Homewrecker With A Heart Of Gold (Patrick Stump FanFic ft. Zack Merrick)

Chapter 7

-Patrick's POV-

"I just don't think I can do this anymore."

"What do you mean you don't think you can do this anymore?" I responded to Gwen, the two of us talking over the phone. I was standing in the kitchen of my house, dressed in my pajamas and a pan on the stove in front of me. Sizzling in the nonstick pan were a few strips of bacon, admittedly more than a guy living on his own needed.

"Us, Patrick, I can't do us! It's tearing me and Zack apart!"

I scoffed and pinned my cell phone between my ear and my shoulder. "Well what did you think was going to happen? That you could be with Zack and me at the same time?" Silence resonated over the speaker. "Look, I don't know what to tell you, Gwen. You had to have known that you could only push this off for so long."

"You don't get it, Patrick," She told me the same thing she'd been telling me ever since we started seeing each other, "I can't choose you over him or him over you. It's just not possible!"

I rolled my eyes, knowing she couldn't see me, and pushed around the strips that had curled up like ribbons.

"Patrick, I...I just really don't know what to do," She confessed, running a hand through her hair as she paced back and forth in the public bathroom at the zoo she'd gone to with her husband and son. She was all alone. "I mean, I love both of you. I love you because you're everything I've ever wanted, but I love Zack because...because loving Zack is all I've ever known. And it's not that I don't want to be with you, because I do, I just can't...I can't leave him. I can't do that to Chase."

I wanted to tell her that Chase wouldn't be too strongly affected if she were to leave Zack. It wasn't like he'd miss him or anything. He didn't miss him now when he was away on tour or away recording a song for his band's record label, so I doubt he'd miss him any more if he and Gwen were to divorce.

The harsh reality was that I was the father Chase never had. Not being in a band gave me so much more freedom to be with whomever I wanted to be with, when I wanted to be with them, and do what I wanted to with them, all without the constant fear that I'd be called into the studio or that I wouldn't get to see them for a number of weeks, or months.

If anything, that was the downside of being a musician, especially when it was your main occupation and only source of income. You didn't really have time to do the things you wanted to do. The pressure to make the next greatest hit, to headline the next greatest tour was constantly weighing down on your shoulders. It was the only thing on your mind. What can I write this time that'll make this song better than the last? What can I do this time to make the experience for the fans better than the last? What can I do on stage this time to top what I did last time? The stress never went away, it just kept getting worse and worse and worse until you just couldn't handle it anymore.

That's what happens to all the great bands. The stress gets too much, people change, priorities change, the initial reason the band was formed gets lost, and they break up. Trust me, I would know, because that's what happened to us. It wasn't official or anything; Fall Out Boy wasn't dead - at least, not yet.

I guess you could say we were on our death bed, our hearts still beating but our motivation to stay alive faltering. Making that next greatest song or headlining that next greatest tour was the last thing on my mind, and if I was being honest, I'd never felt happier in my entire life. I almost had trouble recognizing myself in my mirror, the man looking back at me with a smile on his face and a glimmer of life in his eyes nothing like the man I used to see when I'd look in the flimsy, cheap mirror attached to the wall above the small sink in our tour bus. I never saw that man when I was in a band. Never. But now, I saw him every day. And he was even happier when he was with Gwen.

"Gwen, I...I don't know what to tell you," I repeated myself, turning off the burner and grabbing a pot holder, wrapping it around the handle of the frypan and picking the pan up off of the stove. I turned around so that I was facing my island and tilted the pan, the bacon sliding off the greasy surface and onto the porcelain plate I had set out for myself. "If you don't want to leave Zack, don't. But if you stay with him - like you said - I don't think we can't keep doing this anymore. Did you see the way he got when he saw us?"

She let out a long a sigh. "Yeah, but..."

"But nothing, Gwen." I placed the now empty frypan to the side and pulled over one of the barstools, sitting down on it. "Zack's one of my friends and he's your husband; I'd like to think that we both can agree that we don't want to hurt him...at least, not any more than we already have."

I heard her whimper. "Why do you always have to be right?" She whined.

I chuckled. "Because I'm me. I'm always right."

Gwen scoffed. "Yeah, okay."

"Hey, how long have you been in there?" I inquired, pulling my phone away from my ear to see that we'd been talking for nearly eighteen minutes. I brought the phone back up to my ear and tacked on, "They're probably wondering what happened to you. You could've fallen into the toilet or something."

She laughed before telling me she'd talk to me later and inform me on how the rest of the day went. We said our goodbyes and hung up.

I set my phone down on the counter and picked up a piece of bacon, biting into it and tearing off a piece. I chewed it for a little before picking my phone back up and unlocking it, clicking on the Photos app and opening my camera roll. Pictures I took of Gwen and me filled the screen. Some of them were from when the two of us were in bed and she was laughing at one of my jokes, or blushing that complimenting shade of red her cheeks turned when I'd tell her how beautiful she was or how lucky I was to have her in my life. Others were from when we went out together with Chase, ones I'd snap of her when she was checking something out at a store we'd gone to or when she was sitting in the driver's seat, sunglasses on her face and the sun giving her hair an almost copper-like glow. No matter what she was doing, what time of day it was, or what kind of mood she was in, she never failed to be absolutely beautiful.

Anyone who knew her would say the same. She was an all-around beautiful person. She was attractive, nice, and kind-hearted. But she had a secret.

Me.

And, without fully realizing until now, instead of saving her, I was destroying her.