I sit in a coffee shop a few minutes' walk from Paul's apartment, in reality my apartment my name is on the lease. When we first moved in together the run down place was all we could afford. We lived together for almost a year, if living is what you would call what I was doing. Existing is more like it, hiding, and pretending that I was okay. I'm not okay and I can finally face it, nothing he ever did to me was okay or acceptable. Yet I rationalized with myself that it was love, and not his fault. I knew Paul had been abused growing up so I always blamed his abuser never him, because if it was someone else fault, if it wasn't Paul's then it met he still loved me and it was okay for me to love him back. It was during this time when I pushed away everyone and focused on Paul, when I allowed him to control my world and everything in it that Colt initially got sick according to his mother. I would have known about Colt and not been so blindsided tonight if it wasn't for Paul. There are so many things I am angry at him for but this by far seems to be making my blood boil. Colt being scared, afraid, waiting for the test results and me not being there, I should have been by his side offering reassurances, doing what I could to make him feel better instead I was hiding in fucking closets and hoping that Paul was in a good mood. No more though I refuse to be his victim any longer. This is his fault and he needs to pay, he is a criminal and deserves to be punished but I have no desire to go through a trial where I put everything he did to me in the hands of twelve people I have never seen before. I will not allow him to make me the victim again by taking the stand, by being forced to relive everything he did to me. My mind does it enough on its own without help from others. So now I am going to do what I should have done so long ago and make Paul understand that I am not weak, or afraid of him any longer. I just haven't figured out how to do it.

The weight of the gun in my hoodie pocket is heavy, but part of me thinks that would be too easy of an out for him. I know Colt will discover before too long that I am not where I said I was going, so I shouldn't be sitting here trying to make up my mind I should be acting. Yet I cannot bring myself to walk the last little bit to a place that was never my home but my prison. He deserves to understand the fear I lived with for so long but I am not sure I could ever truly make anyone understand. So instead of going to the apartment I head back to my car parked a few streets up and think about my next step. Footsteps behind me catch my attention and I turn glancing back into the night. My hand slides into my pocket gripping the gun, I haven't really ever shot one and hope if I need to use it that all I do is pull the trigger. When the footsteps get closer I press myself into the darkness the side of the building provides and just as I feel ready to run the person appears out of the darkness and I gasp air having not known I was holding my breath. The man trudges by me not even sparing a glance my way and I lean hard against the building waiting for my beating heart to stop before walking the rest of the way to my car.

I slide into the seat pressing my head against the steering wheel, what the fuck am I doing I wonder. I should just drive home or to the police and do what I told Colt I was going to do. Yet I can make myself start the car I can't leave. My phone is almost vibrating nonstop in my pocket and at this point it is pissing me off and distracting me from thinking through what I need to do. I pull it out and glance at the screen, Colt, of course he has already figured out my lie. When the phone stops vibrating I see that I have a large number of missed calls from Colt, Ace, Chez, and Hero. Several messages are on the screen also. A thought occurs to me as I scroll through all those messages that if I can't find the strength to go to Paul, I could easily get him to come to me. I of course don't have his number in my phone but I know it by heart so I type it into the keypad and allow my finger to hover over the send button.

I try to think of a place to meet him, a place where I could get what I wanted and not get caught. It all comes to me so easily then, no one is at Ace's or my apartment, the guards would not let him into my building but ace's building doesn't have security and the key on my chain will allow me entrance. So I start my car and head to his house, no one will be there they are all out looking for me. I park by his building and make my way there, letting myself into the building I climb the steps until I get to his floor, then using my key I allow myself to enter the apartment. This place is kind of turned into a crash pad for any wrestles passing through so I do a quick sweep to check none are currently here. Once I am sure I am alone I sit down on ace's couch and think long and hard about my plan of action. Somewhere a rational part of my brain tells me this is crazy, that I need to just call Colt and head home. We could snuggle and watch pointless TV, but Colt thinks I am broken, that there is no fight left in me and maybe in some ways he's right. That's why I need to do this prove to myself, to him that I can stand of for myself that Paul didn't take everything from me. Minutes tick by and I stare at the phone that still won't stop, I stare and wonder what the tightrope from my dream looks like now, if I call Paul will that be the thing to break those fragile threads, finally send Colt and I plummeting to our demise?

I pull the gun from my pocket and place it on the coffee table beside my phone. I glance at my wrists and then the gun, it would be so easy, put it to my head and pull the trigger bet you Colt couldn't save me this time. I reach out and my fingers trace the metal, so easy, so fucking easy to just give in, to let Paul just win. There is that weakness in me again, what everyone keeps telling me I need to overcome, to fight against, and I try, it seems like I never stop trying. I don't love myself, I don't stand up for myself, I wonder what else could be so wrong with me that they don't say to my face. Does everyone find me to be just a pathetic human, a waste of space, why do they all stick around if I am so god damn miserable? I pick the gun up studying it wondering if it is even loaded, maybe I should find out by putting it to my head and giving the trigger a squeeze. After all if I call Paul and it's not loaded I'm dead aren't I, this seems like a game of Russian roulette to me and no matter how you look at it I come out the loser. Unless I put the gun down call Colt and tell him where I am. He would come and take me home, he would make everything better. Ace would be there to help him, and maybe in the morning it would all be different like Colt says, it maybe even could be better. Perhaps maybe if I took a chance and bowed out of the game I for once could win, maybe it is time to stop blowing up bridges while I'm still standing on them and just allow people to love me while I take the time I need to heal. Maybe I even need to get of this town, escape the damn memories, and start fresh find a new place with Colt that can be just ours.

