"Are you serious?!?"

"Yeah. Joe's idea, not mine."

"Well, that figures," mutters Miya. Ellie, on the other hand, looks like she's about to explode.

"OHMYGODTHISISSOCOOL," she yells in one breath. I have no idea if what she said was even in any human language, but it sounds pretty excited.

"I know, right! Guys, tonight, dinner's on me!" says Joe, smiling. Miya rolls her eyes.

"That means it's on my parents' restaurant, right?"

"Maybe?"

"Oh my god, Joe."

"Pleaaseeee?"

"No." Miya puts her hands on her hips.

"Pretty please?"

"Nope."

"Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"No!" Miya shakes her head.

"Pretty please with-"

"Fine!" Miya cuts off the rest of Joe's sentence. "You're thirty one years old, I don't think I can be bothered to make you act like a little kid. Fine. We'll go to my parents' restaurant."

"Yay!" Well, Joe seems pretty happy. Miya turns to me.

"Hey, Lydia, you like Chinese food?"

I nod. "Yeah."

"Good, my parents own a Chinese restaurant down town, I work there part time. I get staff discount, which appears to be half the reason Joe's with me," she says, rolling her eyes and smiling slightly. Joe starts talking then, so I leave the room and go and find Patrick.

He's sitting on the sofa, talking to Pete about something. Pete's got out a black dog-eared notebook and is scribbling something down. Patrick sees me and waves.

"Hey, babe. You ok?" he asks. I nod and sit next to him.

"Yeah, I'm good. Joe's begged Miya to get us takeout from her parent's restaurant. You cool with that?"

Patrick nods. "Yeah! They do nice food, actually."

"So you're not gonna die of food poisoning?" I ask, grinning at Jim.

He rolls his eyes. "Har har. No. I'm not a prissy little princess."

"Ok, just checking." I wink at him and look over at Pete. "What're you doing?"

Pete shuts the notebook and puts it down on the coffee table. "Songwriting."

"Ooh! Cool!"

"Yeah, well, if we end up doing this live stream thing, we'll probably be a lot busier afterwards," says Pete. He's got a point.

At the mention of the live stream, Patrick suddenly slips his hand into mine and hangs on to it. I squeeze his hand reassuringly. He may be ok now, but I'm worried about how he'll be nearer the time. I hope he'll be all right. The last thing I want to happen is for him to get worse.

Pete senses the mood change and reacts accordingly; i.e by changing the subject. "Seriously, though, Lydia, you're gonna love Miya's parents' food. Their chicken chow mein is like, legendary. For real."

I smile at him. "Sounds great."

Just then, Andy wanders into the room. "Hey, guys, I'm off out for a bit, ok?" he says. Pete smirks.

"Ooh, another date with Sandra, huh? How's that going?"

Andy blushes. "Well... She's lovely. We're gonna go to this really cool second hand store, they've got loads of Star Wars stuff..."

Patrick grins. "Cute. Say hi for me."

"Will do," says Andy, and he leaves the flat. Patrick watches him wistfully.

"I wish.... I wish I could do that," he says suddenly. Pete and I look at him, confused.

"What?" I ask.

"Go out like that... It's so easy for you guys..." Patrick bites his lip, looking anxious. I immediately feel a stabbing sensation in my heart. I hate seeing him like this.

"It's ok, sweetie," I say, putting my arm around him. "You're gonna get better. It's gonna work out."

It occurs to me that this was exactly what Honey told me when she was helping me with my anorexia. Not that I believed her at the time, but now.. I'm much better now, and I know she was right. Things, no matter how bad they get, will always get better if you really try. And I know that, right now, Patrick might not believe me now, but soon, when he's better and he can be normal again, he'll be happy.

Suddenly, I'm reminded of a song from an album that Fall Out Boy posted on their website when their hiatus ended. The album was called Soul Punk, and it had come with a caption saying, "a little something our lead singer made on the break. Hope you enjoy it!" It hadn't been majorly popular with the fandom, but I'd liked it. The song was called "Coast (It's Gonna Get Better)".

It's gonna get better, it's gonna work out
Give it a minute, it's gonna turn around
Cause it's gonna get better, better
It's gonna get better, better

Patrick will get better, I know it. I just hope it'll be soon.

So just coast with me
So just coast, coast
So just coast, coast with me
So just coast, coast
So just coast, coast

Because if he doesn't get better before the live stream.... Well....

Maybe I'm too old to be so hopeful
Maybe I'm too young to be so bitter
But I swallowed adolescence by the chokeful
And came away looking like a quitter

I just need to help him along the way.

I'm singing,
I keep making mistakes
But it takes some time to get anything right
Right?
You know that I keep making mistakes
But it takes some time to get anything right

As long as he's got us, he'll be ok. I know it.

Cause it's gonna get better, it's gonna work out
Give it a minute, it's gonna turn around
Cause it's gonna get better, better
It's gonna get better, better

Life's already been hard enough
Without you giving up on yourself
When you're down at the bottom you know it only gets better

It's gonna get better before it gets worse
We never have to come back to Earth
Cause it's gonna get better, better
It's gonna get better, better

We're gonna keep living
We're gonna get by
We never have to lay down and die
Cause it's gonna get better, better
It's gonna get better, better

'Cause it's gonna get better, it's gonna work out
Give it a minute, it's gonna turn around
Cause it's gonna get better, better
It's gonna get better, better

We're gonna keep living
We're gonna get by
We never have to lay down and die
Cause it's gonna get better, better
It's gonna get better, better

So just coast with me.

(A/N: hi guys! I hope you all had an awesome Christmas and a great new year! Kind of a rubbish chapter, I know, I need to get back into writing this! The lyrics are from the song "Coast (It's Gonna Get Better)", and it's on Patrick's solo album, Soul Punk. Kind of more mainstream style than FOB, but still really good! I'd recommend it, it's actually a really positive album and some of the lyrics are really inspirational. I'm going back to school in a few days *cries* so I probably won't be able to update so much. Oh well! See ya!)