Anonymous

I didn’t really sleep. I woke up every hour due to warped dreams that I can not remember. I spent most of the time staring on the brown ceiling with disgust, trying to figure out exactly what I was going to say to you when I inevitably returned to the bus. Would I tell you I slept with Quinn? Did you even have a right to know? Maybe that was the question I should have been asking myself. You lied about Eliza- lied about calling her, dating her, moving in with her. Compared to that, sleeping with Quinn doesn’t seem like such a big fucking deal. I’m sure if she was there, you’d be fucking her brains out. Call it even now. If I even wanted to call you at all.

Quinn was lying next to me, his face in the crook of my neck and his arm thrown against my bare chest. His breathing was slow, but every time he inhaled…he made a squeaking noise. It was kind of cute in a freaky way. Gave him personality- as if he needed anymore personality. I smiled as his nose squeaked again and leaned in to kiss his oddly shaped nose. He stirred- mumbling about school- and returned to his deep sleep. I started to remember why I even started to like the former blonde. He was cute…funny…had a great personality that wasn’t taken over by the overwhelming fame his band experienced. He was the same caring Quinn he was when we met.

He was there…you weren’t…but I think I said that already. Oh well, worth repeating. Maybe if I say it a hundred more times you will wake up.

My phone started to vibrate for twentieth time that morning. I groaned at the obnoxious sound it was making, and moved out of Quinn’s limp embrace to retrieve the contraption. I already knew it was you- didn’t take a fucking genius to figure it out- I just didn’t feel like hearing your voice. Your…annoying girly voice that was high pitched and distinctive. And you said my voice, sucked. Yeah right.

I flipped open the phone, “What the fuck do you want?”

“Oh thank God,” you breathed into the phone, obviously not upset by my cold answer, “I was so fucking worried about you Frank! Where have you been?”

Your worried voice calmed my fiery anger, “I just went for a walk…I’m at a hotel now…”

You were breathing heavily, holding back tears that threatened to destroy the coldness that had become apart of you. “Please come back, baby, please…I’m sorry. I really am! I just want to see you, please come back to me.”

Quinn was awake at this point- I could tell from the way his body turned stiff and cold near me. I cautiously looked into his contorted brown eyes. I knew what he wanted to say…or do. He wanted to take the phone and reveal that I had fucked him. He wanted to prove something to you as much as he wanted me to stay with him. Quinn wanted to prove he was a better boyfriend that you could ever be. He could prove that in a heartbeat. He could paint the worse picture of you. He knew everything you told Bert in secret. He knew everything I told him in secret. But Quinn could give me all the damning evidence he had, I wasn’t going to listen. Cause I am Frank Anthony Iero, and I never listen to reason. I listen to what some dumb organ tells me.

“Yeah,” I whispered, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

I could almost feel the smile crawl across your face, “Okay. I love you.”

“Yeah,” was I going to mean it this time…or was I just throwing out a word I could never understand, “I love you to.”

I flipped the phone close and looked at Quinn’s stern face. I know, shocking, Quinn stern. He was too much of a joker to be stern. He looked kind of funny actually, so I couldn’t even take him seriously. I even allowed a slight smile to form despite the look he was giving me. My cute smile didn’t crack his mask, though, he just narrowed his eyes as if trying to look into my soul.

“Do you really even love him?” he asked.

Love. It was an interesting concept. I had already said love was abnormal and unnatural. Love was a feeling, a disgusting feeling at times. Love caused people to act like complete asses. Love costs money and caused fights. So was love even the proper term? Was then any other word that could describe the feelings I had for you. They were warped feelings; sometimes you made my stomach flutter, other times you made me wish I was dead. But I didn’t hate you. No, I hated Eliza. I hated Bush. I hated oatmeal. Oatmeal tastes like rat droppings and looks like goose shit. I thought I loved you, but that’s when I thought I knew what love was.

“What is love?” I found myself asking Quinn. His eyes softened slightly, but he offered me no answer. There was no answer. Not all the hallmark cards in the world could explain the meaning of love.

He sighed and removed himself from the bed; gathering his clothes and slowly putting them back on his naked body. “I rented a car since I was going to be in here for a few days. I’ll drive you back to your bus.”

