Discovering the Past

After some minutes, Frank came back, his face was normal, like if nothing had happened. It only made me angrier. Acting like nothing, He did that before also, when He was with Jamia, he always looked cool and relax, like now.

I told Matt that I was tired, grabbed his hand,to his happiness , said goodbye and left.

After leaving Matt in his apartment, not before a making out session on his couch. Just becuase I needed that, just sex. I was driving my way home. Trying not to think, putting everything inside once more, closing the door of my feelings.

My cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
There was no answered for a second. “Hello?!!”
“Gerard, it´s…” a shaky voice spoke in the other side of the line.
“Frank?” I recognized him at the second.
“Yeah, listen…I..We need to talk, can we meet somewhere?”

The question was direct, He wanted to talk.

“I´ll go to your hotel” I should have send him to hell, but I decided that I wasn’t going to keep anything inside. I was going to puke my brain and heart; maybe if I do that I can get over him once for all.
“Okay” He gave me the name of the hotel and the room he was staying. After driving in circles and doubting a little I arrived to the hotel. The receptionist told me that Mr. Iero was waiting in his room.

I got to the room and knocked the door, after some minutes of silence, the door opened abruptly, reveling the image of a very worried Frank. He was wearing what it seem some pajamas pant and a Black Flag T shirt.

“C´mon in”
I entered in silence.
“Want something to drink?” I just shook my head in a negative answer. The room was not too fancy but comfortable, there was a single bed and a couch, a small fridge and a balcony with a view of the city.
He sat on the couch and I sat in the couch in front, there was a small table separating us with some white roses.

“So…” I started.
“I wanted to talk to you”
“About..” I lit a cigarette. He play with his shoe for a second, looking down. Suddenly Frank raised his head and looked me in the eyes, into my soul. His face was calm and his eyes content so much regret and pain.
“When I got back to Jersey, to talk with my father” His eyes left mines to look into the space. I felt relief that the burning sensation was lowing.
“He told me horrible things…I never told you…What he said that day…” I just shook my head slowly. “I need you to understand….” I kept waiting.

He told me in detail how He went to his dad and told him about me and Frank being a couple. He told me the look of hate in his father´s eyes, the tone of his voice when He prohibit to call him Dad. How Frank begged for him to understand but his father was a stubborn man, for him Frank was dead in the moment He said that He was in love of a guy. When He finished He was looking to the floor again.

“I´m sorry…what I did and said in Ray´s party but it was because of that…Gerard my father he was the image of my life, my role model…and he saying that…it crushed my world…”
“Why didn´t you tell me that in that moment?”
“I don´t know”
“I´d have understood it” He looked at me and smiled a little.
“I didn´t understand why you did that….why you were so scared…If you..” Now it was my turn of looking down.
“I´m sorry, there are lots of IF, isn´t”
“Why you sleep with her?” the question was simple and direct
“I´m sorry”
“Why?”
“I made a mistake.”
“WHY?” I started to felt the angry of the past, the impotence of being a victim of destiny. “And you fucking married her!”
He looked down again.
“I mean, you got married and send me an invitation!!!!” I lit another cigarette. “What the hell You were thinking…did you really think that I would go!!!!!!”
“Maybe I wanted you to go”. His eyes burnt me again. “Gerard, I knew that if I saw you there, I´d never had said `I do´. I was still in love of you. Maybe, you could have stopped me, or maybe the simple fact of seeing you there would have stopped me. So I guess that it was a secret desire of you to go and save me from an awful mistake” He smiled sadly.
His declaration left me cold in my feet.
“It wasn´t meant to be I guess.” He said looking down again.
“I guess” I said trying to calm myself down.
After a moment of silence.

“Did you really hate me that much? Why you never answered the postcards….or..”
“Try to reach you?” He nodded.
I thought for a moment.
“Yes Frank, I hated you, a lot, for a long time, I hated you. I wanted you to be dead. So I pretended that. I killed you, in my world you didn´t exist”
“I understand”.
“Then Rosie appeared and with her your eyes and your smile” I looked at him. “It was you alive again..”
“I guess your dream became true, I died”
I got so mad, I walked to the balcony in the search of some fresh air. It was time to open up. Entirely.

“It was hell”
“What?”
“You…dying…I meant for Rose and the guys……..”
Frank remained silence.
“Why did you do it?" I turned to face him.
“Please tell me that you didn´t lose your mind,..why…what were you...”
“Thinking?” He completed my sentence. I just waited for him to answer.
He went next to me in the balcony.

