Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > The Poison
Chapter Five
0 reviewsI spent that time wondering just how much Mikey had changed from the one time that I’d seen him, who Alicia was, and why I was still so hung up on Gerard.
0Unrated
I tried to make the Medical Dictionary excerpt sound all professional and science-y... I think I failed :/
::
The Poison
Chapter Five
I’m alone on the journey
I’m alive none the less
Words.
The book gave me words like ‘post-traumatic stress’.
I knew what this word meant, had experienced it firsthand, still experiencing it. In this spontaneous pact with a dead girl, this information wasn’t worth a damn. Thank you for nothing, Medical Dictionary 1995. I felt like throwing the book out the window as more birdfeed for the sparrow, or burning it at a Native American powwow. The thing sat grinning on the floor in front of me, taunting me with knowledge that wouldn’t help me. I imagined how fun it would be to chuck it out the window, but restrained myself and shelved it.
As I shoved the thick book in between to others, one of them fell to the floor and opened itself to a random page- page 509. ‘How improved surroundings improves the attitude’, was what it read in thick letters at the top. Interested, I knelt down beside it and perused the text.
It is already known that when one lives in a filthy or poorly decorated home, they are naturally less happy. Their normal disposition may be improved by the remodeling of his or her dwelling...
That was it.
I myself had made quite a few silent comments on the dilapidated nature of the house, and here it was, a solution. It wouldn’t totally solve anything, I knew, but at the very least, the whole place would quit smelling like a morgue. I closed the book and left it on the floor, too distracted by inspiration to put it away.
I flew down the stairs, past a drowsy-looking Gerard with a coffee mug in hand, into the kitchen, where I knew paintbrushes and hammers and nails waited. As I threw open the drawers in search of these things, Gerard walked in, still looking thoroughly winded.
“The hell’re you doing?” he muttered.
I pursed my lips in annoyance, finding nothing in the first drawer. The next one was fruitless as well, as was the third. Finally the fourth drawer yielded a manual, rusted hammer, a possible armada of nails, and a sponge.
“Fixing things.” I said simply. “Fixing a lot of things.”
His arm brushed against my side as I pushed past him into the hallway, making me shiver again. Stop touching me, was what I wanted to scream. But I kept my mouth closed, stewing away noiselessly. The door was closed as I neared it, but a shadow fell across it and a pale arm shot above me, opening the dark wood.
Crisp, early February air streamed in, biting my nose and ears. I stepped cautiously outside, Gerard following me. For a moment, we stood on the porch in chilly silence, looking out at the deserted street and dying yard. I pursed my lips, taking the three steps down to the sidewalk, where I pivoted on my feet to stare up at the brick prison.
Paint. I thought suddenly. We need new paint for the shutters. Maybe dark red, or blue.
Replace the shingles. Polish the door knocker. Sweep the porch. Weed and water the lawn.
The ideas kept coming, a never ending flood of tasks. So much to do- I would be so occupied doing all these things by myself-
A hand-shaped spot of warmth appeared on my shoulder.
“I can fix the shutters and the roof.” Gerard said softly. “I have a ladder, and a bit of paint left over.”
I didn’t fully expect Gerard actively volunteering to help me- in fact, I had assumed that he wouldn’t help at all, that I would be doing all the work myself. If I were to be totally honest, I preferred that he wouldn’t help me. I was the stubborn type, the one that could never be satisfied by other’s versions of her visions. Everything had to be exactly like I imagined it.
But, if I tried to do everything myself, it would take years to get everything done. I pushed his hand off of my shoulder and closed the front door, sponge in hand, glaring at the knocker as it came into view. The joints in my fingers cramped as I viciously scrubbed at it with the sandy sponge. Soon, the thankfully small amount of rust wore away, giving way to the gleaming silver underneath. My arm throbbed and I sighed in a combination of pain and relief. Now, the door looked infinitely more welcoming, and all that needed to be done with the porch was to sweep it.
As time went on, I realized that all the damage that I thought had been done was really only skin deep- a lot of cosmetic things were required, but there was no need to do anything more. That was a weight off my shoulders, considering how long it would take just to get the yard done.
The rough boughs of the broom scraped against the cement of the porch to break the silence that had befallen us. I breathed in and out heavily, waiting for something- anything- to be said. My hands gripped the broom tightly as a light breeze blew in dry, crackly leaves.
