Discovering the Past

“I´m back!”
“Finally! What took you so fucking long?”
“We were talking!” I put my jacket on the table, rolling my eyes.

What does he expect?

“And…” Gerard tapped his foot on the floor. I´d started to get annoyed by him, like when I first met him.
“Now you´re interested in “the ghost.””
He just made a sound. After a time of silence, he still waited for my answer.
“I told him to come with us,” I said.
“WHAT?”
“To New York,” I tried to appear indifferent to his attitude. I went to the kitchen for water, he followed me.
“WHY?”
“Because I didn’t spend time and energy looking for him only to see him for two days!!! That´s why!!!” I was mad at him, for being so weird, so stupid. I drank a glass of water.
“I want to know him.”
He just remained silent
“Whatever.”
“What´s your problem? I thought you missed him, I thought you wanted a second chance to fix things?” He didn´t say anything and went in the direction of his room.
“Now you have it!”
He went to his room and slammed the door.
I swear he looked like the 16 years old kid here.

I started to debate whether to tell Michael or not. I didn’t have an idea if Gerard had already told Mikey.
I pressed the button.
“Rose!!??”
“Hey!!” I had missed Jr.’s voice.
“Hi, you didn´t call me yesterday or today,” He sounded worried.
“I was worried sick.”
“Michael…”
“You can´t do that. I mean, I knew you were okay, because…”
“Babe..” I said slowly.
“Gerard called Dad, but I needed to talk to..”
“MICHAEL!” Sometimes He and his dad are like two drops of water.
“What?”
“You´re not going to believe what happened. Sorry I didn’t call.”
“What? You found Paul?”
“Oh yeah….I found him.”

I started to tell to Michael the whole thing, the retirement house, how I thought Paul was a psycho, how I realized that Paul was actually Frank, Gerard´s reaction, the day we spent together today.
When I finished,
“Michael?”
“Are you there?”
….
“Err.”
“Michael?”
“Rose, do you have some mental problem you forget to mention?”
I smiled at my boyfriend’s cuteness.
“No, honey I´m not crazy.”
I went to pull out my laptop and transfer the picture that I took of Frank and I together today at the restaurant.
A proof as I said to him, it was surely necessary now.
“I´m sending you a photo,” I sent him the picture.
“Look at your email box.”
“Okaaaaayy…” He still didn’t believe me.
“Why would Uncle Gee not tell dad anything, they talked today?”
“Gerard, good ol´grumpy Gerard,” I shook my head ”Because… Because Gerard is an asshole!!!” I yelled knowing that Gerard would listen to me in his bedroom.
“Okay. It´s here.”
I waited for him to open it.
He remained silent for a second.
“He looks very alike.”
“Michael c´mon, look at the tattoos!!! And the eyes, look at him, it’s Frank!”
I could almost see my boyfriend cleaning his glasses and getting closer to the screen. He was so predictable.
“Oh my...”
“Yes.”
“It can´t be…”
“It is,” I said calmly to him.
“DAD!”
“My ear…”
“DAD, C´MON NOW!! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!”
“I´m deaf!”
“I´ll put you on the speaker.”
I heard Mikey´s voice.
“What is it?”
“Look at this.”
“What, Jr?...................... WHAT THE HELL…..” I heard the whiny voice of Mikey.
“It´s a very good Photoshop!”
“It´s not Photoshop…..” Michael said to his dad.

I just laughed. I proceeded to tell Michaels´s dad a very short version of the events.
When I finished I didn´t hear anything.
“Rose?” It was Jr;’s voice.
“I´ll call you back.”
“What is it??”
“Dad…he needs air.”
We hung up.

My phone rang almost immediately.
“Jr?”
“Err…No.Rose?”
“Yeah?”
I”t´s me …Pau…I mean Frank.”
“Hi!”
“Err. How you doing?”
“Pretty good.”
“Well. I´m going.”
“Where?”
“To New York.”
I screamed so loud that Gerard came out of his room worried.
“That´s so great!!! Oh my…”
“Yeah,” He laughed.
“I have a night flight, it´s not the same flight, but we´ll arrive pretty much the same time.”
“GREAT.”
Gerard looked puzzled at me.
“Thank you so much!”
“Don´t thank me. It´s the least I can do…err. It´s the right thing to do.”
I just smiled.
“Anyway. I was thinking that maybe tomorrow morning we can go shopping, and see the city, at least if you don’t have plans already or haven’t already done that, in that case, we can…”
“Frank!”
“Yeah?”
“I’d love to.”
I didn´t notice Gerard was still standing in the door frame the whole time.
“We can go to Camdem/”
“Camdem! Yeah! They said it´s amazing.”
“Yeah, It´s cool.”
“So tomorrow at 10 o clock, is that okay?”
“Perfect.”

We said goodbye and ended the communication.
“I thought we were going to together to Camdem.”

Internal slap.

“We can still go,” I said hopefully to him.
Gerard rolled his eyes, “It´s okay I’ll go by myself.”
“Gerard, this it´s ridicu-”
Before I can´t finish he closed his door.
“Arggg!”
I went to my room and tried to sleep but I was way too excited.
Frank was coming to New York with us, and tomorrow we were going out again.
He sounded exited on the phone too.
It was everything so amazing and quickly to process.
I congratulated myself for processing and accepting everything so easily.
Frank was still in shock and Mikey probably had passed away from the shock, I wondered how Brian, Ray and Bob would act to the news.
And Gerard…

I started to think of Gerard’s behavior.
I thought he’d be happy with Frank being alive, I mean, he´s the one that told me that he felt guilty and missed him.

What was wrong now?

He suffered so much when we thought he was dead.

Maybe he´s being proud again.
Maybe….
I don´t know.
Gerard is a complex dude.

Suddenly I heard a knock on my door.
“C´mon in…”
“He can´t do that!”
A very upset Gerard entered my room.
He stood in the doorframe.
“I´m not crazy, I´m not an asshole,” I looked at him, wondering what to say.
“He just can´t do that. Pretend his death, make everybody miserable and then act like nothing happened,” He was breathing fast.
“Everybody felt depressed because of his little get away.”
I sense that every time he said everyone, it was him actually.
“He´s a ghost to me, because Frank died, this dude, this Paul, is someone else” He closed his eyes. “Don´t you see, Rosie”, He talked nicely; I just stared blankly at him.
“Just….Just…”
“Maybe, you should tell this to him.”
I sigh deeply, he did the same.
“I just needed to explain myself.”
I nodded.
“You´re not an asshole.”
He gave me a little smile.
“I swear I´ll protect you.”
“My knight in shiny…… hair”
He laughed in the goofy way he has.
“Whatever.”
“Gee?” He was about to leave.
“Yeah?”
“To whom do you swear to protect me from?” I already knew the answer.
He just kept silent and smiled at me.
“Try to sleep.”