Anorex-a-Gogo

Is it wrong that I want to go to school? That I'm actually eager to get back to the hallways where I've been beaten up and ostracized and virtually ignored? And not just because I can't stand my home, but because I'm beginning to realize that school just isn't so bad? I mean, Mikey's at school. And Mike is...well, he's my friend.

The strangest thing is--I'm in a good mood. A damn good mood. I'm almost positive that it's because of Gerard. I was never aware before how a kiss could affect me. Damn, I can still feel the imprint his lips left on mine last night. It's a good feeling, knowing that a single kiss can make you feel so fucking high you might just float away. It makes you feel alive.

Like maybe you're not just another zombie limping through life.

Just more alive than you ever felt before.

Mom gives me a funny look when I walk down the stairs with a smile on my face. She slowly walks over and circles around me, unsure of what to make of it. Then she presses a hand to my forehead and one to her own, Gerard-style. "Are you sick, honey?" she asks, her tone cautiously playful.

I grin. "Nope. I feel good."

This is mostly true. Despite Gerard actually teaching me to feel things, I find myself turning numb again almost immediately after. Not completely numb, because like I said, I can still feel his kiss. But I don't think the numbness is going to just go away so quickly. That will take some time. Which is why I'm so eager to see him again. I want another hour, another minute of feeling. I want that warmth.

"You want some breakfast? Or a ride to school?" She's in a good mood too, and it makes me happy to think that I had a hand in it.

On the other hand, she's probably trying to figure out some way to ambush me tonight and ask me about Gerard Way and my questionable sexuality. My mother is a sneaky sneaky woman.

"No thanks. And I'm going to walk today."

"Oh, then take a jacket, sweetheart."

I pause at the back door, midway through swinging my bag over my shoulder. "Is it cold?" I ask.

"It's snowing," she replies with a smile before going off in search for her work briefcase.

Throwing open the back door, I stick my face out and immediately am met with a gust of biting chill. Holy ravioli, it really is snowing. What happened to the rain? The thermometer on the side of our house reads 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Now that's a fucking dramatic temperature drop.

I hurry upstairs and slip into the red hoodie I borrowed from Gerard on Sunday. He told me that I could give it back if the blood stains from my hand ever came out, but if they didn't I could keep it. I can still see the reddish-brown spots on the sleeves.

I know this sounds stupid and cliche', but this is like, the perfect snow. It's not really wet and mushy and cold, the kind that stings your face. It's that perfect kind of snow that's light and dry and airy. The kind of snow I always, always wanted to go out and run around in and make snowmen with, but Mom and Dad wouldn't let me because I'd just get sick. I usually got sick anyway.

Today it just adds to my good mood. It's bitterly cold and I can see my breath when I breathe out, but that's okay. As long as it's not raining.

This gets me thinking about Christmas again. Only about three weeks left to go. Only about a week left until school lets us out for Holiday Break. I'm really not sure if that's a good thing or not.

I figure maybe I can walk to the Way house on my way to school. It's not that far off from the school, just a few blocks. I can maybe walk the rest of the way with Mikey then.

Translation: I'm really looking hard to think up a good excuse to see Gerard.

Remember what I said about him teaching me to feel things? Well, I'm thinking I'd do just about anything to feel again. I've never been so sure that I want to get rid of the numbness in my entire life. I do, I want to get rid of the numbness for good. No matter what.

I've decided that feeling comes with a price tag. Sure, there's the good feelings, like Gerard's hand in my own or his lips kissing mine or the fluttery racing my heart does whenever I imagine his face. But there are also the bad feelings. The ones like when I feel so low I just want to end it all. Just sleep and never wake up again, just so I don't have to feel that way ever again. It's frightening how the bad feelings can nearly kill you, how they can put you so low that you're lost.