Eventually, he’ll say something. I thought. He always does, doesn’t he?
It was around then that I realized how awkward he actually was- always rushing to fill the frozen silences that seemed to be everywhere, fidgeting with those long fingers of his… we were just alike, us two. Social settings were murder to us, and this, I think, helped me feel a bit closer to him. Maybe the thousands and thousands of miles that I thought separated us was actually only a few hundred.
My already light knuckles turned to white as they closed even tighter around the broom. I was beginning to think that what the girl meant by ‘fixing’ was actually rather ambiguous, as to who the actual ‘fixing’ concerned- but that was stupid. She was as literal and direct as one could be when it comes down to it, something I was a little more than thankful for.
I finally succeeded in clearing the porch of all the offending leaves, and I let the broom clatter loudly onto the ground, stretching my spine in an attempt to extricate the knot that had somehow wheedled its way into my back muscles.
The ladder that leaned against the house in front of me still cast a film strip shadow across the floor, no feet climbing down to signal Gerard’s quitting time. A car dozily rolled by, and I tried to imagine how the driver or passengers would feel about a man in an Alkaline Trio shirt fixing their house or a scrawny teen sweeping off their porch.
They probably wouldn’t touch us with a ten-foot pole, I thought snidely. Would probably report us if we arrived on their doorstop.
All humor aside, though, I was right. The elderly lady in the passenger seat spared us a disdainful glance before turning back to her husband, no doubt commanding him to drive by a little faster. We were outcasts, strange little rejects, and although I still had nightmares about him and his dark bedroom, I felt highly tempted to flip off the retired bitch. Only I could judge Gerard, because I knew what he’s done. I knew him better than she ever would.
That being said, I didn’t know much about him, anyway.
“Oh, shit!”
A metallic clattering sounded from the series of nails that appeared to be raining from the roof. Gerard had dropped them, apparently. I bent over to pick them up, but as my fingers reached for them, I felt a sting on my finger and a spot of blood appeared. Gerard climbed down from the ladder, gripping my wounded hand before anything else. He examined it closely as if it were a gruesome battle wound, glaring at the tacks that littered the grass around us. It was almost like he was becoming overprotective of me, like a paranoid father with his pretty, naïve daughter. I wasn’t pretty, nor was I naïve, so the whole feeling was foreign to me.
His lips swooped onto the cut, spreading a wave of embarrassed warmth up my arm. And then his tongue- I felt it, there, right beside the cut!- lightly flicked across it and wiped away the blood. I held my injured, violated hand in the other one, brushing away the bit of Gerard’s saliva that had stuck to my palm.
Is he a vampire? I thought stupidly.
Ironically, the more I mused over this ridiculous notion, the more likely it seemed.
Gerard retreated back to the ladder, scooping up the nails on his way. He looked like a despondent teenager that had been rejected on a date, something I was sure he had experienced before. I gazed down at the scrape, which was already scabbing over nicely. Before I knew it, the tip was pressed to my lips in a sort of indirect kiss, but only lovesick floozies did that sort of thing, not me. I removed my finger and sat on it, angry with myself for my impulsive schoolgirl actions. My finger burned as the cold seeped in, and I stood up and went back inside to think.
-.-.-
With a book at my side and a comfortable couch to sit on, my concentration could rival that of a philosopher. But today, I was prone to drifting away to the island called Gerard- always, Gerard.
He was a sad sort of beautiful, dark hair and a darker temperament, with hazel eyes framed with spiky lashes. The sort of look that always seemed to be sad, or angry, but still undeniably attention-grabbing. I didn’t think he was like the whiny androgynous ‘emo’ boys at my school in any way, though; he was the type to smother his grief and keep inside his chest cavity, not put it on display through ‘deep’ statements and slit wrists. He was genuinely fucked up. He needed help.
He needed my help, didn’t he?
I slammed my head back into the cushioned sofa in the great room. Of course, how many times must I repeat that to myself? It wasn’t a fact that needed memorizing, it had already been etched deeply into my conscience, and it was beginning to wear thin.
