Romance

Gerard Way's Point of View

I looked in the mirror and straightened the collar on my shirt. It was the black shirt with the thin white stripes going down vertically—One of the few dressier shirts that I owned. I made sure that my pants didn't have any toothpaste stains on them, and then, I looked at my face. I then remembered. I had to smell good.

I reached down on the dresser and pulled off the cap to the cologne bottle. I sprayed a little bit on my neck and put the bottle down before rubbing it around a little bit and I rubbed some on my face and forehead as well. After a few seconds, I stopped.

"Why the fuck did I just do that?" I asked, removing my hands from my face and rubbing the remainder of the cologne on a tissue that had black smears on it. (It was from when I was fixing my eyeliner.)

I put the cap on the bottle of cologne and looked in the mirror again. The light in my bedroom was so dim, and it looked like an orangish-yellow glow. It was somewhat romantic, actually. Perhaps that would come in handy later on in the night.

Anyway, the light was so dim that I couldn't tell if my face looked slightly wet now because I had stupidly rubbed cologne on my face as if it were a face wash. From what I could see, though, it looked like it had blended in well, and I honestly had no time to wash it off.

I took one last look in the mirror at myself. My eyeliner looked okay, my outfit looked presentable, and my hair was decent. I was ready to go.

I grabbed some money and put it in my pocket. I shut the light off in my room and ran into the living room. The phone rang, but I had no time to answer it. I had to find the key to my apartment. I frantically looked around and for them, and my answering machine greeting played out loud.

"Hey, this is Gerard, I can't come to the phone right now, so please leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. 'Bye."

There was a beep, and then, the raspy, Italian gangster-like voice of my landlord came on out of the machine.

"Yeah Gerard, this is Tony, your landlord. Ah, listen, I'm afraid that I'm gonna have to raise the rent from this month forward-"

"What?!" I exclaimed, stopping in my tracks from shuffling through the contents of the coffee table.

"-You see, the electrical company people are being bastards, and electricity is going way way up, up through the roof, practically! It's disgusting, it really is, but I'm afraid that because of this, the rent is going to have to go up. Just to let you know so on the next monthly bill, you aren't totally surprised. And uh, as a segway, I still haven't received-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I still owe you a hundred bucks. I know, I know, I know. Blah blah blah blah blah," I mumbled as I resumed looking under a few newspapers that my brother had brought over.

"- so I would appreciate it if you could pay it as soon as possible. If not, I'll have to add an additional twenty dollars to what you already owe me. And just so you know, everyone's rent is being raised, not just yours-"

"Geez, well I hope so!" I exclaimed, going over to the top of the TV and looking on top of it.

"-and well…It's gonna be raised to about two hundred dollars-"

"TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS?!" I exclaimed, nearly elbowing the TV off it's stand as I whipped around to look at the phone.

I was about ready to march over there and pick up the phone, but if I did that, I would be extra late. I just stood in front of my couch and listened to the rest of the message.

"-somewhere in that ballpark. So, there is no need to call me back, this was just a heads-up to you, and of course that friendly little reminder that you still owe me the rest of this month's rent. So I'll be talking to you. 'Bye."

There was the sound of the phone being hung-up and the machine made another beeping noise.

I sighed heavily and threw myself on the couch. My ass landed on something sharp.

"Ow!" I screamed.

I reached under me, and it was the key to my apartment on it's key chain. I frowned and put them on my lap. My eyes widened a bit and I got up. I already had my shoes on, so I just ran for the door. I exited my apartment, quickly locked the door and headed for the elevator.

Once I was outside, I ran to the curb and signaled for a taxi. One pulled over and I got in.

"The Empire State Building please," I said.

"Sure," said the driver. "That'll be ten bucks."

"It's not that far," I mumbled, reaching into my pocket.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing. Here you go."

I handed him the money.

"Thank you," said the driver.

"Yup," I said.

I rested my head back on the seat and closed my eyes as I felt the taxi pull away from the curb and drive off.

Two hundred dollars. My rent was going to be raised by two hundred dollars. I was in deep shit. I could barely pay my rent as it was, and now I would have to pay even more money. Just how much extra was the electricity going to cost my landlord now? I mean, yeah, there were quite a few other apartments in the building beside my own, but still…Where the fuck was I going to get this extra money from?

