Anorex-a-Gogo

A kiss is never just a kiss. Sometimes it's a promise. Sometimes it's a lie. A kiss can be a beginning, and it can be an end. Sometimes a kiss is a cry for attention. Other times a sign of rejection. A kiss can be a hello, and just as easily it can be a goodbye. It can be a good morning, a good night. It can be an apology and a forgiveness. It can be the most bittersweet revenge. Sometimes, it can even be magic.

But a kiss is never just a kiss.

Gerard is searching with his kiss, and I am hiding with mine. I can feel it in the way his lips press hard against mine, almost roughly. In the way his hands hold my face so that it makes it impossible for me to pull away. I can feel it in the way his tongue pushes past my parted lips and hungrily explores my mouth. Gerard is searching for answers to questions he won't ask aloud. And I'm hiding this information from him, gently closing myself off. I'm good at hiding, I've done it practically my whole life. He won't find anything, I promise.

Kisses don't come often when you're Invisible. I've been kissed twice before in my life. Neither of them were ever anything like Gerard's kiss. The first in sixth grade was with a girl named Alexis Dalton. She'd just walked up to me in the hall and planted one on me. Said she just wanted to know what it would be like to kiss someone, then walked away and really never spoke to me again. There went my first kiss, not that I particularly cared. My second kiss was with Avery Anderson in the ninth grade. It was a scared, shy kiss in a supply closet because Avery had just chosen to come out to me that he was gay. He kissed me then, but I didn't kiss back. By that point in my life I'd already become so numb that I didn't even care about the hurt look on his face when I wiped my lips on my shirt sleeve and walked back out of the closet, so to speak.

So I'm trying not to let my mind drift too far away so that I can actually kiss him back, because this is one kiss that I actually want to be in the present for. My split, swollen lip is slowly becoming numb as his lips gently work against it. But it's a different numb. A good numb.

But riddle me this: Why is Gerard suddenly interested in me? Why is he holding me while I cry on the dirty school floor? Why did he take me to a beautiful river on trespassed grounds? And most of all, why is he looking at me like that, his eyes half-lidded and cloudy as they sweep over my face?

I feel a little light-headed, but who really gives a fuck? I lean back a little and Gerard leans forward to keep level with me. He pulls away, grinning in the way you expect a hero to look down to their fans. "Breathe, Frankie," he whispers.

"What?" I gasp, suddenly taking in large gulps of the cool oxygen that I didn't realize I was missing.

He brushes my fringe away, something I've always hated, but when he does it, it makes me relax under his touch. "You need to breathe," he repeats, and I blush, trying to get extra oxygen a little more inconspicuously. "You're adorable, Pansy."

I'm sure my whole face is pink, but I find myself not giving a fuck. "What...what the fuck was that for?"

"Oh, Pansy, you're dumber than you look?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you should shut up and kiss me again."

But I can't. I can't kiss him, or at least I can't be the one to initiate it.

Gerard's smile doesn't drop exactly, but a flicker of something passes behind his eyes. Maybe doubt. "Or not," he says, turning back to face the river. He sits with his arms on his knees, intently avoiding my eyes.

I feel emptier than I thought I would once his hand isn't in wrapped around mine, his lips aren't on my lips, and his eyes are turned away from my face. His expression is carefully molded into something that resembles indifference, but I know a thing or two about hiding. I recognize the hurt that he's cheerfully trying to mask.

"No, Gerard, I--"

"Frankie, it's cool, whatever. Let's...let's just get out of here, okay?" he says, and then he's standing up and walking back the way we came.

I watch him until he disappears behind the trees, then turn back to the river. My reflection shows a damaged boy, frowning. And damn it he looks hungry.

The rock I slam into my water-self's face makes a deep 'plunk' as it splits the river's surface. It sinks beneath the water with an ease I envy, breaking the smooth surface. My image is destroyed, ripples breaking and spreading as far as the middle of the smooth river. In moments everything is calm again, as if the disturbance never happened. I wish my life could return to calm that fast, but there is no calm to return to. I have a feeling that the ripples in my life are the least of my problems, it's what's lurking beneath the smooth surface that I should be worried about.

It takes me a little while to get back to where Gerard left his car. I'm finding it a lot harder, not to mention a lot less enjoyable, picking my way through the woods without him next to me. My body hurts, and it hurts to blink. By the time I emerge from the trees, all the good feelings I may have been experiencing before have left and I'm one bitter, pessimistic fuck.

That's until I see Gerard.

He's sitting in the driver's seat, his hands gripping the wheel tightly enough to strain the skin on his knuckles. His eyes are closed and his mouth screwed up as if he's in physical pain. He's got his head resting against the headrest. Suddenly he lashes out, closing his fingers into fists and slamming them against the steering wheel. He bangs them a few times before lowering his head to the center of it. The horn honks once, loud and long. And then he's still, completely still.