I flipped open the book (the original printing of Gulliver’s Travels) and began to read in an effort to distract myself from the five foot nine, good-looking, severely messed up man that I now found myself living with, and strangely enough, had grown used to it. Subconsciously, I had adjusted to his random advances, his moodiness, his… paprika. I was far from enjoying it, but I could manage. Only a year and five months before I could find a job and a livable place to stay. I could handle the ghosts, the boredom, the stiff quiet.
But the one thing that I simply couldn’t manage was him. He was so… complex. Multi-layered and strange and I just couldn’t figure him out.
It irritated and invigorated me simultaneously. I had always been one for puzzlers, and he was one if I ever saw one. I couldn’t look right through him like I could with other people. He was simply too solid.
By the time I had given up on Gulliver, Gerard had finished with the shingles and had been standing behind the couch for some time, waiting for me to notice him. When I did, his fingers found my chin and forced it upwards so he could look me in the eye.
“Is your hand better?” he asked. He then grabbed the hand in question, examining it too closely. He poked it, and when I flinched, he let go.
I silently nodded, thinking that a tiny cut shouldn’t be the cause of so much worry. But he still darted into the kitchen, reemerging with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab. I sat back down on the couch and waited for the sting- but instead, I felt a very cold, wet substance on my hand. It seemed that Gerard had the good sense to blow on the scrape right after the rubbing alcohol was applied, unlike my mother. I put one knee up on the seat cushion and waited for him to finish, counting the seconds that passed by in my head. By the time he dropped my hand, I had already lost count at forty-seven.
“What time is it?” I said hoarsely, sitting flat again.
He glanced down at the mahogany watch for an instant and answered, “Two fifty-three.”
So we had been working on the house for three hours. Funny, it hadn’t seemed that long- about one hour, at the most. I had been so lost in my thoughts that such an amount of time had passed- I must be more dozy than I had thought. Who knew that one person could be so interesting? Maybe I would drown in all these thoughts I had, and never have to deal with this confusion that was caused by him. I could die thinking, doing the exact thing I had done while I lived. I could die right now, if I wanted to. Maybe I really would.
But like everything else in my life, I had another thing coming.
The ringing phone cut through the silence, making us both start in surprise. Gerard cleared his throat and stood up, snatching the phone from the receiver before I could.
“Hello?” he said brusquely, looking ready to hang up at any given moment. “Mikey? Why… okay? Okay. Wait, what?! No! No fucking way, you and Alicia can… fine.”
He slammed the phone down, frustration written on his face. Sighing heavily, he ran his fingers through his already disheveled mane. As his expression darkened even further, I set my feet on the floor intending to retreat to my room. He looked about ready to punch something, which further encouraged my departure.
I walked with my head bowed, hands fastened together behind my back. The remaining alcohol stung my cut, but I was, again, too deep in thought to really care. I was also too distracted to notice Gerard taking after me.
When I reached the door, I felt two arms on either side of my head, palms flat against the wall.
“Atropine.” he breathed.
I stood frozen, waiting for the hot, lusting lips on my neck. Instead, he continued talking.
“Do you know my brother, Mikey?”
A fuzzy image of a tall, thin brunette boy with awkward knees and glasses popped into my head. I nodded dumbly, although that was more or less all I could remember of this ‘Mikey’.
“He’ll be...” he sighed and started again. “He and his girlfriend, Alicia, will be moving in with us in a few weeks. Just... behave.”
I bit back my snide response- “I’m not the one that needs to be told to behave”- and gently elbowed him off of me, soon hiding under the covers of my bed with the lights off.
How close was he to you? An inch apart? Half an inch? I thought, shivering despite the warm blankets that covered me. How about we just say he was too close and leave it at that.
He was centimeters away from performing a reenactment of only two nights ago... was it really two nights? It felt like a lifetime. So much had been shoved into my memory in such a short period of time, stretching my brain out until it was as paper-thin and delicate as my physical body. Slowly, he was breaking me down, tearing me to pieces, and the worst part was that I couldn’t stay mad at him. He didn’t mean to kill me inside. He just did what no one had told him was wrong.
I sat up with my legs brought up to my chest, face half-buried in the fabric of my jeans. I had every right to hate him with everything I had, yet here I was, coming up with reasons why I shouldn’t. I wished at that moment that I had been born meaner, less forgiving. As strange as it sounds, that would have made this a lot easier.