Would it be so hard to just let it all go? Let the anxiety, the worry, the self-doubt, the pain, the depression leave and just look forward to the future Colt talks to me about. A future the two of us happy and loved and no longer dancing on a tight rope but swinging on a hammock of our love. Could it really be that easy I wonder, take my own life, take his, or just start over, could it all be this easy. A simple decision and an obvious one that maybe I have been too blind to consider. I could have a future, a life, it would take time and therapy, but it could be mine, it is all at my fingertips waiting for me to grab on and not give up. My death isn't an option I can see that clearly now, at least not over Paul, I am met to die with Colt sixty years from now as he holds me in old age. Paul's death is becoming less of an option, if I killed him and got caught I could go to prison for a long time away from Colt, away from a future for the first time I think I can honestly see. Testifying, making him pay, would that really make me a victim, or for once would it make me stronger, take back the power he stole from me. It wouldn't be easy, but nothing in my life has ever been easy, accept for loving Colt that has always come natural from the moment we met and I saw him in the Doug Collins basketball shirt, Who are you? I'm Punk, who are you? Umm I'm Scott, Oh. Our first conversation, stupid but the start of everything, when he though I was the dirty kid from an alley in the south side of Chicago who got hot chicks, and I though he was a spoiled kid who only owned one damn shirt. In the moment we clicked and yet somehow we got here, too bad I just didn't shove my tongue down his throat the first day, back when I hid my sexuality, maybe if I had acted on my attraction to him then we never would have come to this place. A place where I am sitting in my mentor's apartment with a gun and wondering why I can't seem to just make up my fucking mind.

I hear voices in the hallway coming towards the door, I listen intently Hero and Joe I think maybe Chez are heading in here and I think maybe I should just go to one of the bedrooms and hide. I hear Joe talking and I think he must be on the phone "We are looking for him Colt, Hero thought he may come to Ace's I get you think he is after Paul but you've been outside Paul's place for an hour now and Punk hasn't appeared so we are now checking other places. I'll call you if we find him" his voce trails off when I hear the door to the apartment open. "He's here Colt, get the fuck here now" I blink but don't even acknowledge that they have entered the room. Chez is approaching and she is doing so as if she's approaching a rabid dog, one ready to strike. I wonder if I look that crazy, the girl at the coffee shop did seem startled by my appearance do I look that out of it. She sits gently beside of me and I see her hand reach for the gun. "Don't touch that" I snap and she pulls her hand back as if I had bitten her. "I haven't made my decision yet" I state softer.

"Punk honey I don't think you having a gun is good right now, so please just let me give it to Joe and he will go put it away." I shake my head no and pick the gun up form the table cradling it in my lap. No one was taking this until I knew for sure I didn't need it. "Punk talk to me, let me help. Come on, what good are sisters if you can't confide in them." I glance over at her and she gives me a smile, she has always been there for me, she an amazing person and deserves better then me snapping at her. So I decided talking a little bit to her can't be that bad, she's a good listener so I stare straight ahead and take a breath.

"I want him dead, I want him to suffer Chez, and yet I know that is not a solution. The things he did to me, the things he allowed others to do to me. He needs to suffer, and I want to be the one to make him suffer. He hurt me so much, it ways I can't even tell Colt. He'd never look at me the same if he knew what I did, what he made me do. I just want him memory out of my head, I need this all to end and I thought maybe I could do it by killing him, but I can't kill someone Chez it's not in me. Just another weakness, another part of me that is pathetic." She touches my arm gently, and I glance over at her. I'm not really seeing anyone else in the room, its just her and she is listening, just listening and for a change someone isn't reacting or asking questions, her eyes are calm as I speak, and her touch soothing. "He beat me, and tortured me, he raped me, but that's just part of what he did. That's not even the worst of it, when I started working less because I couldn't go to a show without him we struggled for money. The things he made me do Chez, the things I did to avoid him hurting me, he sold me Chez, sold me to his friends, strangers, it didn't matter he sold my body and I let him. I was too broken to stop it, too afraid, and if I did the things we would do to me were so much worse then letting somebody fuck me. Colt shouldn't love me, no one should, I'm dirty, and I'm nothing more than a whore Chez. He loves me though and I love him so much in return and he tells me we are going to have a great happy future, how? I need to know how that is going to happen. How I am going to move on with my life, what happens if I go to the WWE and get on TV and it comes out that I was a prostitute? What if I testify against him and his lawyer brings it all up. What if it gets brought up that I did drugs with him Chez?" I hear a reaction from her a sharp intake of breath and I feel her hand squeeze my arm.

