Memories

Gerard answered the front door, bracing himself for what he knew would be on the other side.

“Hi, Gerard.” Frank said quietly, but there was some defiance in that quiet… he looked Gerard straight in the eyes as he spoke.

“I guess you want it all, then.” Gerard asked stiffly, noticing how tanned and healthy Frank looked, when he knew that he himself looked like a depraved skeleton.

“Just my stuff that I left. There’s… I don’ t know how much there is…” Frank was still standing on the threshold of the doorway, and seemed to be losing some of that initial defiance. He had told himself he would be strong today, cool, collected - but it looked like that would be harder than he thought.

“I put some of your shit in a box. Look and see if I forgot something.” Gerard finally stepped aside and let Frank into the house they previously shared, inhaling the scent of smoke and cologne that wafted off the smaller man against his will. It reminded him of too many memories, too many kisses, too many hugs, and when he turned to close the door after Frank, he pressed his forehead against the cool glass for a moment, trying get rid of the weak feeling in his knees.

Frank had gone into the house without looking back, passing the living room and kitchen and starting up the staircase, swallowing heavier than he normally would, gripping the banister as though his life depended on it. The whole fucking house was riddled with memories, hot summer nights and cold winter days, and everywhere he looked, he was reminded of Gerard.

Gerard followed Frank up the stairs.

“Is it in the…your bedroom?” Frank suddenly spun around on the top step and asked, almost causing Gerard to slam into him.

“Yeah, it’s in our bedroom.” Both men let the ‘our’ go without mention. Gerard was always like that, saying uncomfortable things that Frank didn’t know how to respond to.

Frank went into the first door on the right, entering the bedroom he’d shared with Gerard for the past seven years. The walls were a dark red - Gerard’s choice - and the bedspread was black, black silk - both of them had chosen that. Nearly everything looked the same as the day Frank had last left, as though Gerard was afraid of disturbing anything, of changing anything.

He had to stop for a moment and stare at the bed. He remembered laying with Gerard in the early hours of the morning, staring into his angled, pale face with his heart thrumming and beating and dancing with love in his chest, whispering sweet nothings at him. He remembered days when Gerard would come home from his office job, his body screaming for action after being stuck in a cubicle from 9 to 5, coming home and immediately taking Frank upstairs to that bed to fuck him relentlessly, on top of the black silk sheets, hard and fast, the words coming out of his mouth unbelievably dirty and hot, the feeling of his skin slapping against Frank’s -

“It’s on the bedside table.” Gerard interrupted Frank‘s memories. He was leaning against the doorframe, his face still stony and his arms crossed.

“Alright, alright!” Frank said, his temper flaring instantly, and all of a sudden, new memories cropped up. Gerard screaming, his face red and his mouth in an O, Frank sitting at the edge of the bed screaming back with hate pouring from what felt like his center, his very soul.

Gerard could get to Frank easier than anyone else.

Frank crossed the room and passed the vanity, glancing at his reflection out of habit. The man who looked back at him was short, thin, and had a look of utter confusion on his face. He could see Gerard out of the left side of the mirror, and he knew the stone etched on his features was covering up the same expression.

It was a shoebox. All that was left of their relationship could fit in a shoebox. The thought struck Frank like a ton of bricks, and all of a sudden he felt tears pricking behind his eyes, a rush of emotion totally different from the hate he had felt just moments before. Blindly, he grabbed the box, hearing its rattle, and turned back to the stone Gerard.

“This is it, then?” Frank asked, clearing his throat and trying to sound strong.

“I don’t know, is it? Have you looked?”

Frank didn’t want to - he didn’t want to lose it, not yet. He felt he could keep his emotions under control - he was a grown man now, not the boy he had been when he had first fallen in love with Gerard, when he had first began to live with Gerard. He had grown in the years they had shared together, and with growth came control. He could do this without shedding tears.

“I’m sure you got everything,” Frank said defiantly, almost as if Gerard had ordered him to open the box and look inside at the wreckage of their love. “I didn’t leave too much behind when I first left.”

Gerard was silent for a moment, still blocking the doorway. The silence was heavy, maybe the most awkward that had ever passed between them.

“Just come into the living room with me. Just check.” Before Frank could deny or comply, Gerard had turned his back and gone down the stairs, leaving Frank alone in the bedroom. As he walked out after him, he let his fingers graze across the silk sheets of the bed one last time, trying to keep the memory of the way they felt strong, because he knew he would never lay in that bed again.

The living room was basic - television, bay window, couch, coffee table. Here were the only differences Frank could notice: when he had lived there, the coffee table had been mostly clean, with random rings of coffee stains on the wood or the mail scattered across it. Now that he had been gone, there were drawing pads and paints and pencils and horror magazines strewed across it, so much that the wood was nearly invisible.

Gerard was sitting on the far end of the couch, for the first time, his features twisted - he looked nervous, apprehensive. Frank sat on the opposite cushion and set the box in between them, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the drawings on the table, wanting to pick them up and examine them and knowing he couldn’t.

“I’ve been drawing a lot lately.” Gerard said shortly, seeing the tilt of Frank’s eyes. Immediately, Frank looked down at his hands, embarrassed for no real reason. There was another silence and Frank’s hands finally creeped to the shoebox in between them, flipping the lid open and looking down.