This leads to something else that I had tried so hard to avoid- what if these were the exact thoughts my father had the day he changed? That it would simplify things to hold grudges? I knew he was wrong about that five years ago, so why was I finding the notion so justified now?
I’m growing up. I thought sourly.
Remember when you asked your parents questions all the time, only eliciting the same response over and over again? “You’ll understand when you’re older.” Back then, I was dying to understand, but now that I did, I also understood why my parents refused to explain them to me.
If I’m being honest, the world might be better with the little children knowing everything and the adults knowing nothing, because no kid would abuse power. No little child is truly evil. Every single one of them, innocent.
Maybe that was what Gerard liked so much about us. We were innocent, imperfect, clumsy, happy and trusting. He was anything but, corrupted and stained from exposure to all the bad things that the younger ones were locked away from. Did he enjoy what he did to all those poor teenage runaways? Maybe not, but something kept him going.
Something.
On a lighter note, though, with his brother living in with us, that may deter him from advancing on me. But then, his brother could have the same issues as Gerard, or worse. Hebephilia could quite possibly be a shared trait in his family. But that was a thought that should be left unfinished, for I was already giving myself nightmares.
Speaking of which, the sky had already begun to turn from blue to orange, signaling the sunset. The exhaustion from the day’s work began to settle in my bones and muscles. I let my heavy head hit the pillow and wished for sleep. But for several hours, it simply eluded me. I spent that time wondering just how much Mikey had changed from the one time that I’d seen him, who Alicia was, and why I was still so hung up on Gerard.
By the time darkness had fallen, I expected another night of sparse rest. Welcomed it, even. Although I would be drowsy in the morning, I could-
A sudden warmth pressed against my side cut my thoughts short. Gerard?
“What are you doing here?!” I gasped, trying to pry him off. “Get back in your own bed!”
“I want to be close to you, though.” he whispered, tracing along my neck with his nose.
I blushed, still trying to defend my personal space.
“Is that alright?” he continued.
I was already too tired to fight, and he too tired to fuck, so what harm could be brought on by this one night? He was really warm, anyhow. I let his arms encircle my thin waist, sinking slowly and, for once, peacefully into sleep.
::
HELLZ YEAH, BITCHES! ALICIA AND MIKEY ARE MAKIN' AN APPEARANCE!
...Shut up. I like Alicia.
Anyways, I'm now 2/3 of the way through my update. Almost there!
::
The Poison
Chapter Five
I’m alone on the journey
I’m alive none the less
Words.
The book gave me words like ‘post-traumatic stress’.
I knew what this word meant, had experienced it firsthand, still experiencing it. In this spontaneous pact with a dead girl, this information wasn’t worth a damn. Thank you for nothing, Medical Dictionary 1995. I felt like throwing the book out the window as more birdfeed for the sparrow, or burning it at a Native American powwow. The thing sat grinning on the floor in front of me, taunting me with knowledge that wouldn’t help me. I imagined how fun it would be to chuck it out the window, but restrained myself and shelved it.
As I shoved the thick book in between to others, one of them fell to the floor and opened itself to a random page- page 509. ‘How improved surroundings improves the attitude’, was what it read in thick letters at the top. Interested, I knelt down beside it and perused the text.
It is already known that when one lives in a filthy or poorly decorated home, they are naturally less happy. Their normal disposition may be improved by the remodeling of his or her dwelling...
That was it.
I myself had made quite a few silent comments on the dilapidated nature of the house, and here it was, a solution. It wouldn’t totally solve anything, I knew, but at the very least, the whole place would quit smelling like a morgue. I closed the book and left it on the floor, too distracted by inspiration to put it away.
I flew down the stairs, past a drowsy-looking Gerard with a coffee mug in hand, into the kitchen, where I knew paintbrushes and hammers and nails waited. As I threw open the drawers in search of these things, Gerard walked in, still looking thoroughly winded.
“The hell’re you doing?” he muttered.
I pursed my lips in annoyance, finding nothing in the first drawer. The next one was fruitless as well, as was the third. Finally the fourth drawer yielded a manual, rusted hammer, a possible armada of nails, and a sponge.
“Fixing things.” I said simply. “Fixing a lot of things.”
His arm brushed against my side as I pushed past him into the hallway, making me shiver again. Stop touching me, was what I wanted to scream. But I kept my mouth closed, stewing away noiselessly. The door was closed as I neared it, but a shadow fell across it and a pale arm shot above me, opening the dark wood.
