Therapy
Therapy
“Starting… now”
“Ok. So, I guess that this whole thing begins way back when I was in high school, you know? When I was like 16 or 17 or something. My parents had just divorced, and I stayed with my mom because my dad didn’t want me. As simple as that. I shouldn’t be surprised, right? I mean, I had given so many signals that I wasn’t going to be the way he wanted me to be. And that was completely stated when I got home with my very first tattoo: a Halloween pumpkin. After all, I was born in Halloween. For a couple of years, I felt somewhat guilty about my parent’s divorce, because it was after the tattoo that they started to fight more often and openly. I have no doubts now that they fought before, but when I got the tattoo, my mother didn’t seem to be disappointed about it, and my dad thought she was spoiling me. And so, one day, he just left. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye to me. I was sleeping though, but still, I think he could have waited, or waken me up… or a note, maybe? I don’t know. He just wasn’t there anymore. After this, my mom changed too. She was always locked in her room, I think that she was taking the fault on herself, but back then, I wasn’t too smart to figure out what to say to her to make her feel better. And I changed, and I became a lonely kid. Not that I had plenty of friends before, but now it was worse. I talked to no one. I hardly smiled. And soon enough, I was bullied. So bad, to the point that one day I didn’t want to go back to school. But I managed the way to go through all of that, and I graduated. Nothing big, though. My mom didn’t even go to the ceremony, she just called me briefly to say ‘congratulations, I’m so proud’ and then asked me to get her some cigarettes on my way home…’’
“Was she an alcoholic?’’
“No… I don’t think so. I never found bottles of any kind around the house. I just think that she was extremely depressed. That worried me, because she insisted me to go to college, which meant she had to stay completely alone at home for months. So, I went to this town for college, and met some guys in there who were trying to form a band or something, and somehow, they thought that all the crap I had written it was good song material. News: I didn’t sing. I don’t sing. I scream. I let my frustration out. And, surprisingly, they liked it. I discovered that music was the thing that I really wanted to do, and I dropped college out. If we were going to do it, we were going to do it good. I don’t know how long after that, we were signed by this small, small record company, and started to work in some serious business…’’
“Were you addicted by then?’’
“No, but I’m getting to that”
“Tell me about your first experience”
“It was this girl… I don’t remember her name. She was in my Spanish Class, and I just thought she was cute. That was when I was 15. It was good. I mean, yeah, it was good. We didn’t really date or anything like that. She just liked me to go to her house to help her with her ‘homework’. I had some other girls after that and through my short time in college, but none of them seemed to fill the void. Like, you know, literally’’
“That’s when you started?’’
“Oh no, I just stopped. I didn’t have any of it in almost two years. It was during that period that we got signed, and I met Mikey. Mikey was everything I could have ever asked in a friend. He was quiet, smart, little bit nerdy, but he was completely insane. The guys in the band I was in were nice, but with Mikey… I would spend hours with him just laughing like idiots. He helped me to catch up all the time I spent without even smiling. A little months later, Mikey told me about his brother and the band, and how they needed another guitarist. Would you believe me if I say that I had my doubts about joining them? For some reason, I had the hope that our little band would make it some time. But then, one day, Mikey took me to one of their practice sessions, and that’s when I fell in love with My Chemical Romance. I loved everything about it: the songs they already had, the music they played, the vampire fetish, the way my writing fitted with all of that… It took only a brief talk after they finished for me to realize how big and good that could be. And I became part of them. That’s about when it started. The way Gerard looked at me-’’
“Gerard?’’
“Gerard Way? Our singer?’’
“Ok. Go on”
“So, he looked at me as if I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He talked to me so caring, so sweetly, so kind, that I thought ‘the hell with women’. And yeah, I jumped into the gay train. I have never, not even for a second, regretted it, as you may notice. He was always around me, all the time. And when we started this little tour to promote that old first album, he made me feel sure that he would never leave me. He was always next to me on stage. He was always next to me in interviews. He was always, always next to me. And I never felt asphyxiated. I liked it that way. Until one day, we broke the barrier of closeness, and we got even closer. I don’t remember exactly how it started. All I know is that one day, after one show, he led me to the back of some parked van, and kissed me like I had never been kissed before. And soon after that, we were in a motel room, having sex. The most mind blowing breath taking sex a person can get. I can resume the next years by just saying that simple word. Sex. We are not in love. We have never been in love. He had this big celebrity boyfriend once, but eventually, he got back to me. And I feel a little bit of guilt when I come to think that he only sleeps with me now, because I have this huge addiction. I just can’t get enough. Whether is Gerard or not, I have to have sex every single night, or else my system really presents abstinence syndrome. For real. Hey, don’t laugh at me. You’d be addicted too if you had gotten the large collection of dudes that I’ve had. No one is as good as Gerard, though. Not even Mikey. Yes, Mikey. What, did you think that I wouldn’t get laid with him, when he’s so Gerard alike? Sometimes, I’ve thought about getting them both, at the same time… I don’t know if Gerard would accept’’
“Do you want him to accept?’’
