Give Me a Reason to Believe

We were speeding down the road, faster than I’d ever seen Ray drive.

After nearly escaping getting totalled for the millionth time, my nerves were shot.

“Ray, slow the fuck down!” I screamed as a stoplight came into view. He slammed on the brakes just as it changed.

“Please, please tell me, what’s going on? What’s wrong with Gerard?” I pleaded.

He sighed and, with trembling lips and voice, he said,

“Elena, Gerard... he... he was hit by a three ton. Apparently the guy that hit him drove him to the hospital... Mikey said he’s not looking so good. They got Gerard’s number from his wallet, he wasn’t even awake to tell them. He’s still unconscious. He’s on life support. He’s...He--” Ray couldn’t finish. He rested his head on the steering wheel and erupted in fresh tears.

I was too shocked to even comfort Ray. I knew this was all my fault. I can’t even explain to you the sick, guilty feeling I had in the pit of my stomach. I felt I couldn’t breathe, my head was spinning; blood pounded in my ears, and I just repeated the same thing over and over in my head.

You killed him, you killed him, you killed him....

“Ray, he’ll be fine... I know he will... calm down. We just need to get there. We need to be there for him,” I said half-heartedly, sounding a lot more sure of myself than I actually was. I had this horrible feeling of dread in my heart that when we got there, it would already be too late...

He lifted his head up, nodded, and without a sound, he took us down the road until we pulled into the parking lot of Belleville General.

We rushed to the reception desk and found Gerard’s room number. He was in ICU, and we couldn’t go in. Not yet. Still, we ran up to the ward and found the other guys in the waiting room.

I was glad to see them, but it made me so sad to even go in there; Mikey was leaning on Frankie, bawling his eyes out, Frankie was ‘shh’-ing and comforting him while tears of his own escaped his eyes, and Bob had his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking slightly. Even he was crying. The whole scene was almost too much to bear.

They were all sitting on the floor, because the chairs all had armrests, which didn’t allow them to get as close as they wanted. We joined them, I sat next to Mikey and Ray sat next to Bob.

“Lena.... Lena, why would he do this?” Mikey sobbed, sitting upright and looking at me.

“Mikey, hey, shh, Mikey he didn’t mean to,” I began, thinking he was talking about the driver.

“Of course he meant to! The.. The guy said he jumped right in front of him. He wasn’t driving by a crosswalk or anything like that. Lena he tried to kill himself!” I was horrified to realize that he meant Gerard had jumped in front of the truck.

My heart sank. My fears had been confirmed. It was no accident. Gerard couldn’t take what we’d said to him, and now he wanted to die. Not wanting to think about it, I approached the matter another way.

“Have they said anything? Will he be stable soon? How much damage was done?” I asked Frankie, who seemed to be the most composed.

He sniffed, wiped his tears, and hugged Mikey a little closer.

“They’ve just said we can’t see him yet; if he’s going to be stable soon, he isn’t yet; and I caught a glimpse of him while they were wheeling him in. His–his face hit and broke the windshield... He doesn’t look too good...” he finished, kissing Mikey’s forehead as he began to cry again.

“Mikey.. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have been so cruel to him, I should have known...” I said as silent tears slipped down my cheeks.

“Elena, it is not your fault. We only told him what was true; we can’t help how we feel. You had no way of knowing how he’d react. Don’t beat yourself up about it, just be there for him now,” Frankie said, leaning over Mikey to take my hand in his.

I still felt responsible, but Frankie was right. I couldn’t mope around regretting what I should and shouldn’t have done; Gerard needed all of us. We had to be there for him.

We were all waiting there for a hell of a long time, and it was late. Inevitably, we all fell asleep in a giant heap on that waiting room floor at 4:30 in the morning.

“Mr. Iero, Mr. Way would like to see you now. Yes, he’s quite awake. Is that Elena? He would like to see her as well.”

I awoke to an unfamiliar male voice, giving these instructions. Frankie gently shook me, and I opened my eyes. The sun had begun to rise. Looking around for a clock, I saw we’d only been asleep for about half an hour. Everyone else was still asleep.
“Lena, come on, sweetheart. Gerard’s awake. He wants to see us.”

He led me into a giant room, a nurse’s station in the centre, and various cubicles separated by glass walls and curtains.; every cubicle had its own nurse watching over it. We found the one marked WAY, GERARD, and checked with the nurse before we walked in.

Not a second later, though, I wished I’d never walked through that curtain at all.

His head had a deep gouge in it, closed up with big black stitches. A small portion of his hair had been shaved away to allow for the stitches, and he had various lacerations all over his face and arms. I didn’t even want to know what condition he was in internally.

“Gerard.. Why did you do this, buddy?” Frankie asked softly.

He gave a weak, apologetic smile as he patted his bed, motioning for us to sit down.

“I know it was stupid. I was drunk and I was feeling sorry for myself. I know if I had thought about it a little more I never would have done it. I’m sorry, you guys. It won’t happen again, and I want you to know, now that I’m thinking straight, I don’t have any hard feelings. I love you both, and I just want you to be happy,” he said in a shallow, wheezy voice.

He was very pale and weak, but there was a shine in his eyes that lit up his whole face. He really was glad to see two of the people that he loved best in this world, together, and happy.

I still didn’t feel completely absolved, though.

“And, Gerard, I’m sorry I was so cruel to you. Some of those things I said, I shouldn’t have. I was angry at you, and I guess I was jealous of Odelette. However,” I continued, “a lot of what I said was completely necessary. You need to straighten up. No more booze, and no more Odelette, if you wish to keep any of us around.”

I was surprised myself how quickly, in that one statement, I had changed my tune. It needed to be said; none of us would stick around for him if he kept up this bullshit with Odelette.

“I know, and I promise, I’m done with her. Completely. I will need your guys’ help, though... you know how weak I am when it comes to her,” Gerard promised.

My heart swelled with pride. We were on the road to getting the old Gerard back.

Now there was just the matter of making sure Odelette kept her pretty little French nose out of Gerard's life.

Unless she wanted me to break it, of course.