Patrick has been in love with Pete Wentz since the day they met. However, he remembers that meeting a little differently than Pete does.

According to Pete, he walked into class on the first day of sixth grade looking for a friend. He'd just moved to Chicago from New York City and didn't know anyone there. He didn't want to be the "loser walking around with no friends". When he walked into Mrs. Peele's class, Patrick was glowing. Pete recollects he was lighting up like an angel being illuminated by his halo. And so, Pete sat at the desk beside him, pushing them a little closer than the teacher intended them to be. The rest was history.

Patrick's memory takes him back three months before Pete's. It was earlier in the summer. He can't remember the exact day or anything, just that it was hot as hell. He'd been in the pool when his mother yelled for him to put on a shirt and shoes because they needed to make a grocery run. He was in the cereal aisle holding two boxes and feeling more stressed than any middle school child had any right to be. Suddenly some kid with dark curls and a big smile was standing in front of him, asking if he was okay. Patrick explained to the boy that he couldn't choose between his two favorite cereals. Holding the boxes of Lucky Charms and Captain Crunch up for him to see. The boy told him that his favorite cereal was Honey Smacks and insisted it was better than the other two. He climbed the shelves to grab a box and present it to Patrick. It looked disgusting. And so, Patrick said so. The boy's smile disappeared, and he looked utterly heartbroken. Before Patrick could apologize, his mother was yelling for him to hurry up. Patrick looked between the two boxes in his hands and the boy in front of him. He set the boxes back on the shelf and snatched the one from the boy's hand. Catching a glimpse of that big smile returning as he turned and ran to his mother. He couldn't focus on anything except the irregular beating of his heart as the cashier scanned the box of cereal.

Patrick's heart hasn't beat the same since, according to him.

On Patrick's twelfth birthday, after they'd sung the song and cut the cake, Pete Wentz told him they were going to get married. It was a well-meaning sentiment that Patrick shut down by explaining to Pete that they were both boys and boys had to marry girls. Months later when Patrick brought it up to his parents, his father explained to him that sometimes boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls. It all depended on what you liked. Similar to the way some people like ketchup on their hotdogs and other people like mustard. By fourteen years old, Patrick stopped pretending he liked ketchup.

It wasn't until he was fifteen that he realized maybe the reason he thought about Pete all day had a little less to do with being best friends and a little more to do with having a long-term crush on his best friend. His suspicions were confirmed when Pete got his first girlfriend in 10th grade. Her name was Ashley. She had dark hair and a wide smile just like Pete did. She was soft-spoken and kind. Patrick hated her more than anyone else in the world. She stayed in the picture for almost a full year. A year that Patrick spent metaphorically watching them from the closet and wishing he was her.

In their senior year of high school, Pete was caught with his hands in the pants of Travie Mccoy at a drive-in movie theater. Patrick had no idea that his best friend was into guys. To be fair, his best friend had no idea that Patrick was also into guys. It's not like he was hiding it, he just didn't see a reason to talk about it. Travie was the embodiment of the phrase tall, dark, and handsome. All the boys who came after Travie were also either model pretty, or tall and fit. Patrick quickly realized that Pete being bisexual didn't mean he would have a chance after years of hiding his crush. It was clear that he was not his type.

On his seventeenth birthday, after a night of indulging in weed and beer snuck into his room by his best friend, Patrick told Pete he was into men and had been for years. Pete asked if that was the reason he never had a girlfriend. It wasn't. Girls just didn't like Patrick, even when he thought he still liked them. Which was a conclusion his best friend came up with on his own after asking why he never had a boyfriend either. This turned into a twenty-minute rant about how Patrick was too cool for everyone in their school anyway. He was seconds away from embarrassing himself and telling Pete he was in love with him when the boy leaned forward and kissed him. It wasn't his first kiss. Despite having zero prospects in the romance department, he wasn't enough of a loser that he'd never played Spin the Bottle or Seven Minutes in Heaven. It was, however, the first time he made out with a guy he was in love with. That entire night was spent in a haze of random make-outs and vigorous dry humping.

In their freshmen year of college, Pete Wentz met Mikey Way. Changing the trajectory of their friendship forever. It's love at first sight for Pete. In the same way, it was love at first sight for Patrick. Except this time, it's reciprocated. As the story goes, Mikey and Pete met at a party Pete forced Patrick to go to. Halfway through the party, Patrick finds Pete sucking Mikey Way off in a coat closet with the door cracked open. And like some fucked up version of a fairytale, Pete has been sucking Mikey off ever since. They became completely inseparable after that night. Immediate boyfriends.

Now, way after college and well into adulthood, Patrick Stump is still in love with Pete Wentz. And Pete Wentz is still in love with Mikey Way.

And the world keeps spinning.