“Yeah, thanks Quinn.”

I threw the covers off me and began the search for my clothing. Jeans and boxers were still on the bed, so I quickly grabbed them and put them on. The problem was my shirt…which Quinn threw into some unknown abyss, never to be seen again. So I was running around the room, shirtless and earning a very lustful glance at Quinn, like a chicken without a head looking for said shirt. I don’t even know why I am saying this; seems like such a fucking stupid thing to talk about. Looking for a fucking white shirt that had some dumb design on it; yeah, cause that was important. It was lost. I was lost.

Quinn came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Your shirt,” he whispered in my ear, “Is already on you…”

I touched my stomach…and there it was; cloth. I began to shake slightly…cause this meant I was going insane, right? I mean, I can’t remember when I put a fucking shirt on. What’s going to happen when I am performing? Forget a whole song? A whole set? I mean, if I can’t even do something as simple as dress myself, how can I fucking deal with anything remotely complicated.

See, this is what you do to me, Gerard. You make me insane. You drive me up the wall until the only thing I can do is blink and breath- and sometimes I forget the latter. This happened back in 2003- remember? No of course you don’t remember. You could hardly remember your name on the good days. On the bad days you could barely get out of bed. I was the one who had to deal with you- cause I was the only one who wanted to and who was able to. Mikey was just like you, ha, he was probably worse. Matt egged you on and Ray just ignored you. I…it was me who had to take all the punches, clean up all the puke, make excuses to your family, and deal with the screaming in my face that I was a worthless jealous fuck! So I got high with Quinn to forget- but getting high doesn’t make you forget, just makes the pain feel a little less unbearable. And to forget I got drunk.

But not like you…I never became as bad as you.

And tell me, what was the fucking thanks I got! I didn’t even get a fucking pat on the back. I didn’t even get a “Good Job Franks, thanks for having my back.” No, I got jack shit. It became all about you…it was all you right? Oh yeah “the band” helped you through your time of rehabilitation, but YOU were the one who had the fucking epiphany on the way to Japan! Bull-fucking-shit! You want to know what the epiphany was. Do you remember? Of have you convinced yourself that the lie was the truth a long time ago?

It was me! I held the gun to my head in the hotel room…a fucking loaded pistol.

“If you don’t stop, I’m pulling this trigger,” I screamed; you were on your knees begging me to stop through your tears, “I can’t see you go like this. I’d rather die!”

“Frankie! Please put the gun down baby, please don’t do it…” It was pathetic wasn’t it? We were both screaming and crying- you on your knees and be with a gun to my head so sure I was going to kill myself. That’s all I really remember…heh…I don’t even remember how the gun got out of my hands, or when our lips came together. All I remember was that picture that has become a picture in my mind. I can sometimes hear your strangled sobs…

I do remember what you said the next day though- “I’ll get sober for you.”- Maybe…that was your thank you? That you did it all for me…

Quinn’s cold hands on my face drew me away from the picture- the memory- and into his worried eyes. I took a breath…felt like I hadn’t breathed in ages…and tried to get my cracked mind together. But that proved to be impossible- I couldn’t even speak! Ha, my voice dissolved and left with nothing but sand! Sand, there was fucking sand in my mouth! And my eyes were white orbs reflecting in Quinn’s. I knew he saw me breaking- I knew there was a question begging against his lips. But the answer if I could speak would be no…I could never leave you.

He clutched my hand and walked me out of the hotel room- I don’t remember feeling my legs move.

-

The car ride was silent- short and silent. I was no more than five minutes from the buses; but Quinn didn’t mind driving me…he wouldn’t let me walk by myself. That was good. I may have wandered around aimlessly for five hours. Ha. That would have been sadistically funny…cause it’s happened before to…and I could laugh all day about it!

He was parked near the entrance to the empty venue- we could see our bus in the distance, the only bus left. We were probably going to be late for our next show…I would get it from Ray when I walked in. Ray and Brian probably. Bombarded with a million fucking questions and accused of being irresponsible. Or they could say nothing and just roll their eyes and mumbled behind my back. It didn’t matter, I would ignore them either way. Not like I really cared much anymore about them, or myself, or really even this band.