Crisp, early February air streamed in, biting my nose and ears. I stepped cautiously outside, Gerard following me. For a moment, we stood on the porch in chilly silence, looking out at the deserted street and dying yard. I pursed my lips, taking the three steps down to the sidewalk, where I pivoted on my feet to stare up at the brick prison.
Paint. I thought suddenly. We need new paint for the shutters. Maybe dark red, or blue.
Replace the shingles. Polish the door knocker. Sweep the porch. Weed and water the lawn.
The ideas kept coming, a never ending flood of tasks. So much to do- I would be so occupied doing all these things by myself-
A hand-shaped spot of warmth appeared on my shoulder.
“I can fix the shutters and the roof.” Gerard said softly. “I have a ladder, and a bit of paint left over.”
I didn’t fully expect Gerard actively volunteering to help me- in fact, I had assumed that he wouldn’t help at all, that I would be doing all the work myself. If I were to be totally honest, I preferred that he wouldn’t help me. I was the stubborn type, the one that could never be satisfied by other’s versions of her visions. Everything had to be exactly like I imagined it.
But, if I tried to do everything myself, it would take years to get everything done. I pushed his hand off of my shoulder and closed the front door, sponge in hand, glaring at the knocker as it came into view. The joints in my fingers cramped as I viciously scrubbed at it with the sandy sponge. Soon, the thankfully small amount of rust wore away, giving way to the gleaming silver underneath. My arm throbbed and I sighed in a combination of pain and relief. Now, the door looked infinitely more welcoming, and all that needed to be done with the porch was to sweep it.
As time went on, I realized that all the damage that I thought had been done was really only skin deep- a lot of cosmetic things were required, but there was no need to do anything more. That was a weight off my shoulders, considering how long it would take just to get the yard done.
The rough boughs of the broom scraped against the cement of the porch to break the silence that had befallen us. I breathed in and out heavily, waiting for something- anything- to be said. My hands gripped the broom tightly as a light breeze blew in dry, crackly leaves.
Eventually, he’ll say something. I thought. He always does, doesn’t he?
It was around then that I realized how awkward he actually was- always rushing to fill the frozen silences that seemed to be everywhere, fidgeting with those long fingers of his… we were just alike, us two. Social settings were murder to us, and this, I think, helped me feel a bit closer to him. Maybe the thousands and thousands of miles that I thought separated us was actually only a few hundred.
My already light knuckles turned to white as they closed even tighter around the broom. I was beginning to think that what the girl meant by ‘fixing’ was actually rather ambiguous, as to who the actual ‘fixing’ concerned- but that was stupid. She was as literal and direct as one could be when it comes down to it, something I was a little more than thankful for.
I finally succeeded in clearing the porch of all the offending leaves, and I let the broom clatter loudly onto the ground, stretching my spine in an attempt to extricate the knot that had somehow wheedled its way into my back muscles.
The ladder that leaned against the house in front of me still cast a film strip shadow across the floor, no feet climbing down to signal Gerard’s quitting time. A car dozily rolled by, and I tried to imagine how the driver or passengers would feel about a man in an Alkaline Trio shirt fixing their house or a scrawny teen sweeping off their porch.
They probably wouldn’t touch us with a ten-foot pole, I thought snidely. Would probably report us if we arrived on their doorstop.
All humor aside, though, I was right. The elderly lady in the passenger seat spared us a disdainful glance before turning back to her husband, no doubt commanding him to drive by a little faster. We were outcasts, strange little rejects, and although I still had nightmares about him and his dark bedroom, I felt highly tempted to flip off the retired bitch. Only I could judge Gerard, because I knew what he’s done. I knew him better than she ever would.
That being said, I didn’t know much about him, anyway.
“Oh, shit!”
A metallic clattering sounded from the series of nails that appeared to be raining from the roof. Gerard had dropped them, apparently. I bent over to pick them up, but as my fingers reached for them, I felt a sting on my finger and a spot of blood appeared. Gerard climbed down from the ladder, gripping my wounded hand before anything else. He examined it closely as if it were a gruesome battle wound, glaring at the tacks that littered the grass around us. It was almost like he was becoming overprotective of me, like a paranoid father with his pretty, naïve daughter. I wasn’t pretty, nor was I naïve, so the whole feeling was foreign to me.
