Give Me a Reason to Believe

Art was a pretty fun class. Frank, Gerard, and Mikey knew how to keep it interesting. At the beginning, I was still pretty down about Odelette, and Frankie could tell.

We all sat at the same table with 2 other girls and a guy, Eniale, Liza, and Jake. Frankie tapped my shoulder and showed me a comical little sketch he'd drawn of Odelette, with X's instead of eyes, and me standing over her, one foot on her chest, with a flag with Gerard's face on it sticking out of her abdomen.

It wasn't gruesome or anything, he hadn't drawn blood, and it was pretty funny. I couldn't help but giggle.

I myself was working on a little piece that I thought was way sweet; if not a little twisted.

It was a picture of me and Gerard, holding hands, smiling maniacally as we fell from a large building. I knew he'd love it, so I made him sit at the other end of the table and wouldn't let him see it until it was finished.

We had very similar tastes.

Odelette sat at another table with 6 French girls and a Russian girl that I did not know. They had weird names that I couldn't remember, pronounce, and dollars to donuts I couldn't spell 'em either.

"Mr. Iero, can you explain to me what that is?" came the voice of the art teacher, Mr. Muldova.

The guy wandered around the classroom for the entire period, supervising our art, and he had caught a glimpse of dear Frankie's humorous little sketch. He was striding towards us and was trying to see what it really was.

Frankie gave me a panicked look and grabbed the sheet. He didn't know what to do with it, and Mr. Muldova was getting closer.

Quickly, (and rather stupidly) he stuffed the paper in his pants.

"What what is, sir?" asked Frankie innocently, hiding the discomfort of the sharp edges on his sensitive area.

The teacher stopped short. He had obviously seen what Frank had done, but he couldn't very well say "Mr. Iero, take whatever is in your pants out of them right now," now could he? So he just gave him a dirty look.

"Miss Moretti, can you what is just so funny?" he asked condescendingly.

"No-nothing at all, s-sir," I replied, holding in laughter.

He walked back to his desk in a huff.

I refrained from cracking up and Frankie carefully pulled the paper out of his boxers and making these odd, high pitched "aah" noises.

He came back with a red face and a huge grin. I bit my lip and watched him in anticipation.

"Oh shut the hell up," he said and we both started laughing so loud that everyone looked up from their artwork at us and gave us these odd expressions. Gerard looked concerned. I can't really say why.

We quieted down and everyone went back to their work. Before long, I felt this gaze on my back, and after ignoring it for a while, I turned around and Odelette quickly averted her eyes back to her sketchpad.

But just before I lost her eyes, I caught a disturbing expression in them.

It wasn't anything like dislike or irritation. Even pity or annoyance.

What I saw was real hate.

Towards me? Towards Frankie? Whatever it was, it scared the shit out of me. It made me a little angry too. She had no reason to even dislike me in the slightest. And here she was, looking at me with her heart in her eyes, those cold, malice filled eyes. It was almost as insulting as if she'd come right up and slapped me.

The bell rang and I walked out of the classroom with Gerard beside me, clutching my hand, and Frankie and Mikey in tow.

Our drama room was the auditorium, a large room with high clings and very little light. The stage was a black one, with black curtains and a blue one in front. It looked like a nice room, and instead of desks, we got to sit on risers.

We sprawled ourselves out on them; Gerard stretching his legs on the top one, me on the one below him with my head in his lap; Frank and Mikey lounging lazily on either side of me.

This was gonna be a good class. There were only about 12 other people in the class, so it was going to be a close knit group.

The drama teacher looked like a nice enough guy. He had thinning brown hair, rimless glasses and a fairly large body. He had warm eyes that crinkled at the corners as if in a permanent smile, and he looked like the type of guy you would just automatically call "Grandpa".

"Afternoon, class. I'm Mr. Garchinsky, welcome to Drama 20," he had a warm baritone voice that rang with kindness, and I knew instantly that this was the kind of teacher I wanted to please.

He sat down and basically talked about the course outline and what would be expected of us. Nothing new. First day, no work really. Get to know each other and your teacher.

We got into a discussion about Keanu Reeves (DON'T ask me how, we were talking about Hollywood Actors, and how we stopped on him, I don't know. Nor do I care. Hate that bastard.) and thank someone's God the bell rang, because if it hadn't I swear Frankie would have started throwing things at some broad named Elyse during their heated debate.

