Freight Hopper

Kamry
Mikey is sweet, sweeter than any guy she’s ever met, and they’re getting on really well, but she’s worried. The back of her mind is fogged with want and concern, and finally, after hours of talking with Mikey, getting to know him, and eventually, because it’s so late, eating, she sighs, and suggests they check on Frank and Gerard. Mikey follows her slowly, and she holds her finger to her lips as they approach. Gently, she knocks, worrying only slightly when no reply comes, then creaks the door open. They’re only able to peak in, but that’s just fine, because Kamry feels that she would be intruding on something sacred, something magical. Gerard’s arms are wrapped faithfully around Frank, and he looks so peaceful, delicate, more at ease than she has ever seen him that she knows everything is all right, things are just fine. She looks at Mikey with a small smile, and shuts the door quietly.

“Would you like me to drive you home?” Mikey asks, once they’ve retreated back to the kitchen.

She likes talking to Mikey, really wants to keep talking to him, but she’s exhausted and really ready for a good night’s sleep, so she nods. They grab his keys, and leave without making much noise at all.

The drive is quiet at first, mostly because Kamry is tired, but Mikey speaks quietly once in a while, enough to make it comfortable. The car eventually rolls to a slow stop in front of Kamry’s building, but she’s not ready to get out yet, something makes her stay, but after a few minutes of the first awkward silence all night, she says “Well, thanks. You were really amazing today,” she nods, sort of to herself, and continues, “So, yeah. Thanks again and...goodbye, I guess.” She smiles timidly, and opens the door, moving to leave when Mikey says, “Wait.” Kamry stops, faces him, and he bites his lip nervously, “I, um...can I, um, can I see you again?”

Kamry blushes, and Mikey thinks it’s probably the cutest thing he’s ever seen, “I would like that,” she says.

Mikey smiles, grabs a marker from the dashboard, and picks a receipt off the ground. He grins at her nervously as he quickly jots down his number. He hands it to her, and Kamry blushes again, “Well, thanks again for being so sweet to me tonight. It was...you um, you were....” Kamry stops, “Just well, thanks.” She leans forward and kisses him lightly on the cheek, and Mikey knows that the last time he had been this giddy about a kiss on the check was sometime during the third grade.

His happiness is impossible to contain, but he replies with a cool, “Anytime.”

Mikey
She shuts the door, and he waits, making sure she’s inside, but she stops before closing the door to her building, and waves with a smile, then turns and walks inside. Mikey grins to himself, laughs happily, and begins making his way home.

His thoughts are drawn from Kamry, however, when he remembers the scene awaiting him at home.

It’s not that he is not happy Frank is back, he is, really, he is just afraid, petrified really of how things are going to change now. Fuck, he’s missed Frank too. Gerard wasn’t the only one that’d had an attachment to the boy, but he, unlike Gerard, had learned to cope, began to think that Frank wasn’t ever coming back. Mikey could deal with that reality; he had missed Frank so much, but he had looked at his older brother and did not want to become that, could not. Desperately searching train yards, endless hours on the phone with police stations, newspapers, anything that’d had presented even the possibility of finding him, but it was exhausting, and it had its effects; Mikey could tell. Gerard did nothing else, thought of nothing else, and it drained so much life, happiness out of him. Mikey refused to do that to himself.

He’ll admit, it was fucking hard after Gerard’s accident. Broken legs, broken arm, broken collarbone, broken ribs, a collapsed lung, cuts, bruises, infections, medications, everything. Three months in the hospital, a four months of physical therapy, and another month until he had fully recovered. And that was just physically. Mikey knows it fucked his brother up mentally, and it did, which eventually became weekly meetings with a therapist. Gerard should hate Frank, really should, but he doesn’t, and Mikey admires that about Gerard so much. Mikey loves his brother, really, he does, so so much, but being the butt of Gerard’s frustration after the accident fucking sucked. Can’t bend down to tie his shoes? Yell at Mikey; it’s his fault. Can’t button up his shirt with one hand? Mikey’s fault. Plastic bag slipped off the leg cast in the shower? Mikey’s fucking fault. Mikey loves his brother, and Gerard has apologized for all the incidents after the accident, and he has been forgiven, but they’ve been strangely distant since the very day Gerard woke in the hospital and learned Frank was, indeed, gone. He is not really sure why, but sometimes, occasionally, it feels like they’re getting to that point again, like they’re almost brothers again, but then Gerard recoils again, and Mikey’s never sure what to do. And now, now Frank is back, finally, and it’s great, awesome, fan-fucking-tastic...for them. Mikey has no idea where he stands in all of this. Not sure if things between his brother will change for better or for worse, and that scares him, fucking terrifies even, but he’ll try and be positive, like he always is, because he wants, so deeply and desperately wants things to work out.