But I would take those bad feelings now, just to feel the good things too. Anything but the empty, lonely numb. In the choice between feeling pain and feeling nothing at all, I'd choose pain. Just for the chance to feel Gerard's smile light me up like a torch. I'll pay that price.
~ ~ ~

Does it matter that I'm shivering and a little damp when I arrive on the Way doorstep, just like on Sunday? Does it matter that I can't feel my toes in my Chucks or my fingers in my gloves? Does it matter that I probably will get sick this time?

Not really. Not when I'm thinking about what (or who) is on the other side of this red door.

Sadly, I don't get a shirtless, sleepy-eyed Gerard answering the door this time. It's Mikey, bundled up in this bulky gray sweater, gloves, a scarf, and one of those funny-looking hats with the flaps over the ears. I've always wanted to try on one of those hats, just to see if they really do keep your ears nice and snug and warm. Or if maybe they just make you look stupid. Then I could go around like Holden Caulfield and call it my people-hunting hat.

"Hey, Frankie," Mikey greets me brightly, like it's 100% perfectly normal for me to show up randomly at his door. "Cool that it's snowing, huh?"

I grin and nod. My body is cold but my face feels like it's burning with blood and pleasure at just being out here in the perfect snow at Mikey's house with the possibility of Gerard just a room away.

"Hey, come on in for a minute while I get my stuff and then we can walk to school together, okay?" he says.

"Okay," I reply, and step into the warmth of his house. Mikey disappears down the hallway and I linger in the living room, taking a second glance at a painting that could either be of one really flexible woman, or two very feminine men. As I'm trying to figure this out, I'm also trying to be sneaky and get a better look down the hall. Mikey's door is open, I can hear him throwing things around and muttering to himself. I already know that his parents' room is on the way other side of the house. So that must mean the last door in the hallway, the one next to the bathroom I pretty much wrecked the last time I was here, that last door must be his...

I wasn't exactly conscious when Gerard had taken me to his room. I'd seen the inside briefly before he'd dragged me off to the hospital. And forgive me if I'm making the wrong assumption here, but where there is Gerard's room, there will be Gerard.

Because I can't help myself, I abandon the picture (which I'd come to realize was actually three naked men in a boat, go figure) and sneak past Mikey's room to the one I'm sure must belong to Gerard. My heart is racing by the time I'm standing in front of the door. I stop and study what it has drawn on it. He's painted it to look like a night sky. I can't help it, I'm even more impressed than before. Is there a single thing bad about this guy?

After a moment I push open the door. I'll admit, I was expecting to find him asleep in his bed, since it's only about 7:40 in the morning and he's old enough to not have to go to school. That's okay for me. I figure I could just watch him sleep, maybe touch his hair like he likes to do to me. Maybe I could kiss his forehead like he did yesterday. Even just seeing him would be enough to satisfy me.

Or maybe I could get thrown in Juvi for being a fucking stalker.

What I didn't expect was for his bed to be empty. Made, like he hadn't even slept in it last night. I didn't expect to see crumpled-up pieces of paper littering almost every spare inch of carpet. I didn't expect to see the bottles, maybe eight or nine of them, of different liquors, strewn across the desk and the drawing table and his dresser. All of them were either empty or a glass away from being empty.

I picked up a bottle on his desk. It had no label, just clear liquid sloshing around. There was about a quarter left of what I assumed was alcohol left. I sniffed the open bottle, but it didn't really smell like much of anything. Putting my lips to the mouth, I took a tiny sip and nearly gagged. Vodka.

What was this? I can't remember any of this from when I was in here just on Sunday. Was I really that out of it then? Had I lost that much blood that I'd just missed it all?

I sit on his made bed and pick up a couple of pieces of the balled-up papers on the near-black carpet. The first is a sketch of a boy in bed. His face is turned the other way and his eyes are closed, so you can't really see his features too well. I turn it around and upside down, looking at it from different angles as if that will help me see the boy's face better.

Wait. Is that my guitar in the corner? The words 'PANSY' can just barely be made out along the bottom.

My mind takes me back to my room yesterday, when I was trying so hard to pretend that I was sleeping. In the minutes before I found myself staring right into his eyes as he sang to me. In the minutes where he was taking a mental picture that he would later use to bring those same minutes back to life in the privacy of his own room.

