Dear Patrick (FOB/Patrick Stump FanFic)

Chapter 10

I slammed the book closed, tears stinging in my eyes. I chucked it across the room in a fit of rage and covered my face with my hands as I began to sob.

I never forgave myself for doing that to her. She didn't deserve it. But she didn't deserve me either. I tried and tried to be nice, to show her affection, to let her know I loved her and that there was nothing in this world that could tear us apart.

But she somehow managed to destroy everything we had. And I don't think she felt bad about it once. But at the same time, I don't think she realized she was doing it. I think she knew she was trouble, but she didn't realize how she was trouble. You get what I'm saying?

I regretted leaving her that day. She was weak, she needed me (though she didn't act like it, nor would she ever admit it). And I left her. I couldn't take it. I didn't want to deal with her shit anymore. I couldn't.

I dragged my hands down my face and let out a shaky breath.

This apartment was lonely. It had all my stuff, sure, but something was missing. I could invite my friends over, but they're doing their own things now. They don't care about me. They probably don't even remember who I am. I wouldn't expect them to, they only acquainted themselves with me and stayed my friend because they felt bad for me.

Pete probably felt the worst for me. He told me he could see she was wearing me out, spreading me too thin. He suggested that I leave her. But he didn't understand, no one did - I couldn't leave her.

I peeled myself up from the couch and trudged over to where her diary had landed. I bent down and picked it up, holding it in my hands for a little before tossing it on the couch. As it landed on the cushion, something fell out of it. A piece of paper.

I walked over to it and picked it up, seeing that it was a note. The note she wrote me that horrific day in 2005.

What's your New Year's resolution this year? Mine is to get you out of this black hole you've been sucked into called my life. You've been stuck here in desolation for almost five years. You think you've been happy, you think you've got things under control. But you're not and you don't. So I'm helping you. Because I hate to see you hurt. You're too nice of a guy, I said that on our first date. I can't even count how many times you've been in pain - emotional pain, maybe even physical - since then because of me. It's time you stop getting hurt and move on. First step is to erase me out of your life, but you don't need to worry about that - I've got that handled. The second step is something you'll need to do on your own. You need to find a nice girl who won't sleep with their ex-boyfriend and get pregnant and tell you the baby's yours. You need to find a nice girl who won't come home with hickeys on her neck, drunk off her ass, and ignorant to how worried you get when she's out. You need to be happy again, and not living in this fantasy you've built to cover up the fact that you're in a bad place. You need to get out of this bad place, Patrick. You don't belong here. I beg you, you need to find a way out, because if you don't, you're gonna be stuck here forever. And you don't want to be stuck in this black hole forever, trust me.

Tears blurred my vision as I gripped the paper tightly, sitting down on the couch as the day flashed before me.

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January 1st, 2005

I shouldn't go back. She'd betrayed me in the worst kind of way possible. But I made a promise, and if you haven't learned by now, I don't break promises. I don't give up. I'm a fighter.

I walked up the icy walkway, my hands shoved into the pockets of my coat as the cold air hit my exposed skin, chilling me to the bone. I walked up the few steps, being careful not to slip on the ice that's covered them, and raised my hand in a fist, knocking on the door.

New year, fresh start, right?

I waited about a minute before knocking again.

Another minute passed by and she still hadn't answered the door.

"What the hell?" I muttered under my breath before stepping off of the mat and picking the corner up, breaking the ice holding it down. I picked up the spare key up with my almost blue fingers and slipped it into the lock. I pushed the door opened and stepped inside the significantly warmer house, a gust of frigid coldness and snow following me in. I closed the door behind me and set the key down in the bowl next to the door on the table. I took my jacket off and hung it up on the coat rack.

"Hey! It's me! Are you home?" I called, taking off my scarf and hanging it atop of my coat.

I peered into the living room only to find it completely deserted. The coffee table was cleaned up - magazines stacked up in a nice pile, TV remote placed perfectly on top of them, and on the couch, the blanket from Halloween I had brought over when I moved in neatly folded and draped over the arm. I even think the floors were vacuumed. All of that in itself made me know something was wrong. Because she never had the house clean and tidy.

I called her name and made my way upstairs, tracking snow with me, seeing as I had forgotten to take my shoes off and snow was embedded in the soles. All the lights were off upstairs except for one room - the bathroom.

"Oh no," I murmured under my breath. I ran up to the door and pushed it open. She was sitting on the floor, her head hung low. Her arms dangled by her sides, her forearms resting on the floor, similar to how a rag doll's arms would. Only difference between her and a rag doll was that her wrists had been slashed. Blood was still dripping from them and had created two small, yet fairly large, puddles underneath her hands, soaking the sides of her jeans.

"Oh my god, what did you do!?!" I yelled, though I didn't get a response.

I had to get her help.

I grabbed the white hand towels hanging on the wall by the sink and tried to stop the bleeding some. And before tying them tightly around her self-inflicted wounds, I cleaned up the floor a bit. Blood had soaked into the grout, though, and was never going to go away. It was still there, if I remember correctly.

I slipped one of my arms behind her back and the other under her legs, right underneath her knees. I grunted as I picked her up (not because she was heavy, but because I wasn't that strong). I staggered out of the bathroom and down the stairs, somehow managing to do it without hitting her head or losing my footing. I walked outside, not even bothering to get my coat on, and sat her in the passenger seat of my car. I walked around and got into the driver's seat, starting the car up and speeding away towards the hospital.

*****

I sat in the uncomfortable arm chair that was placed next to the hospital bed she was lying in, asleep. Luckily she was still alive. The heart monitor she was attached to beeped at a steady rate, her breathing was quiet and soft, but it was there. She was dressed in one of those baby blue hospital gowns, her clothes folded into a neat pile at the end of the bed. Sticking outside from one her pockets was a piece of paper.

I stood up and walked over to the bed, slipping the piece of paper out and unfolding it. It was the note she had written me. Her suicide note.

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I saved her from dying that day. Hadn't I gone to see her, she could've died right then and there. But she didn't. She lived. I was grateful she survived, she wasn't.

She believed that if she died, I would finally be free. Free from her manipulative ways, free from the pain and hurt she caused me time and time again. But she was wrong. Because she's gone and I still am hurting, I still am under the chains of her manipulative ways. And I don't know when I'm going be free, if I'm ever going to be free.