Gray - By Pete Wentz Page 0,54

I can tell she has found someone else, probably some boring dude in one of Her study groups or something. Someone who wants to wear sweaters and drink expensive coffee and live around the corner from the food co-op. Someone who is into Freud and the unconscious self. Someone who is not me.

She only cries a little bit as she’s telling me this, and only retches once, the phone clinking against Her teeth, Her tears echoing off the bathroom tile. It is a fairly low-key affair. She doesn’t even wait for me to object, probably because she knows I won’t. We are both too tired for grand gestures, both too weary to go on fighting. A year ago, I would’ve hopped on a plane and showed up at Her place with dynamite strapped to my chest and a list of demands in my hand. I would’ve begged for us to go back to the way we were—or else. Fuck hostage negotiating; I would’ve been romance’s last terrorist. Love’s last chance. Now, I can’t even be bothered to whip up some fake tears. No one needs to die for this. We’ve grown up and grown apart. We haven’t slept in the same bed in months now, not since I went back to Chicago, and she hasn’t made any attempts to come out to LA, even now that Her mother is stable again (as I knew she would be). Love has long since left the building. It’s not coming back. As we’re saying good-bye, I wish Her good luck with the new guy, and just as she asks, “What does that mean?”—I hang up on Her. She doesn’t call back. I don’t blame Her.

That night, I don’t stay up waiting for the phone to vibrate, as I’ve done after every single fight we’ve ever had. I don’t call any of my friends in Chicago and tell them to keep an eye on Her, just in case she does anything stupid. I don’t stare at myself in the mirror and think about cutting my wrists, about expressing my love for Her with some childish final act. I just accept what has happened as part of life; an inevitable step on the path to wherever; “rungs on a ladder,” as my dad always said. She’s gone. Good-bye. And all of that would be great if any of it were true. What I actually do is sit on the edge of my bed and stare at my alarm clock and realize that this is never going to work out, that she will never be with me as long as I am with the band, and that I can never have everything because life is unfair and God has it in for me. I will always be alone and unloved, no matter how many kids buy our albums or shout my name. I start to feel like I’m going to vomit, but I stop myself because it would’ve got all over the carpet and we probably wouldn’t get our deposit back. I pull my knees to my chin, rock back and forth in an attempt to settle my stomach, and as I’m curled up, I realize that I’m nothing more than a frightened child, a scared little boy with tough-guy tattoos and a hollow snarl, and that no matter how much I like to think of myself as a die-hard romantic, I’d never have the guts to actually die for love. Sure, I’d flirted with the notion, had got some illicit thrills out of the Soap Opera Doc and his prescription pad, but I’d never dreamed of going all the way. And that made me a phony, a liar. A coward. So right then and there, I decide to make a life change: I am going to die. I am practical about it. My shrink would be proud. I gather up every last pill in my possession—a fistful of blues and oranges and pale yellows—and swallow them all, lock myself in the bathroom, and break the mirror with my fist. I cut my knuckles up pretty good and blood trickles down my arm in bright red ribbons. It’s full of oxygen and oozing and steaming hot. I begin to worry that all the pills I’ve been taking aren’t letting the blood clot, so I freak out even more. My head is churning and there’s a whole lot of blood now, so I crawl into the shower and start crying. White flashbulbs are going off in my