His lips swooped onto the cut, spreading a wave of embarrassed warmth up my arm. And then his tongue- I felt it, there, right beside the cut!- lightly flicked across it and wiped away the blood. I held my injured, violated hand in the other one, brushing away the bit of Gerard’s saliva that had stuck to my palm.
Is he a vampire? I thought stupidly.
Ironically, the more I mused over this ridiculous notion, the more likely it seemed.
Gerard retreated back to the ladder, scooping up the nails on his way. He looked like a despondent teenager that had been rejected on a date, something I was sure he had experienced before. I gazed down at the scrape, which was already scabbing over nicely. Before I knew it, the tip was pressed to my lips in a sort of indirect kiss, but only lovesick floozies did that sort of thing, not me. I removed my finger and sat on it, angry with myself for my impulsive schoolgirl actions. My finger burned as the cold seeped in, and I stood up and went back inside to think.
-.-.-
With a book at my side and a comfortable couch to sit on, my concentration could rival that of a philosopher. But today, I was prone to drifting away to the island called Gerard- always, Gerard.
He was a sad sort of beautiful, dark hair and a darker temperament, with hazel eyes framed with spiky lashes. The sort of look that always seemed to be sad, or angry, but still undeniably attention-grabbing. I didn’t think he was like the whiny androgynous ‘emo’ boys at my school in any way, though; he was the type to smother his grief and keep inside his chest cavity, not put it on display through ‘deep’ statements and slit wrists. He was genuinely fucked up. He needed help.
He needed my help, didn’t he?
I slammed my head back into the cushioned sofa in the great room. Of course, how many times must I repeat that to myself? It wasn’t a fact that needed memorizing, it had already been etched deeply into my conscience, and it was beginning to wear thin.
I flipped open the book (the original printing of Gulliver’s Travels) and began to read in an effort to distract myself from the five foot nine, good-looking, severely messed up man that I now found myself living with, and strangely enough, had grown used to it. Subconsciously, I had adjusted to his random advances, his moodiness, his… paprika. I was far from enjoying it, but I could manage. Only a year and five months before I could find a job and a livable place to stay. I could handle the ghosts, the boredom, the stiff quiet.
But the one thing that I simply couldn’t manage was him. He was so… complex. Multi-layered and strange and I just couldn’t figure him out.
It irritated and invigorated me simultaneously. I had always been one for puzzlers, and he was one if I ever saw one. I couldn’t look right through him like I could with other people. He was simply too solid.
By the time I had given up on Gulliver, Gerard had finished with the shingles and had been standing behind the couch for some time, waiting for me to notice him. When I did, his fingers found my chin and forced it upwards so he could look me in the eye.
“Is your hand better?” he asked. He then grabbed the hand in question, examining it too closely. He poked it, and when I flinched, he let go.
I silently nodded, thinking that a tiny cut shouldn’t be the cause of so much worry. But he still darted into the kitchen, reemerging with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab. I sat back down on the couch and waited for the sting- but instead, I felt a very cold, wet substance on my hand. It seemed that Gerard had the good sense to blow on the scrape right after the rubbing alcohol was applied, unlike my mother. I put one knee up on the seat cushion and waited for him to finish, counting the seconds that passed by in my head. By the time he dropped my hand, I had already lost count at forty-seven.
“What time is it?” I said hoarsely, sitting flat again.
He glanced down at the mahogany watch for an instant and answered, “Two fifty-three.”
So we had been working on the house for three hours. Funny, it hadn’t seemed that long- about one hour, at the most. I had been so lost in my thoughts that such an amount of time had passed- I must be more dozy than I had thought. Who knew that one person could be so interesting? Maybe I would drown in all these thoughts I had, and never have to deal with this confusion that was caused by him. I could die thinking, doing the exact thing I had done while I lived. I could die right now, if I wanted to. Maybe I really would.
But like everything else in my life, I had another thing coming.
The ringing phone cut through the silence, making us both start in surprise. Gerard cleared his throat and stood up, snatching the phone from the receiver before I could.
“Hello?” he said brusquely, looking ready to hang up at any given moment. “Mikey? Why… okay? Okay. Wait, what?! No! No fucking way, you and Alicia can… fine.”