“Oh hell, do I… But, I don’t know. I don’t think he’d be so happy hearing me moaning someone else’s name in front of him’’
“You’d be surprised’’
“Oh, do you think he would? I really don’t think so. He doesn’t love me, but I guess I’m pretty damn good at what I do, that he never wants to be with anyone else. And I know for sure that he doesn’t like me to be with anyone else either. But it’s all his fault, you know? He has to play the ‘front man’ to the world, he’s the one at interviews, he’s the one that always get last back to the bus, sometimes when I’m already sleeping. I need my daily dose. I’m not joking here’’
“Have you tried to make a deal with him? Like, making him spare some time for you, so you don’t have to run to someone else?’’
“…No?”
“Why not?”
“Because- I don’t know. I like to see his jealousy face when I tell him that I’m getting someone else”
“How can he get jealous, if you say he doesn’t love you?”
“He likes to think of me as his property. He hates things not being under his control”
“So that’s why you do this. You’re not addicted to sex, you’re just trying to get your boyfriend jealous”
“He’s not my boyfriend”
“He so is. And you both are in love, don’t even try to deny it. You are in love since that first time you saw each other”
“Can we finish this session now?”
“But it has been only 10 minutes”
“And it could’ve been less if you didn’t want me to tell all my childhood story, which I think is pointless and has nothing to do with the main issue here”
“It’s therapy”
“It’s crap. And you don’t play a very believable therapist, either”
“Now I’m hurt”
“I’m sorry. Will you, like any time soon, come and lay here with me?”
“Now you’re seducing your therapist? I guess you really have an addiction”
“Shut up and come”
“Just like that? No kiss first? I feel used”
“Silly. Come here…”
“Did you really sleep with Mikey?”
“Of course not. How could I?”
“I will never leave you, you know that? Never”
“You better. Why did you want me to do this therapy thing?”
“I don’t know, I just felt like it”
“You’re weird, Gerard Way”
“And you love me for that, don’t you”
“Of course I do…”
“Frankie?”
“Yeah…”
“I love you”
“I love you too, baby. I love you too”
“Ok. So, I guess that this whole thing begins way back when I was in high school, you know? When I was like 16 or 17 or something. My parents had just divorced, and I stayed with my mom because my dad didn’t want me. As simple as that. I shouldn’t be surprised, right? I mean, I had given so many signals that I wasn’t going to be the way he wanted me to be. And that was completely stated when I got home with my very first tattoo: a Halloween pumpkin. After all, I was born in Halloween. For a couple of years, I felt somewhat guilty about my parent’s divorce, because it was after the tattoo that they started to fight more often and openly. I have no doubts now that they fought before, but when I got the tattoo, my mother didn’t seem to be disappointed about it, and my dad thought she was spoiling me. And so, one day, he just left. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye to me. I was sleeping though, but still, I think he could have waited, or waken me up… or a note, maybe? I don’t know. He just wasn’t there anymore. After this, my mom changed too. She was always locked in her room, I think that she was taking the fault on herself, but back then, I wasn’t too smart to figure out what to say to her to make her feel better. And I changed, and I became a lonely kid. Not that I had plenty of friends before, but now it was worse. I talked to no one. I hardly smiled. And soon enough, I was bullied. So bad, to the point that one day I didn’t want to go back to school. But I managed the way to go through all of that, and I graduated. Nothing big, though. My mom didn’t even go to the ceremony, she just called me briefly to say ‘congratulations, I’m so proud’ and then asked me to get her some cigarettes on my way home…’’
“Was she an alcoholic?’’
“No… I don’t think so. I never found bottles of any kind around the house. I just think that she was extremely depressed. That worried me, because she insisted me to go to college, which meant she had to stay completely alone at home for months. So, I went to this town for college, and met some guys in there who were trying to form a band or something, and somehow, they thought that all the crap I had written it was good song material. News: I didn’t sing. I don’t sing. I scream. I let my frustration out. And, surprisingly, they liked it. I discovered that music was the thing that I really wanted to do, and I dropped college out. If we were going to do it, we were going to do it good. I don’t know how long after that, we were signed by this small, small record company, and started to work in some serious business…’’
“Were you addicted by then?’’
“No, but I’m getting to that”
“Tell me about your first experience”
“It was this girl… I don’t remember her name. She was in my Spanish Class, and I just thought she was cute. That was when I was 15. It was good. I mean, yeah, it was good. We didn’t really date or anything like that. She just liked me to go to her house to help her with her ‘homework’. I had some other girls after that and through my short time in college, but none of them seemed to fill the void. Like, you know, literally’’
“That’s when you started?’’