“Do you have another?” He pointed to the cigarette. I just handle the box and the liter. Frank lit the cigarette and took a smoke, a long one. He closed his eyes and felt the smoke, after some more drags, he just smiled.
“It´s been a long time without you my friend” He was talking to the cigarette.
“In order to advance, sometimes you have to become a new person”
“So you saying that I gave you the idea” I said in a sarcastic tone recognizing my own words.
“No, it was Jasper”

Jasper. Jesus Christ with VIH

“Then He was the one that lost his mind” Frank looked serious.
“He never told me to pretend my dead, He just told me the same thing you once told me”
“So you decided to kill yourself” That ring a bell. “You tried to kill yourself, isn´t it? The old man on London told us”
He just nodded.
“I was depressed. Therapy didn´t help anymore. I was alone, so alone” He took another drag form the cigar. “I felt like I had ruin and shamed everyone. In my head I didn´t deserve to die”
“But You never believe in that…suicide, what about what you said to the fans”
“You past for the same shit. You were there too once”
“Yeah, but..”
“But, you had us, you had friends and family Gerard. I didn´t I was alone, with my head and the shit”
I just looked down, He was right.
“So I one day I was brushing my tooth”

.........about 5 yars ago.......

Frank was brushing his tooth in the bathroom, He looked at the mirror in front of him. The image of a man was there, a man He didn´t recognize, he was pale and skinny, bags under the eyes. A man nobody cared about and nobody loved. He had ruin his life, others life.
He went to the kitchen, and took his bottle of booze, He started to drink the whisky from the bottle and walking around.
He finished that bottle and opened another one, He went to the bathroom again and saw that awful man again.
“Jackass!!!” He throw the bottle to the mirror and broke it.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” Frank screamed with all his lungs, screamed trying to relief the pain from his chest, the pain from his body.
He was tired. Tired and sick of him, of his life.

He went to the kitchen and started to thrown glasses to the walls. He ran to his room, searching like crazy on the closet, throwing clothes. He find the pills the doctor had gave. Sleeping pills and antidepressant.
“Stupid Shit” He opened the bottle.
“You bett..ter fuc…cking work!” He drank it all…all the pills he could put on his mouth, He drank It with more whisky.
”The end….. of..of a pathetic exis..xis..tence”
After some minutes of walking around the house, a burning pain started to appear in his chest and stomach.
“Shit!! This…. didn´t suppose to …………………..hurt!!”
He needed to faint, so He won´t feel a shit.
He went to the bathroom again and grabbed some of the pieces of the broken mirror.
“Messy….Fuck…it”
One slice…another cut…and them another a big one in the other arm. He gave two steps out the bathroom and felt to the floor in the bedroom.
His arm hurt, but soon, everything went dark.
Darker
Painless

--

Frank finished his story and I felt sick.
“After that, They found me, took me into the hospital, and there I met my angel.”
“Angel?”
“Jasper” He said like the most logical thing in the world.
“Ow…yeah right”

Stupid angel.

“He saved me. He had passed for so much; my life seemed great next to him. And he still managed to smiled. Always smiling.”
Frank eyes lit it up.
“You loved him”
“I love him, I´ll always will”
I just nodded. I couldn’t speak to his declaration. I felt the words making a nut in my chest.
“We moved together and we helped each other’s”
“I see.”
“So, why, why you died…why Frank..please” I needed a response for that.
“I told you. It made sense. After Jasper death, I felt lost again, but I knew that I needed to make a new start, a real one. So I get rid of all the things that bother me, and that was Frank”
It was kind of funny and sick how He talk about himself in third person.

“Why you said it was hell?, Me dying? I thought you will be happy about that”

After more time in silence, I dare to speak.
“I….I thought I´d be happy, with your death. But when I knew, I felt …bad.”
“Really?”
“I just….it was…like…I.. missed my friend” I said in a small voice.
I looked at him. His eyes were about to cry.
“I was sorry of how I treated you. I started to feel guilty. I had the chance of help you and…”
“No..Gerard..”
“Yes” I stood straight. “Listen, I …that day…” I had troubles to say what I needed to say.
“That day…the day you went to my house, you needed help, you needed a friend, and I just gave you the back and threated you like a worthless piece of shit”
“You have the right..”
“No I didn´t. I was….I…I was proud, I…I….by that time….I….I still felt….I still.. still loved you Frank.”
He looked at me. A tear was running down his cheek.
“Gerard…”
“I know..that I have a part of fault in you trying to kill yourself. I know that….. I´m sorry” I felt a weight leaving my chest. A relief inside me.
“I forgive you” He cleaned the tear. “ I forgive you of anything you want you to be forgiven”
I was surprised with him saying that. I felt something different now. I warm feeling. The “Frank feeling”

“I forgive you too, for….for everything”. It seemed right to say the same things He said to me.
He looked at me and smiled.
“Thanks” He cleaned his eyes a little more. “I´ve been waiting a long time to hear that”

We kept in silence for about an hour. Just in silence, enjoying the presence of the other person. The sweet feeling of forgiveness around the place, a peaceful feeling. The feeling of another person was breathing next to you. I felt grateful for that moment of peace, real and true peace inside me. After almost 17 years, I was okay.