Light My Way Back Home •Patrick Stump+Fall Out Boy•

Chapter Thirty: I Struggle To Find The Sense In Making Sense

||Patrick Stump|| First Person||

"Cole?" I ask again, my voice shaking as I carefully raise my hands up, averting my gaze from her vacant eyes and the dark barrel of the pistol. "Cole, put the gun down."

"Patrick, he's moving." She whispers, and I can't tell what her voice is attempting to indicate. Is she mad or upset? I don't even know. "You didn't kill him."

"Of course I didn't." I say slowly, trying to not let my voice quiver. She looks so terrified, and the gun is pointing at my head. If she pulls the trigger accidentally with her shaking fingers, I would be dead. The thought chills me to the bone, and watching her hold that gun in trembling hands directed at me strangely reminds me of the video shoot we did for Miss Missing You. It's not the first time one of the Wentz's held a weapon at me. "Porcelain, put the gun down."

"He's going to get up." She says, and I almost sigh in relief that she doesn't want to shoot me until I remember that the gun is still in my general direction. "He's going to... t-to get up and hurt us."

"Cole," I lean forward slightly, my voice low and soft, trying to calm her down. She's panicking, and I can't have that with a gun in her possession. "He isn't going to hurt you."

"You said that last time!" She screams angrily at me. Her finger is twitching on the trigger. "YOU SAID THAT HE WASN'T GOING TO HURT ME!"

"Cole," I continue, trying not to wince at her words.

"No," she says. "No, he won't ever hurt anyone again."

Then, she's lunging forward.

||Cole Wentz|| First Person||

The pistol is heavy in my hands, my arms already aching feeling worse and worse with each second that ticks by with this hunk of metal in my grasp. I hold my breath and glare right through Patrick, ignoring his being between me and Derek. My throat closes up just looking at him writhing in pain on the pool deck. I want him dead.

"Patrick," I say slowly, my voice not revealing the feelings that are exploding within my being. I don't know what I want. "He's moving. You didn't kill him." I state chillingly.

"Of course I didn't." Patrick's hands have since went from fidgeting and twisting in his lap to an ascend beside his head like a surrender. Why is he doing that? "Porcelain, out the gun down." He tells me.

"He's going to get up," I try to reason with him in a pleading voice. My throat is raw, and each word that I croak out feels like sandpaper is being rubbed against it. "He's going to... t-to get up and hurt us." I continue, looking right into his eyes with worry.

"Cole," Patrick leans towards me fearfully, I feel my insides twisting over and over again, and my eyes are burning along with every nerve in my body. The bullet sitting in my leg feels as if someone has melted a metal rod and pressed it against my calf. I'm scared, so scared. "He isn't going to hurt you."

That sets something off in me.

For years, Patrick has told me the same thing. For the years that the two of us have been together, I've become accustomed to listening to him go on about how I'll always be safe because he won't let anyone hurt me. But what has that done for me, or the people around me? People have died left and right, or at least been hurt in some way, because of the man that everyone promises won't be able to do a thing. The people that I've known, friend or foe, are dead. I haven't been able to say much about Elisa Yao, because we hated each other with a burning passion when I was 19 years old. She despised me because I was a threat to the one thing she cared for most- Patrick. I was challenging her and her relationship to the most amazing man we know, pushing her to the extent of fighting with me. And then, she is murdered years later because of a past association with that sorry excuse for a human being. Me.