boyishking:

On February 4th, my favorite band came off of their hiatus. A friend and I had seen it coming and had gotten a lot of shit for our “theories,” but it was all worth it once I walked off the train that morning to the text alerts. Right there, right outside the 2 train stop on Chambers St on the way to school, I started crying. Like, ugly sobbing with drippy snot- the whole deal. I didn’t make it to school for another half hour because I had spent that entire time trying to calm myself down.

Two days later, they were scheduled to tape something at Fuse studios, and that being my old stomping ground I decided to cut the full day of school and hang out on the floor of the cafe next door with Rachel, waiting for them to show. When they finally did, we had a chance to talk to them and take pictures.  (Andy was nowhere to be found, idk.) Just as he was about to head into the van I stopped Pete for a minute to ask him to sign my booklet for From Under The Cork Tree.

I explained to him that I had an assignment for Creative Nonfiction due the next day to bring in an artifact that had significant meaning in your life, and that I chose my favorite album. In front of the man who had written the soundtrack to my childhood, I stammered out how the songs had changed in meaning as I got older, as I started to understand more and more about the world around me.

When he signed it, Pete gave me the biggest grin and wrote “I’d give you an A.” 9-year-old me back in 2005 was in tears, 17-year-old me in 2013 was fighting them back. I finally got someone to understand how much a 42:59 album had changed my life, and of all people it was Pete Wentz.

On the off-chance that anyone actually read that wall of text, I did get an A in the end.