Chapter Text
It’s match point, the fourth set. If Pete wins now, he’ll move on to the finals. Maybe this will be it, he thinks. Maybe one more trophy and he can hang it up. Maybe that will be enough, for him, his parents, his coaches, the world. It’s his serve, and then the rally begins. It’s going well. His opponent is slowly running ragged with how Pete sends him chasing the ball around the court. Pete’s win is inevitable and it’s coming quick.
As soon as Pete hears it, he knows he’s a goner.
Snap.
All Pete feels is burning and blinding pain. He’s covered in sweat and his lungs hurt —probably from yelling. He can’t tear his hands away from his leg. He thinks if he does, his knee just might come apart entirely.
It feels like hours until the trainers come, but he knows it’s likely almost instant. He can’t remember anything else. He doesn’t know where he is or why there’s so many people around. He can’t process anything. Life moves by in a series of flashes and phases of unconsciousness. There’s a stretcher and people lifting him, then wailing noises and flashing lights and ultimately pristine white hallways and panicked voices.
—
The first thing Pete thinks when he wakes up is that he definitely drank too much again last night because these lights are absolutely blinding. The second thing he thinks is that his aging body is getting worse with how much pain he’s in. The third thing Pete Wentz thinks is —OH FUCK.
Pete shoots up in the hospital bed, panicked. He sees his mom —when did she get here?— fast asleep in the chair beside his bed. The clock says it’s half past 8am. Standing in the doorway is a pretty young woman in baby blue scrubs, and Pete puts together that she was probably the source of the room’s fluorescents being turned on. But what’s more striking than all of it is the look of absolute pity on her face looking down at Pete. This cannot be good.
They tell him it’s an ACL tear, a really fucking bad one. They tell him that the ACL in his right knee is practically shredded. And all of this hurts Pete a lot, but what hurts worse:
“What happened with the match?”
And that’s when his mother politely moves his tray of half eaten food away —so he doesn’t throw it, Pete thinks— and explains that they moved his opponent up, and the final match, the championship, has already been played. He’d been in and out of consciousness for the past two days, so he missed it.
They moved on without Pete, left him to suffer on his own while the world of tennis championed someone else, someone who wasn’t Pete.
Hours later, Pete apologizes to the nurse about throwing and ripping his pillow and bedsheets. The pretty nurse only looks at him in a disappointed fashion and tells him they’ve added the costs to his bill. He nods and shamefully turns over to go back to sleep. He’s only glad no one filmed his outburst earlier, because otherwise he’d be trending on twitter for being an asshole again, and not trending for winning another championship like he should be.
—
It’s been exactly two weeks since his discharge and Pete is going absolutely insane. Not only did his parents force him to move back home for the bulk of his recover period— which the doctors say could take up to 12 months, a whole YEAR— but for the first week, his mom demanded pete not leave his wheelchair, and pushed him around the streets of Chicago in a humiliating fashion. Pete’s just glad it was winter so he could hide his face in the padding of his parka.
It’s time for Pete’s first physical therapy session. The hospital referred him to this place, which looking at it now, sitting in the car next to his dad, Pete thinks it looks more like a morgue than a physiology gym. But he can’t complain too much. He’s out of the house, which is a blessing. There’s only so much swaddling and rewatching only matches with his parents that Pete can take. He’s ready to get healthy again, to reclaim his title. This is an obstacle in his way, and Pete’s gonna do everything he can to get out of this place as fast as possible, to take back the championship that was stolen from him.
Pete rushes to clamor his way out of the car before his dad tries to help him. He’s not a baby. He braces himself on his crutches, waves goodbye to his dad and tells him to pick him up in an hour, not a minute sooner. Pete’s so exhausted of feeling embarrassed, and his parents are no help. I mean think about it. He’s a 37 year old man, a failed should-be champion, a tennis star that can even walk unassisted, being dropped off places by his parents who are currently housing him. Yeah, how much more embarrassing could it get.
The building smells like sweat and eucalyptus, the latter of which, Pete assumes, is coming from the humidifier at the front desk next to the receptionist wearing about five million chunky necklaces with beads in her hair and a smile on her face that is entirely out of place because it’s 7 in the morning. And then she opens her mouth and oh! She’s loud as fuck too. Great, just great.
“Hiya! Welcome in! Do you have an appointment with us today?”
Pete merely grunts in return, peeling off his parka one handed as the other one is holding his crutches.
The front desk lady’s smile widens and politely asks, “Name?”
Pete hesitates about saying his name. It’s embarrassing to be him, he thinks. Embarrassing to be the great pete wentz, now the failure and the loser. But he’s here to get fixed, right? He’s hear to fix his knee and take back the tennis title that was stolen out fro munder him.
“Pete.”
He pauses.
“Uh, Wentz…. Pete Wentz.”
The lady at the front desk doesn’t seem to react —thank the heavens. Pete can’t handle anyone fawning over or judging him right now. She only nods, starts furiously typing in her computer, and then ultimately looks back at Pete to ask him to sit on the couch in the lobby. He nods and turns away, walking and crutching— is that a word? Fuck it, he’s saying it anyway— to the couch.
“Patrick will be right out!” The receptionist calls after him. Pete doesn’t care. He’s just ready to get this over with.
Except “Patrick” is nothing like Pete was expecting. Pete was expecting a man in his late 50s, balding and with a stomach spilling over his belt, probably with graying facial hair, sweat stains on his shirt, and an unfamiliar odor pete just calls old people smell. He’s wrong.
“Pete, right?” And standing in front of pete is a man closer to his age, definitely a few years his younger, with a full head of strawberry blonde hair, a tight-lipped smile, and a familiar look of sleepiness in his eyes. This man is fit, and Pete can tell that while he might not be a marathon runner, this man works out and eats right. But this can’t be a trained professional for him, right? In pete’s eyes, he’s practically a baby, probably freshly graduated. Hell, had it not been for the hoodie this man was wearing with the gym’s logo on it, Pete would’ve thought this guy was just another fan who recognized him.
Pete nods, muttering a tiny “yeah, ‘m pete” under his breath as he pulls himself to his feet and grabs his crutches.
“I’m Patrick, I’ll be your physical therapist for your rehab, okay?”
Pete doesn’t say anything. Patrick only turns around and motions him to follow, seemingly unaffected by Pete’s lack of speech or appreciation. And as pete follows, all he can think about is being able to walk out of this place and return to his star-studded career, never seeing Patrick again. This time next year, Pete Wentz will be back on top and he won’t even remember who his physical therapist was.
Let’s get this over with.