"Stop." Shivers ran down my spine as a Pete I'd never known before spoke out in the dark.
"Pete?" I asked nobody in particular, simply frantic to find what I hoped to be my boyfriend. It had to be, there was no other way my mind would have it. Dead wasn't a possibility. Not to me. Fucking millions had died, he may as well have been just another number on the death toll. But to help me cope (and I really need to god damn cope) I'd convinced myself that Pete being Pete, he was alive and out there. For 3 days straight I'd walked on and on and on past lonely streets and lifeless buildings in sheer fucking hope that I'd find him again. Him. The bomb had gone off at 11:38. I can remember the look on his face as it hit us both like its the back of my own hand.
"Mikey? Oh my fucking god Michael James Way." Immediately, his body was pressed to mine, like there were magnets pulling us together until there was no possible way could've fought it. Like nothing I could've read to you in a book or seen in a movie. Everything was quiet for us, the world was silent for a second. Everything stopped, it was him and I together again, alive, Pete fucking Wentz was alive, and I don't think you'll ever understand what it felt to be me in that moment. Endorphins and tears all too prominent and all too alive on my face.
"I love you. So god damn much Pete." My lips carelessly let loose words slip by, mindless words, slurred even. The world was slowly slipping from my grasp, reality became a mere thread I could see only in my peripheral vision.
"Mikey? Fuck, Frank! Get a doctor! Fucking, shit Mikey get off the floor! Mikey..." My eyelids were too tired, and too worn out, too used for me to even plead them to stay open. Every breath was another mountain to climb, every heartbeat a race I just couldn't keep running.
"I'm sorry Pete. I love you. I'm fucking sorry it ends like this. Sorry I was a terrible boyfriend, sorry you deserved so much better-"
"Mikey, shut up."
"No Pete, listen-"
"Shut the fuck up! Iero, what's he said?" In effort so strained a tear escaped me, I turned to face Frank who was sat next to me, speaking angrily over the phone to who I assumed to be a doctor, on the gravel road that would soon become my own personal morgue. I was dying. I knew it was coming. The symptoms had appeared days ago, I'm lucky I made it this far. At least, I saw Pete one last time.
"Incurable. No point. Get as far away as possible before you die with him." Frank said, with no urgency whatsoever. No one ran screaming. Both sat there, simply looking at me. As if I had the answer. The answer to the unspoken question no one had uttered, yet I knew word by word.
"Leave."
"Mikey you know I'd rather fucking die right here next to you than leave-"
"I said go Pete! Put your ego aside for one fucking second and go before I take your life with mine."
Chapped and faded lips collided with mine, which made the whole situation much more difficult than it ever needed to be, because now I was hoping maybe Pete wouldn't leave. But he was smarter than that. Our last memory, here, on the side of the road, as everything we'd come to know and love burnt down around us.
"I love you Mikey."
The first and last time I could ever hear those words. Pulled away by Frank, he screamed and kicked and I watched him be dragged away until he was just another figure in the shadowy darkness.
