay. The hits last forever. It’s confidence. It’s an ego boost. It’s my best summer crammed into a stacked, five-foot-three-inch brunette. It’s old hat. I know Her better than I know myself. I know Her better than anyone should know anyone, ever. I whisper this into Her ear, and she moans. I push all the right buttons, watch Her rib cage jut out as she gasps. The hits just keep on coming.

I’m only back in Chicago for the weekend. Come Monday, we’re off to Madison to start work on the new album. But until then, we’ve decided that it would be best if neither of us left Her bedroom. We’ve turned it into a political endeavor: we’re staging a Bed-In, for love. We’re a modern-day John and Yoko, and Her tiny apartment on the North Side is our Amsterdam Hilton. All we are saying is give love a chance. We will strum guitars and sing. We will mail acorns to various heads of state. We might even invite members of the press, we’re not sure yet.

We are joking about it, naked, wrapped in sheets and each other, when I realize that this is the happiest moment of my entire life. I want it to last forever. I want to be fixed, but, for the first time, it’s not because I’m broken. I want to be fixed like a cat, so I never go and screw this up. She is all I could ever ask for, she is perfect, and right now, with those big, green eyes and pillowy lips and alabaster thighs, the idea of doing this for the rest of our lives doesn’t seem all that daunting. She’s the last reprieve. The stay of execution. She gives me hope.

But times are tough for dreamers. And even if my dream is a simple one—all I want is for Her to be in love with me forever—I know it’s still a long shot. Life ruins everything. So I’m determined not to leave Her bed, because in here, life can’t get at us. This is a restricted area. No trespassing. Which is why I don’t tell Her about the parties and the girls and the notes stuck beneath the windshield wipers. I don’t tell Her about feeling alive on the road . . . that’s all life, the bad, dirty, savage kind. The kind I don’t want spoiling this, the kind I have to keep separate from love. It’s apples and oranges. Zoloft and Ativan. Church and State.

“What do you want?” I ask Her.

“I want this,” she answers.

Exactly.

I’m a lifer, sweetheart, I’m here till the bitter end. I’m the floor covered in trash after the last dance, the remnants of the night that was. I’m real, I’m the tangible part of the memories. I’m the proof. You make me want to be this way. It would be easy to disappear into the darkness, to pile into myself and sail on to the next port. It would be easy to not give a fuck. But our love isn’t easy because it’s not meant to be. It requires work and sacrifice and protection. And I wouldn’t want it any other way, not right now, with the morning sun making the curtains glow and Her arms around my neck and the sounds of the street so far away. I’m in it for the long haul, I’m not going away. Not until Monday, at least, when we must go on, when we are required to let life back in. Not because we want to, but because we have to. Life always wins.

“I don’t want to go to Madison,” I tell Her. “I don’t