"I didn't want to do them, he would force me to, slip it into my drink or hold a knife to my neck until I did them. IT was all stuff to make me want him, or however he was giving me to for the night. All things to make me participate in his sick games, and towards the end I wanted them, it made it so much easier to just do what he wanted. Yet I keep telling myself I loved him, that he didn't mean it, it wasn't his fault because if I look at it clearly, the person I trusted as my friend, my lover, was my abuser, my rapist, my pimp, and my drug if I look at it then I have to face that I am his victim, and have to deal with pain, and it's overwhelming. Chez if I look at it, then I have to face the fact I stayed when I could have left, that the person I am now is partially my fault. That I believed and trusted him, I TRUSTED HIM AND HE WOULDN"T STOP, SON OF A FUCKING BUTCH! WHY? WHY CHEZ, WHY!" I'm screaming and my lungs are burning and I feel like I have run ten miles in the last few minutes, yet I haven't moved off the couch, her hand is still on my arm she is still not speaking just letting me get it all out, and maybe because she doesn't have an answer to my question. I lean forward clutching the gun closer to my chest and trying to stop what I think may be a panic attack, but now that I've started talking the words keep tumbling from my lips.

"I think part of my stayed to try to fix it, because if I could fix it, fix Paul then it would be okay, it would mean that everything I went thru there was a reason, but I can't fix can I. I can't make this fucking better. What the hell am I going to do Chez how do I live with this, how do I even breath thru this, because I can't breathe. I feel like I'm drowning, choking, falling and the only thing that keeps me hanging on is Colt. I want to die, I so desperately want to die, yet I want a future with him but how can he love me if he knows everything. How do I even tell him everything, I'm clinging to Colt so hard to hang on but that is not fucking fair to him, he is so busy taking care of me he is neglecting himself. I can't even fucking take care of myself so how the fuck do I take care of him. How do I love myself again Chez, how do I love myself so I can love Colt the right way and stop being so fucking selfish. I should end it Chez I really should but I'm not strong enough to leave Colt behind. I am everything Paul ever excused me off, everything that repeats in my head every day and I should just end it all and let go of him." I see the gun again in my hand and an almost calm come overs me, I could end it all. I could do it right here, the nightmares, the flashbacks everything would stop. I could just sleep and never have to wake up again, it probably wouldn't even hurt that much. It would be quick and then it would all be over, easier than cutting my wrists.

I want to raise the gun but strong arms are now wrapped around me and the hands are attempting to pry the gun from my fingers, a voice so far away in my mind is telling me to let go but I can't, that would be a mistake so I cling to the gun trying not to let the other hands win, I struggle trying to bring the gun up to my head, trying to get it to the point where I could pull the trigger. The arms struggle me and suddenly more arms struggle against me, hands pull at my arms and I feel my panic rise so many people are touching me. I'm trying to jerk away from the hands at the same time I raise the gun, but my panic is causing my hand to shake and the finger against the trigger is also, and before I can even process it my ears are ringing from the blast, and I let go to slam my hands over my ears. Some of the hands leave as the gun is released, but my eyes are trained on to the person to my left, the person with a blooming red circle on his shoulder that is getting larger under the hand that is pressed against it. I reach out to him, "Ace, Ace?" I whisper and my fingers touch his shoulder and I can't breathe I just shot one of my best friends and if Ace if here Colt is here and what did he hear, I just shot my best friend, I think I may be sick. Hands pull me over the back of the couch and I am trapped in very strong arms, Colt's I can tell by the smell, I struggle against him, wanting to run but he won't let go. He will never just let me go.

Out tightrope is so fragile it is taunt to the breaking point under the pressure of our weight, Colt clings to me, holding on tightly as it sways and I wonder if it would be so terrible if we both just let go and fell, after all maybe the landing will be softer than trying to balance. After all maybe we've been up here so long it has us trapped, and by letting go we can finally find a safe place to fall.

Okay this is so not what I had planned for this chapter it kind of just poured out as I wrote, so I hope you like it. Please review!

littleone1389- Punk I don't think is really handling anything well, though on the surface he took Colt's illness better I think underneath he was in emotional turmoil. Punk being Punk is running in a way at the end of the last chapter, he is hiding and running. Thank you for the review hope you enjoyed the chapter.

lamentomori- I am so glad you are enjoying the ride, I wonder if this scenario played out like any of your four ideas lol. Ace being the one shot was always the plan, however I thought it would be more in a confrontation with Paul, the way my Punkmuse twisted it I think I like it better, because for a change he is being honest, not intentionally with Colt but honest just the same. I see Punk's breakdown as a little victory the same way Colt does, he needs to feel, and I think he also feels a helluva lot in this chapter, while writing it I even teared up and rarely does my Punkmuse get me to tear up when I write. Colt I believe wants the long happy life, and is trying to convince himself of both that Punk won't watch him die, and Punk won't leave him, that they are truly in the long run both fine.