“Oh no, I just stopped. I didn’t have any of it in almost two years. It was during that period that we got signed, and I met Mikey. Mikey was everything I could have ever asked in a friend. He was quiet, smart, little bit nerdy, but he was completely insane. The guys in the band I was in were nice, but with Mikey… I would spend hours with him just laughing like idiots. He helped me to catch up all the time I spent without even smiling. A little months later, Mikey told me about his brother and the band, and how they needed another guitarist. Would you believe me if I say that I had my doubts about joining them? For some reason, I had the hope that our little band would make it some time. But then, one day, Mikey took me to one of their practice sessions, and that’s when I fell in love with My Chemical Romance. I loved everything about it: the songs they already had, the music they played, the vampire fetish, the way my writing fitted with all of that… It took only a brief talk after they finished for me to realize how big and good that could be. And I became part of them. That’s about when it started. The way Gerard looked at me-’’
“Gerard?’’
“Gerard Way? Our singer?’’
“Ok. Go on”
“So, he looked at me as if I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He talked to me so caring, so sweetly, so kind, that I thought ‘the hell with women’. And yeah, I jumped into the gay train. I have never, not even for a second, regretted it, as you may notice. He was always around me, all the time. And when we started this little tour to promote that old first album, he made me feel sure that he would never leave me. He was always next to me on stage. He was always next to me in interviews. He was always, always next to me. And I never felt asphyxiated. I liked it that way. Until one day, we broke the barrier of closeness, and we got even closer. I don’t remember exactly how it started. All I know is that one day, after one show, he led me to the back of some parked van, and kissed me like I had never been kissed before. And soon after that, we were in a motel room, having sex. The most mind blowing breath taking sex a person can get. I can resume the next years by just saying that simple word. Sex. We are not in love. We have never been in love. He had this big celebrity boyfriend once, but eventually, he got back to me. And I feel a little bit of guilt when I come to think that he only sleeps with me now, because I have this huge addiction. I just can’t get enough. Whether is Gerard or not, I have to have sex every single night, or else my system really presents abstinence syndrome. For real. Hey, don’t laugh at me. You’d be addicted too if you had gotten the large collection of dudes that I’ve had. No one is as good as Gerard, though. Not even Mikey. Yes, Mikey. What, did you think that I wouldn’t get laid with him, when he’s so Gerard alike? Sometimes, I’ve thought about getting them both, at the same time… I don’t know if Gerard would accept’’
“Do you want him to accept?’’
“Oh hell, do I… But, I don’t know. I don’t think he’d be so happy hearing me moaning someone else’s name in front of him’’
“You’d be surprised’’
“Oh, do you think he would? I really don’t think so. He doesn’t love me, but I guess I’m pretty damn good at what I do, that he never wants to be with anyone else. And I know for sure that he doesn’t like me to be with anyone else either. But it’s all his fault, you know? He has to play the ‘front man’ to the world, he’s the one at interviews, he’s the one that always get last back to the bus, sometimes when I’m already sleeping. I need my daily dose. I’m not joking here’’
“Have you tried to make a deal with him? Like, making him spare some time for you, so you don’t have to run to someone else?’’
“…No?”
“Why not?”
“Because- I don’t know. I like to see his jealousy face when I tell him that I’m getting someone else”
“How can he get jealous, if you say he doesn’t love you?”
“He likes to think of me as his property. He hates things not being under his control”
“So that’s why you do this. You’re not addicted to sex, you’re just trying to get your boyfriend jealous”
“He’s not my boyfriend”
“He so is. And you both are in love, don’t even try to deny it. You are in love since that first time you saw each other”
“Can we finish this session now?”
“But it has been only 10 minutes”
“And it could’ve been less if you didn’t want me to tell all my childhood story, which I think is pointless and has nothing to do with the main issue here”
“It’s therapy”
“It’s crap. And you don’t play a very believable therapist, either”
“Now I’m hurt”
“I’m sorry. Will you, like any time soon, come and lay here with me?”
“Now you’re seducing your therapist? I guess you really have an addiction”
“Shut up and come”
“Just like that? No kiss first? I feel used”
“Silly. Come here…”
“Did you really sleep with Mikey?”
“Of course not. How could I?”
“I will never leave you, you know that? Never”
“You better. Why did you want me to do this therapy thing?”
“I don’t know, I just felt like it”
“You’re weird, Gerard Way”
“And you love me for that, don’t you”
“Of course I do…”
“Frankie?”
“Yeah…”
“I love you”
“I love you too, baby. I love you too”