Skin and Bones

I wake up with Gerard in my arms. His nose is still red, but his eyes look dry. I pull the duvet up to cover more of his jaw, before I snuggle into him closer.

I hear the doorbell ring, soon followed by Donna distinct footsteps down the hall. I smile. It’s comforting how I’ve come to know every sound in this house. At night when the floor board creak, it’s because Donald is up for his midnight snack. When a loud crack echoes through the house, it’s because the furnace is complaining about being on low heat. When something knocks against the carpet in a quick rhythm, it’s Donna walking around the house.

Donna’s footsteps come back this way.
There’s a knock on my door, before it opens slowly.

“Frank?” she asks and sticks her head in. I smile up at her.

She’s about to say something when she spots Gerard. Her eyes grow a bit. I look up at her confused.

“Someone from the court is here, along with a social worker and Craig.” I can feel my throat slowly constrict.
“They’re here early for a surprise visit to see how we live.” She keeps staring at Gerard as she says this.
This is bad.

I nod and glance down at Gerard.

“They can’t know about you two.” I know.
I look up at her and nod insistently and quick. I can’t help the panic that rushes through me.
She nods and closes the door.

I quickly shake Gerard awake as I try to stay in control. I can’t freak out now. I have to do this. I have to be and act at home and not look like I’m dating the household’s son.
Gerard slowly starts waking up, grunting. I look over at the clock to see that it’s only 7.06. Who the fuck goes around visiting people at this hour?

“Gerard. Wake up,” I whisper, in case the people are outside my door, ready to hear me wake my supposed “brother” up.
“Gee,” I whisper and finally Gerard’s eyes slowly flutter open and look up at me.
“We have to get up. Some guys from court are here. It can’t look like you’ve been sleeping here.” I’m panicking. It’s so obvious that I’m freaking out. My voice is shaky and hurried and I’m still shaking Gerard.

I stop.

Gerard still isn’t moving – just looking down at my stomach. I can’t even care about that right now.

Suddenly he sits up straight.

“I’ll help you with your homework.” He gets out of bed while I just sit there, utterly confused.

“What?” I ask, but quickly shut up when I realize how loud I said that.
Gerard grabs my backpack, rips it open and pulls out a notebook and a book. He tosses it to me before he goes to my desk to get a pencil. He sits down in front of me on my bed and flips open my book.
He’s out of breath, but completely calm when he looks up at me. He smirks.

“I’ll help you with your homework, like you asked me to.” I frown at him. What the fuck is he talking about.
“You came down this morning and asked me to help you with your-“ he stops quickly and looks down at the book in front of him.
“geography homework, so I’m here to help,” he says confidently and smiles. His small teeth make me melt.

And then it hits me. I finally get what he’s trying to say. He’s helping me.

I smile widely at him. I’m about to lean forward and give him a kiss, but the light footsteps in the hall makes me stop and instead flip open the notebook on a semi-used page and grab the pencil out of Gerard’s hands.

I suppress the urge to kiss him – though it’s tearing at my gut and throat – and listen intently as he starts talking about agriculture in Argentina.

-----

It’s not exactly going unnoticed that I have 3 adults on my tail. I bet everyone at school thinks I’m a mental case who needs extra supervision. I’ve gone to this school for two years, but that doesn’t mean anyone knows who I am. Only four people do – aside from teachers, who might only know my name – but now; a lot more might notice me.

And judge me.

Mikey’s sitting with Alicia and a few of her friends. Not that either of them are talking to her friends. If they’re not lip locked, they’re feeding each other or whispering in each other’s ear.

I wish Gerard and I could be that open. I’d love to just show him how much he means to me all the time, but I can’t. We can’t do anything as long as the social workers are following me around. Craig keeps sending me apologetic looks. He doesn’t know about me and Gerard, but he can obviously tell how bothered I am by all their eyes on me constantly.
Actually, Craig doesn’t know anything about me and I’d like to keep it that way.

“Do you always eat alone?” the guy from court suddenly asks. I snap my attention away from Mikey and Alicia and look into his creepy, almost-translucent, grey eyes. I get caught in them for a second – just staring at them as if they’re some piece of art that’s meant to scare you, but you just can’t see how – before I glance over at Craig quickly.
I look down at my food and poke my fork through a slice of tomato.

“No.” The tomato sticks to the fork and I bring it up towards my mouth. It grows as it comes closer, so I look up at the supposedly-scary eyes as I continue my rude comeback;
“They just don’t wanna be analyzed by you.” I stuff the tomato in my mouth and chew with my mouth open. I stare at the disgusted and taken-back look the guy has on his face, and before I know it the tomato-pulp is gliding down my throat easily.

Even though they’re annoying me and stressing me out by following, judging and staring at me, it’s been easy to eat in front of them, because my focus has been on insulting them by eating, not on actually eating. They’re quite a distraction.

I actually consider my rude behavior a good thing – a normal, teenage-thing. And besides; it’s fun.

I turn around – my elbows on the table – and look up at the cue by the canteen. I don’t see Gerard, nor Ray or Bob. I guess I’m right about why they’re not here. None of them actually told me they didn’t wanna be analyzed, but Gerard told me that it was pretty creepy having the three follow us in another car as we drove to school this morning. It was, no doubt, but why would he leave me?

I turn around and search to find Mikey, but he’s gone. I look towards the double-doors to the cafeteria, but I don’t see Mikey.

Instead, I see Gerard.

He’s got his index finger pressed against his lips as soon as I spot him, and I fight hard to suppress the smile that automatically is about to appear on my face. I bet I did a pretty crappy job, especially since it’s so hard to fight when I can see the smile in Gerard’s eyes.

He pulls his finger away from his lips and instead points over his shoulder and tosses his head in the same direction. He wants me to follow him, but how the fuck do I get my unwanted entourage to not follow me?

I glance over at them, to see that two of them are looking at everything but me. Craig is looking at his papers and the guy from court is looking around at everyone. The only one who’s looking at me is the female social worker, who I actually think is Craig’s boss. She smiles when I look at her, but then she looks away.

I look back at Gerard and frown briefly.

Gerard looks around, then quickly grabs his crotch. I can’t help myself as my eyes widen and I stare at his hand, which – too quickly – goes back up to his lips. But then again; that’s not a bad thing.

Gerard smiles widely, cocks an eyebrow and then tosses his head to the side again.

Bathroom.

I can’t help the ‘oh’-reaction I have and forget to hide it from the three observing me. Luckily, when I look at them, none of them seem to have noticed, since they’re all doing anything but looking at me. The guy from court is jotting something down. I look at his pad to see him write ‘good conditions’, before I drop my fork and get to my feet.

At that, they all look at me.

I only look at Craig.

“I’m just gonna go to the bathroom,” I say quickly and start walking away. After just three steps, I hear Craig’s voice;

“Can he at least go to the bathroom by himself?” I giggle silently as I walk away from the table – none of them following me.
I guess Craig does know me a little bit.