“You know,” Quinn began, dragging my eyes away from the lonely gold bus to him, “I never told anyone this, and really only Bert knows. I never told…not because I was afraid or upset about it, no one just ever asked about it. I don’t care about it anymore, even. It’s so far in the past that even the marks he left have long since faded and replaced skin and hair. But when I was younger I had a boyfriend who enjoyed beating the living shit out of me any chance he got. He punched, he bit, he scratched- when he was really mad he would put his cigarettes out on me. I think once, I pissed him off so bad, he hit me with his car and I was in the hospital for a week. The excuse ‘I fell down the stairs’ became a song to me…and I sang it everyday.

“And Bert was really the only one who noticed anything was wrong. And when he finally caught the guy kicking me in the ribs, he…made sure he never kicked again…”

Quinn looked at me…his eyes narrowed away to look into my soul. His body was still, his face was dark and uninviting, “You may not have scars, Iero, but you sing the same song I did.”

I opened my door…the cold air hitting me. I don’t even want to explain the chill that ran down my spine- not so much from the cold but from what he said. I didn’t want to get out of the car to see you, but I didn’t want to stay with Quinn anymore. Because, even though he didn’t say it in so many words, he did exactly what I didn’t want him to- what I hoped he wouldn’t do. And I very well could have stayed in that car and tell the band I quit and just have some other guitar tech take over for me. It would be as easy as that if I had never…

Loved…

If…that is even what I was feeling…if I was feeling…

I was out of the car- I think I said goodbye- the door closed behind me…and all I could do was move forward; back to you. The gravel cracked under my feet- the sound of a car screeching out of the parking like was like razor blades to my ears. The place was dead and cold. Like a corpse…no shit. Just the metallic bus breathed with any sign of life, and for some reason, when I laid eyes on our eyesore of a bus, I just wanted to see you. My pace grew quicker...I had to have been going insane. After convincing myself of how bad you are, in the moment you were just the only person I wanted to see. Ha, I didn’t need Quinn to paint you in a bad picture; I was doing a damn good job at that all by myself.

And that was wrong of me to do- because even at my worse, you never talked bad about me.

I saw you sitting on the stairs of the tour bus, your arms wrapped around your body to shield you from the mysterious cold wind that swept through the empty parking lot. Your head is down- defeated. You thought you lost everything- and all because I walked out on you. Could it really be this simple? After all this complicated shit- this roller coaster ride called Frerard- that you could be so wounded from the memory of me walking out…and I could be se quick to forgive you for lying. We have been at this war for too long, is it even worth fighting anymore? We have what we told each other we wanted…why was I looking for every excuse to ruin it? See, it all comes back to me, cause in reality I was the one hoping for the end- just to prove that love can’t exist in this world.

But I was tired of looking through life behind a black veil…

I don’t know why I started to run; I think I thought you would give up waiting for me if I didn’t get to you fast enough. The pounding gravel echoed through the thick silence, drawing your head up to lay eyes on me. I saw a small smile creep along your face as you ran to meet me…

Our bodies collided in a mess- our hands fighting to find a place to hold on, our lips slamming against one another’s in an effort to fight for dominance. There was tongue, and lips, and teeth- there was the merciless grabbing of each others clothing until my arms made rest around your next, and yours around my waist. There was a moan coming from my throat that vibrated against my lips and caused you to smile wider. I took note at how well we fit together; made for each other in a way.

For some reason you pulled your lips away to speak- shut up, I didn’t want you to talk, I just wanted to kiss you. “Frankie, I’m sorry about the calls,” you breathe heavily, “I keep calling her, wanting to dump her, but every time she answers I just remember the time someone dumped me over the phone. I just remember how shitty I felt after…and even thought she is most likely someone who deserves it…I just can’t. It isn’t because I love her or want to stay with her- it isn’t that at all. My conscious just won’t let me…”

You talk too much. “I don’t care,” I kissed your lips, “I don’t care about Eliza, or the phone calls, or anything that involves her. All I care about is you. I just want you okay?”

“You have me, Frankie.”

I finally did…