Just as I was waling out, Mr. Garchinsky called me over to discuss the matter of my timetable change.

"I'll wait for you by my car, in the parking lot," said Gerard.

"No, that's okay, I'll just call you when I get home, I'll probably have to go through a lot of shit to put Choir on my schedule," I said with a smile. He reluctantly agreed and kissed me softly before leaving.

"BYE LENA!" Mikey and Frankie shouted. I waved them off.

He took me through a lotta bullshit, and in the end it turned out I couldn't even put Choir on my schedule anyways, because I had already exceeded the required number of electives. Oh well. Singing's fun, but I don't need to make a chore of it.

I went to my locker and got my shit, but I closed it and I saw Odelette's face beside me. It scared the evalivin outta me.

"Oh, hi, Odie," I said with a weak smile, "Kinda scared me."

Her face contorted into one of irritation as I used her pet name, given to her by the guys.

"Oh, I am zo sorry, did I scare you? Of course I did no' mean to. 'ow are you zis fine day?" she asked with a sickly sweet smile which I'm pretty sure she manufactured to look as fake as possible. Insulting, again.

"Pretty good... actually just about to head off to Gerard's house.. .I was running a little late after last class today, so..." I trailed off and gave a little wave, "see ya later!"

"You know, Elena. I 'ad 'im once. I could 'ave 'im again if I wanted 'im."

I stopped short and a tingle shot up my spine. What the hell?

I turned around slowly. "Excuse me?"

Her face became darker.

"You 'eard me. I 'ad dear Zherard as my own once. It waz my choice to end ze relasho'ship. I could easily start it up again if I wanted 'im. And I do. So you 'ad bettair watch your pretty little backside."

"What the hell are you talking about? Gerard never said... You guys didn't... " I was thoroughly confused. Of course Gerard would have told me if those two were...

I shuddered at the thought.

"Oh, yes. You 'ad bettair believe it. Ze little boy was quite taken wiss ze littal foreign girl wiss ze adorable accent. We became an item not sree monss aftair I got 'ere. I got tired of 'im. But now I want 'im for my own once more. For you see, I am quite a zhealous pairson. And once I saw my toy being fondled by anozair, well you can undairstand zat I could not 'ave zat."

I was immediately filled with hot rage.

"Okay, first of all, I understood about half of what you just said. Second of all, Gerard would have told me if you guys had dated, because he doesn't keep secrets from me. He loves me. I'm sure you were nothing but a fling that he wanted because he thought it would be awesome to get into a French girl's pants. He's mine now, and I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate your cocky ass attitude," I finished, my face flushing. I was fighting the urge to punch her pretty little lights out.

She was a filthy whorish liar. But I didn't like what I had made Gerard out to be. I knew he wasn't like that, but I wanted to hurt her as she was hurting me.

"Oh, well, zat 'appened quite a bit. You see, 'e told me I waz ze only one for 'im, 'e loved me more zan life itself, you know. Sings like zat. And now I am afraid zat 'e wants me back azwell. We shared a few intimate wordz while you were off on your 'issy fit," she finished triumphantly. I couldn't believe it. For all that I hated her, up until now she had been a sweet little creature who couldn't hurt a fly. Now she was a horrid bitch whom I wanted to slap.

Well, judging by the way my hand was stinging, I had already slapped her.

Her head rocked back and her hand flew to her cheek. A vivid red mark was already visible, and her dark eyes were round and startled. They were the eyes of a deer that's just been shot and knows it's going to die.

Then it changed in an instant. Her eyes were full of unmistakable fury as she brought her hand down upon my face. She smacked me a good one, and it brought tears to my eyes.

Oh, no way, bitch. You did NOT.

I balled my fist and threw it with all the force I had. It connected with her jaw and her teeth clacked together. She fell to the ground and I could see she was startled and a little dazed. She had bitten her tongue and a small stream of blood escaped her lips.

"Let this be a warning, bitch. Don't go near my man, or next time I might bash that pretty little skull of yours into the floorboards."

Without another word, and to prevent myself from doing any further damage to her, I turned and fled the school, to the only place I wanted to be.

Mainstreet seemed like an endless road, but I kept running because I knew what lie at the end of it.

Gerard's arms.