I look at the "sleeping" me on paper. Do I normally look that calm? Do my cheekbones usually poke out like that? Is this how I look, or just how he sees me?

I like who he makes me out to be by pencil.

The other paper is just as cryptic. It's a different art, this time in the form of words.

Frankie needs

What I want is for him to be happy

Could he ever want a fuck-up like

He deserves

Everything is crossed out and smudged so that I can barely read his chicken-scratch handwriting. I don't understand what they mean. At the very end of the paper, under a bunch of lines that are so scratched out that the pen tore right through the paper, is one line that isn't crossed out at all.

Fuck what I want. I need him.

I jerk my head up at a small cough. Mikey is standing in the doorway, looking embarrassed. I can't tell if it's because he's interrupted me, or because his brother's room is obviously an alcoholic wreck. I myself flush pink, feeling like a kid caught with his Dad's pornographic magazines. This stuff is obviously private. I drop the papers onto the bed beside me.

"Um, I--"

"Gerard isn't here," Mikey interrupts my pitiful attempt at an explanation. We both just stare at each other and then around the room awkwardly because that, at least, is totally obvious. Unless Gerard is waiting in the closet, ready to jump out and cry, "Fooled ya!" I doubt it, but I wouldn't the idea past him.

"I mean," he continues, "he didn't come home last night."

"Why?"

Mikey shrugs. "I don't know. He came back from your house and locked himself in here for a couple hours. When I came in to say goodnight he was gone. And he didn't come home after that."

I'm imagining Gerard last night. Sitting at his drawing table, fiercely scribbling out words and sketches and swigging from a bottle of imported whiskey that he probably stole from his parents' cupboard. Him leaving, drunk, stumbling down the dangerous Jersey streets at night. Or worse, trying to drive the dangerous Jersey streets at night with all of that alcohol sloshing around in his system. And then lying by the side of the road after completely wrecking his fucking car. Bleeding to death and wondering why, why is no one coming to save him? Why didn't I come and save him like he's saved me?

I don't realize I'm shaking like a fucking earthquake until Mikey tells me to calm down.

"He's probably fine, Frankie," he mutters with what's supposed to be a reassuring smile. But I can tell he's just as worried as me. He's just better at hiding it because he's used to it, I suppose. "Gee likes to get shitfaced," he continues, motioning to the empty liquor bottles, "But he can handle himself."

So Gerard drinks? Big deal, right? I mean, everyone drinks these days, it's trendy. Okay, so he obviously drinks a lot. But who am I to judge his flaws? I'm just another human.

"Where did he go?" I hear myself ask.

He shrugs. "Probably one of his friends' houses."

I don't like the way he says "friends". There's a lot more behind that word than I'd like to hear. I know what it means to be "friends". And I know that's what Mikey is implying. I can see it in the slightly guilty, sympathetic way he looks at me.

"Oh," is all I can mutter.

"Don't be mad at him," Mikey rushes on, looking panicked. "I mean, he probably just went to one of them so he could have a place to pass out. He-he wouldn't do anything to hurt you, Frankie. Gee wouldn't..."

We both hear the questions in the air as he trails off. What wouldn't Gerard do? Where did he go? What did he do? More importantly, who did he do?

Jesus, I feel like someone vacuumed all the air straight out of my lungs. I can see the perfect image I had of Gerard run screaming from the room. And then all I'm left with is this blank slate. Where did my Gerard go?

"Please don't think badly of my brother," Mikey pleads, and I know he regrets me ever coming in here, "He'd be really angry with himself if he knew he'd done something to hurt you."

Even though I"m angry and upset and exhausted all at the same time, I hear my own voice replying, "Of course not."

And then Mikey and I are walking out into the perfect snow because we're going to be late for school. The cold is so bitter now it hurts. Or maybe I just hurt.

I'm hurt.

And it's worse than any feeling I've ever felt before. The numb is settling in again, and this time I know there's nothing to stop it--because Gerard never came home.