I sighed. I shouldn't even have to be worried about this right now. I should be worried about my blind date that I was going on…

Well, I guess it wasn't really a blind date. I knew who the guy was. His name was Jake. He was one of the matches on eharmony.com that I had gotten. Apparently, they had decided to finally match gay and lesbian couples up. At one time, they only matched up heterosexual couples. Recently, however, they finally took the stick out of their asses and stopped being prejudice. They finally decided to let homosexual people such as myself use their dating services, and I was quite excited, because the site was apparently really successful for heterosexual couples, so I hoped that it would be the same for me. I really needed to find love. I felt that I was in the right time in my life where I could get someone. I was fuckin' thirty-one years old, for crying out loud.

That is, I was in the right time in my life before I found out this rent thing. Now, perhaps the right thing for me to do was find another job…Or maybe not. I really liked what I did. I was a comic book artist, and I liked it very much. However…I was a struggling comic book artist for a little-known publisher here in New York City. My paycheck was very small, and depended on how many people were interested in picking me up. And since that number was not high, my paycheck amount that I was paid wasn't that high, either.

The cab stopped. I opened my eyes to see if we were here, but it was just a red light. I looked down at my watch. I still had time before I could consider myself late.

Jake was the match that I had wanted to meet the most because he said that he enjoyed art. That had meant a lot to me. To be honest, though, I didn't look at all of the matches. I just saw that Jake liked art, so I paid fifty bucks to gain his contact information, and so I was now going to meet him. Doctor Neil Warren said that building a good relationship took effort, so I had to take the time to get know Jake and hope that he would be able to help me have the romance that I wanted to have.

I had a feeling that I was starting out on the right foot, though. I had told Jake to meet me on the top of the Empire State Building. I couldn't take credit for that idea, though. I had gotten it from the movie Sleepless in Seattle, which was one of my favorite movies. I kind of hated to admit it. Only sometimes, though.

I wanted it to end up just like in the movie: To meet my love on the top of the Empire State Building (although it wasn't Valentine's Day) and live happily ever after. I thought a lot about how I saw that Jake was into art as a sign, too. The movie had helped me look for signs as to finding my destiny.

I looked out the window. It was seven-thirty, and since it was late November, it was dark out. The lights were on with all of the buildings, and it looked really beautiful out. It was the perfect night for a date.

I kind of regretted not getting anything for him, though. I could've picked up some flowers for him or something, but I didn't. Oh well. I had brought a shit load of money to pay for dinner and taxi fares, so technically, I did get him something. I was being a gentleman and was paying for everything.

The taxi pulled up as close to the building as possible.

"Have a nice night," I said to the driver, getting out of the taxi.

"You too," he said.

I shut the door and got on the crowded sidewalk.

"Thanks, I'll try," I said.

I walked to the building and got in, my heart beating fast.

I got into the elevator with a bunch of other people and the door closed. I looked at my watch. I was about three minutes late, but that was okay. I didn't think that Jake would be one of those catty gay men that complained about everything. At least, I hoped he wasn't…Nah.

I got out of the elevator and hoped that I looked decent as I walked to the doors. I smiled when I saw the gorgeous skyline through the clear doors. I opened one of them and got on the deck. I looked around, looking for a guy that looked remotely gay. I couldn't really see, though. I could just see their backs. I got closer and looked. I saw a guy with really short brown hair and a face that just looked…Gay. If this was him, he wasn't bad looking, but he wasn't totally hot either.

"Hey," I said when I approached him.

"Are you Gerard?" asked the guy that I now knew was Jake.

"Yeah."

Jake looked at me with a weird look. A look that made me feel worthless. It was kind of a "Seriously? You're Gerard?" look.

"Hi Gerard," said Jake, slowly holding out his hand. "I'm Jake. Well, you already know that. How did you know it was me?"

"I don't know," I said, taking his hand and shaking it. "I just knew."

That sounded like something I would say about the guy that was my destiny. However, I had a horrible feeling that I wasn't going to have the happy ending on top of the Empire State Building like I was hoping I would. Jake and I weren't going to look at each other lovingly in the eyes, take each other's hands, and leave happily while not being able to take our eyes off each other. And we sure as hell weren't going to be at a loss of words because we were too in love to speak. If anything, we were going to be at a loss of words because of awkwardness.

I decided to listen to Doctor Neil, though. Love took a lot of effort and work. And God damn it. If this was Jake's first impression, and his first impression was who he really was, I had a hell of a lot of work ahead of me.