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

Chapter 15

Author's Note: Hey guys! Apologies for the late update. I hit a little wall with writing this chapter, but thanks to my good friend Laura (a.k.a. TheRealPunkie), I finally finished it. I hope you like it! -Rachael

-Patrick's POV-

"I'm proud of you, man," Pete told me, placing a hand on my shoulder and giving me a slight shake. In return, I flashed him a weak smile, my back hunched over and my hands clasped together in front of me. It had been days since I'd last seen Gwen, since our fight. "She was bad for you, anyways," He added, attempting to make me feel better, "I mean, she's practically still a kid. She doesn't know what she's doing."

"Well apparently neither do I," I argued bluntly, "So does that make me a kid too?"

"You were blinded by love, Patrick," My friend retorted, leaning forward and grabbing the notebook he had sitting on the coffee table. He sat back on the couch the two of us were on and pulled his knees into his chest, resting the notebook on the tops of his thighs and extracting the pen from the spine, opening the notebook to a clean page. "You couldn't help it."

I fell backwards and let out a long breath. "She tricked me, Pete." I turned my head to look at him. "She lied to me and she had me thinking that Zack was this guy that he wasn't. The person she was describing was herself."

"Hey," He remarked, meeting my gaze, "Things between you and her are over. She's gone. Don't worry about her anymore."

"I'm not worried about her, I'm worried about Chase," I confessed, "That poor kid...he's got a psychopath for a mom. And Zack, I'm worried about him too. I mean, Gwen played me like a fool for nearly two years. But she's been playing him since they were in high
school together. That's almost ten years."

"It's none of your concern, Patrick. You don't need to be a hero all the time, anyways. If Zack wanted to leave her, he would've already done it by now. Don't worry about them, man, worry about yourself for once."

I stared at Pete blankly, not knowing what to say.

"You're always so concerned about everyone else that you forget that you're a person too," My friend went on to say, avoiding my gaze, "Think about what you want, what makes you happy. I can't remember the last time you did something for you."

"The last time I did something for me, I almost tore a family apart and I got my heart broken," I replied dismally, crossing my arms over my chest.

He rolled his eyes and set his notebook down on the table, turning toward me. "You know what, Patrick? Why don't you just go? Because you're really starting to get on my nerves and if I hear another one of your 'pity me, I fucked up and I'm all alone' remarks, I might just kill you, or myself - whichever comes first."

I didn't have the energy to snap back at him, so instead I just shot him a glare and stood up, walking out and slamming the door behind me. I stormed over to my car that was parked in the driveway and slipped into the driver's seat, shutting the car behind me with so much force I thought the window would've shattered. Luckily, it didn't.

I sat there for a moment or two, looking back on everything that happened this past week. At the beginning, I was ready to marry Gwen. I was ready to vow myself to her, to save her from the monster she claimed Zack to be, and to take her child in and treat him like he was my own. But now, now I couldn't stand her. She lied to me, she made me believe things that were far from the truth, and she turned me into someone I wasn't.

I glanced at my reflection in the rearview mirror, the corners of my lips curling down into frown. Who was I anymore? I had no band, no friends. They'd all distanced themselves from me, and I understood why. After the band took a break, I lost myself. Hell, I lost myself long before the break was agreed upon. I lost myself the day I met Gwen.