If the bed had been a memory overload, it was nothing compared to this. There was the photo strip they had taken at the mall one day almost five years ago, a succession of five pictures, each of them a close up of Frank’s tongue and Gerard’s cheek, because they had almost fallen out of the tiny booth laughing.

There was the knife Frank had come home to find Gerard sitting in the middle of the kitchen with, screaming and crying. Frank could still hear his hysterics to this day, clear as a bell.

“Get out! Better get out while you can, Frankie, I’m doing it, I’m done!” Frank had rushed to him and pulled the knife away, and of course there were nothing but superficial scratches up Gerard’s pale arm, but Frank knew a plea for attention when he saw it. He started paying more attention to him after that, saying I love you more… but somewhere deep inside him had always resented him for that, for telling him to get out. It was part anger, part jealously - he knew he’d never have the guts to say something like that to anyone, least of all Gerard - and Gerard demanded honesty, truth, for Frank to say things he was never ever comfortable with.

The worst time was the day Frank first left, when he first left and everything had crashed and burned. There was a screaming match, of course, and Frank, with what he thought was the final words, had looked Gerard in the eyes and said ‘fuck you, it’s over’, and knew that he meant it with every fiber of his being. Gerard, however, didn’t quite believe him.

“Then say it, you fucking good-for-nothing. Say it. Say you don’t love me, because I know you do. You fucking loved me yesterday.”

Frank just stared, fists clenched, and turned to go. Gerard ran after him, grabbing his shoulder with a painful intensity.

“Say it.”

Frank stopped at the front door, one hand on the doorknob. He looked at the man he thought he would share his life with, took a deep breath, and said the few words that ended it all.

“I don’t love you like I did yesterday.” The blood drained from Gerard’s face and Frank had walked away.

But that was months ago, and this was now. Frank picked up the knife and handed it out to Gerard.

“Why the fuck would I want this?” He asked, incensed at the memories it brought. The serrations up the side shined in the sunlight coming in the bay window.

“Well, after all the blood that you still owe…” Gerard’s voice trailed off and Frank scoffed out loud.

“Oh, please. You know that was just a pathetic cry for help.” Gerard said nothing, but took the knife from Frank and threw it among the clutter on the table.

Along the bottom of the shoebox were notes, other pictures - talismans it seemed every relationship gathered at some point or another, memories that were either fond or painful.

“You don’t want any of these?” Frank asked.

“I kept all the ones you gave to me - and I remember what I said to you.”

Frank opened his mouth to speak when he noticed a black box in the corner of the shoebox, small and unfamiliar.

“What’s that?” He asked, picking it up. It had a velvety texture and a rounded top, and as Frank slowly realized what it was, Gerard started to speak.

“I was planning on asking you on our eight year anniversary. I bought the ring two years ago, Frank, on your birthday… I wanted to wait for the right time. I guess I waited too long, huh?” Sadness creeped into his voice, regret weighing down the syllables.

Frank looked down at the still closed ring box, trying to process what Gerard had just said and the fact that he had left Gerard a mere week before their eight year anniversary.

“Open it. Take it. Sell it, give it to someone else. If you leave it with me, I’m throwing it out a window or choking on it or something.”

With trembling fingers, Frank opened the black box to the silver band inside.

“There’s an inscription.” Gerard said quietly.

Forever, Frankie. Love, Gee.

“I don’t know what to say, Gerard.” Frank said, slipping the ring on his finger.

“Get it off,” There was, all of a sudden, an expression of terrible pain on Gerard’s face. “Unless you want to keep it on, Frank, take it off, please, just… go.” He had stood up suddenly, and Frank quickly took the ring off and threw it into it’s case, shoving everything - including the knife - into the shoe box and standing up as well.

“I gotta… I gotta go.” Gerard nodded, almost imperceptibly, but made no move and said nothing in return.

Frank turned and walked away slowly. He had never felt so confused in his life, never felt so much love and hate and regret at once, but he kept walking.

“Frank!” Gerard yelled, but there was no anger in his tone this time. Just desperation.

Frank spun around, the contents of the box rattling. “What?”

“Did you mean it? What you said when you left?” Frank stood stock still for a moment, not thinking, not answering, just looking at Gerard’s face, just feeling seven years weigh on his shoulders.

He started to walk, slowly, back to Gerard, and Gerard walked toward him. They met in the middle, and Frank threw his arms around his strong shoulders, Gerard clasping his hands behind Frank’s back. Frank buried his nose into Gerard’s neck, smelling his skin, smelling the warmth of his body, the warmth he knew so, so well.

Gerard’s heart was swelling, but not with hope. He knew this hug wasn’t an apology or one of forgiveness, and he knew Frank would never be able to answer what he had just asked him.

The only thing Gerard knew was what that this hug meant goodbye.

Gerard was the one who let go - he was always more assertive - and Frank admitted to himself that he probably would have never let go if Gerard hadn’t unclasped his hands and pressed his lips into Frank’s cheek, the chapped skin sinking into the warm, soft flesh like warm clay.

Frank knew that like the feel of the silk sheets, he would remember the pressure of the last kiss on the cheek for the rest of his life. Picking up his box of seven years of memories, he turned away from Gerard and walked out, still wondering if he would ever be able to answer Gerard’s last question.