The Last of the Real Ones || a Patrick Stump AU ||

thirteen

Patrick looks up at Nia.

"Wh...?" He has no idea where to begin.
"I can explain," Nia croaks. She folds the piece of paper again and tucks it into her back pocket. "Patrick, baby, I can explain--"
"I mean," Patrick huffs, "I sure hope so. NASA doesn't just give internships to random strangers without warning."

Nia takes a step towards Patrick; he responds with a step back. His head whirls upon the new information.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Patrick whispers, his voice now leaving him. The fragments of his heart that laid on the floor were finally catching up to him. His chest somehow aches more.

"I'm sorry--"
"Why didn't you tell me?" he repeats. Nia furrows her brow at the question. She swipes at tears with the heel of her palm, only for them to be replaced with fresh streams.

"God, Patrick, I don't know," she spits venomously. "Maybe because you don't need to know every detail about what I'm doing every second! I am my own person!"
"I know that and I respect that, Nia," Patrick states sternly. "I'm not asking you to give me updates on every time you take a goddamn breath! Would it hurt to tell me "hey asshole, I'm applying to intern for NASA"? I would have been rooting for you the whole way through, and this whole damn city knows that!"
"So you're not rooting for me? Even though you know this is what I've been wanting ever since I was a child?!" Nia stresses.
"That is not what I'm saying!" the boy yells. "I do support you! Dammit, I support your dreams much more than my own! I know it's unhealthy, but you matter to me!"
"Then, maybe you should stop!"
"It's not that easy!" Patrick argues. "I can't just shake that off like it's nothing! Because it's not nothing!"
"Well, here's your stupid update, Patrick!" Nia screams. "NASA wants me to intern for them in California! I signed up almost two months ago! And I'm going, whether you support me or not!"
"But why didn't you tell me when you signed up?!" Patrick almost begs. Though his voice is raw from raising his voice at Nia, he never got the answer he wanted.

"I'm not saying I don't support you, Nia! I want you to go! I wouldn't dare myself to hold you back because that would make me a shitty person, let alone a shitty boyfriend! I just want to know why you hadn't told me two months before that you had signed up!"

Silence coats the foyer of Patrick's house. The blonde boy studies Nia, his question still hanging in the air like a ton weight above their heads. He hadn't realized until then that all the yelling had taken a lot of air from his lungs. Patrick's breaths are slightly jagged as his chest rises and falls with each inhale and exhale.

Nia bites at her lip, fixating her eyes to the floor underneath her.

"Remember that week we didn't talk?" Nia asks, her voice low and almost inaudible. She forces herself to look up at Patrick again. He nods, his face softening as she continues. "I wasn't in a good place because of what happened between me and Tom. Plus, that's when I started to realize that I loved you. So much was going on in my head and I wanted to run away."

Patrick nods again, letting Nia vent and explain everything. The girl screws her eyes shut, the last of her tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I wanted to run away and never see him again. At one point, I didn't even want to see you again because it got too painful. So, I decided to sign up to intern for NASA and I made sure it wouldn't be in Illinois," Nia explains. "Then, you told me you loved me. I couldn't just crush what future we could have. I also didn't think that they would have chosen me. I'm sorry."