Watching this hurts more than any walk through the woods.

I don't think he saw me. When I got back to the car, he simply said, "I'm sorry I left you there." But his voice was too stiff, too formal.

He didn't try to hold my hand again. He barely talked except to ask me where I lived. And when we pulled up to my house, he didn't even look at me.

How do I make this right? How can I make things go back to how they were at the river?

"So, um, thanks for getting me out of school, and, uh, taking me to the river and stuff," I say lamely, wringing my hands.

"Yeah," he mumbles, lighting a cigarette. He takes a long drag on it and rubs his temple. His eyes are closed.

"Well..." I don't know what else to say, but I'm not quite ready to get out of the car and leave things like this.

"Frankie, what do you want?"

I lean back, shocked. "N-nothing."

He's almost glaring at me really, his eyes glinting with anger and his thick eyebrows pulled together in frustration. Then it fades away, and his face sags. "I just..." he whispers, looking down, "I just really thought you were kissing me back."

This moment is crucial. He's staring at me expectantly, but I have nothing to give. Almost all my life I have striven and given up everything to truly Be Invisible. I am a selfish, self-obsessing, self-hating cliche teenager who wants nothing more than to go unnoticed and unharmed. But...but right now I'm about to sacrifice all of that for...for what? For a boy who I don't even really know? Am I really about to risk everything on something that has the potential to destroy my entire fragile being?

Fuck yeah.

"Gee," I sigh, "I was."

And then he's kissing me like a smile and my fingers are tangled in his already messy hair, and I decide that maybe my act wasn't quite as selfless as I thought...
* * *

So there it was, my happily ever after. Frank Anthony Iero kissed Gerard Arthur Way, they drove off into the sunset together, and nothing bad ever happened to either of them ever again. They lived happily ever after. Right?

Wrongo, my friend.

A sharp rap on Gerard's window made us both leap away from each other. My head connected with the glass on my side, sending stars swirling around my already damaged head. I swayed a little, my seat belt snapping back into place.

Gerard's car is a pretty old-fashioned piece of shit. You know what I'm talking about, the kind with like, one radio dial, a huge fucking backseat, and windows you have to roll down yourself, with a knob. The kind of car that your great-great-great grandfather was picking up chicks in in his time. Or maybe Fred Flinstone.

Anyway, Gerard is pissed off. I can hear him swearing under his breath, one hand absentmindedly moving to massage the place I banged my head as his other hand begins viciously turning the window know. The window stubbornly descends. protesting with a squeak of old age.

"What the fuck do you want?" he spits bitterly.

I can't see who it is, just a huge bulking body standing in front of his door. My hand starts rubbing my head as Gerard's hand leaves the tender spot to dig around in his pocket for something. He comes up with a nearly empty package of cigarettes. Jesus, this guy smokes like, twelve packs a day.

"I want him," a deep voice says dangerously, freezing every last drop of blood in my body. Instantly that familiar numb feeling returns at full speed as I practically drop into cardiac arrest.

"And who the fuck are you?" Gerard asks ever-so-politely, fumbling with his bright orange lighter. He takes a drag off his cigarette and slowly exhales out the window. I'm sure he's aiming to piss off our visitor. And that really might not be the best idea.

The owner of the deep voice is not happy. Not at all. "I'm his brother," Owen replies in a calm voice that's simply dripping with unheard anger.

At this, Gerard's face drops in shock. He looks between Owen and me, probably looking for some sort of resemblance that he won't find. "I didn't know you have a brother, Frankie," he says, his voice holding a note of surprise.

"I'm adopted," Owen says impatiently before I can even take a breath to answer. "Get out of the car, Frankie."

Both of their eyes are on me. Owen's are flashing murderously, demanding I get out of the car. Gerard's are curious and confused. Why would I not tell him I had an adopted brother? And why would said brother speak to me like that?

Because Owen's a big fucking jerk, that's why. We all have our secrets, and he's one of my biggest ones.

"I have to go," I mumble, quickly unbuckling my seat belt and simultaneously opening my car door. I'm almost halfway out when Gerard's hand grabs mind, pulling me back down into my seat.

"Hey, wait up," he says softly. He's imploring me with his eyes, begging me to tell him what the fuck is going on. When he sees I'm not about to answer, he just sighs. "Bye, Frankie," he mumbles. Then he pulls me in for one last lingering kiss.

One last kiss.

Behind him, Owen looks homicidal.

I pull away with a sigh of my own, closing my eyes as his fingertips trail over my cheek. "Bye, Gee."

And then I walk away from both Owen and Gerard, towards what I'm hoping is my safe haven.