He slammed the phone down, frustration written on his face. Sighing heavily, he ran his fingers through his already disheveled mane. As his expression darkened even further, I set my feet on the floor intending to retreat to my room. He looked about ready to punch something, which further encouraged my departure.
I walked with my head bowed, hands fastened together behind my back. The remaining alcohol stung my cut, but I was, again, too deep in thought to really care. I was also too distracted to notice Gerard taking after me.
When I reached the door, I felt two arms on either side of my head, palms flat against the wall.
“Atropine.” he breathed.
I stood frozen, waiting for the hot, lusting lips on my neck. Instead, he continued talking.
“Do you know my brother, Mikey?”
A fuzzy image of a tall, thin brunette boy with awkward knees and glasses popped into my head. I nodded dumbly, although that was more or less all I could remember of this ‘Mikey’.
“He’ll be...” he sighed and started again. “He and his girlfriend, Alicia, will be moving in with us in a few weeks. Just... behave.”
I bit back my snide response- “I’m not the one that needs to be told to behave”- and gently elbowed him off of me, soon hiding under the covers of my bed with the lights off.
How close was he to you? An inch apart? Half an inch? I thought, shivering despite the warm blankets that covered me. How about we just say he was too close and leave it at that.
He was centimeters away from performing a reenactment of only two nights ago... was it really two nights? It felt like a lifetime. So much had been shoved into my memory in such a short period of time, stretching my brain out until it was as paper-thin and delicate as my physical body. Slowly, he was breaking me down, tearing me to pieces, and the worst part was that I couldn’t stay mad at him. He didn’t mean to kill me inside. He just did what no one had told him was wrong.
I sat up with my legs brought up to my chest, face half-buried in the fabric of my jeans. I had every right to hate him with everything I had, yet here I was, coming up with reasons why I shouldn’t. I wished at that moment that I had been born meaner, less forgiving. As strange as it sounds, that would have made this a lot easier.
This leads to something else that I had tried so hard to avoid- what if these were the exact thoughts my father had the day he changed? That it would simplify things to hold grudges? I knew he was wrong about that five years ago, so why was I finding the notion so justified now?
I’m growing up. I thought sourly.
Remember when you asked your parents questions all the time, only eliciting the same response over and over again? “You’ll understand when you’re older.” Back then, I was dying to understand, but now that I did, I also understood why my parents refused to explain them to me.
If I’m being honest, the world might be better with the little children knowing everything and the adults knowing nothing, because no kid would abuse power. No little child is truly evil. Every single one of them, innocent.
Maybe that was what Gerard liked so much about us. We were innocent, imperfect, clumsy, happy and trusting. He was anything but, corrupted and stained from exposure to all the bad things that the younger ones were locked away from. Did he enjoy what he did to all those poor teenage runaways? Maybe not, but something kept him going.
Something.
On a lighter note, though, with his brother living in with us, that may deter him from advancing on me. But then, his brother could have the same issues as Gerard, or worse. Hebephilia could quite possibly be a shared trait in his family. But that was a thought that should be left unfinished, for I was already giving myself nightmares.
Speaking of which, the sky had already begun to turn from blue to orange, signaling the sunset. The exhaustion from the day’s work began to settle in my bones and muscles. I let my heavy head hit the pillow and wished for sleep. But for several hours, it simply eluded me. I spent that time wondering just how much Mikey had changed from the one time that I’d seen him, who Alicia was, and why I was still so hung up on Gerard.
By the time darkness had fallen, I expected another night of sparse rest. Welcomed it, even. Although I would be drowsy in the morning, I could-
A sudden warmth pressed against my side cut my thoughts short. Gerard?
“What are you doing here?!” I gasped, trying to pry him off. “Get back in your own bed!”
“I want to be close to you, though.” he whispered, tracing along my neck with his nose.
I blushed, still trying to defend my personal space.
“Is that alright?” he continued.
I was already too tired to fight, and he too tired to fuck, so what harm could be brought on by this one night? He was really warm, anyhow. I let his arms encircle my thin waist, sinking slowly and, for once, peacefully into sleep.
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HELLZ YEAH, BITCHES! ALICIA AND MIKEY ARE MAKIN' AN APPEARANCE!
...Shut up. I like Alicia.
Anyways, I'm now 2/3 of the way through my update. Almost there!
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