Anorex-a-Gogo

"What does he do to you exactly?" Gerard asks.

Once again I am in the awkward position of standing partially naked before him, dressed only in fresh, not-so-gory boxers. Except this time there's only my skin to protect me. I am completely vulnerable in my flesh, with not even my layer of lies to keep me safe now. It's a cold, cold world to be exposed in, but luckily I've got one spark of warmth, and that is his smile.

For the longest time I'd thought that we'd never move. We lay on my carpet, covered in my blood and tears. The truth was slung around our necks like a noose, holding us together but also tightening until I thought I'd pass out from lack of breathing.

And then he'd kissed me.

And a kiss is never just a kiss. I think his kiss could only be classified as one, unifying thing: Everything

Frightened. Hesitant. Apologetic. Raging. Regretful. A vow. Mourning. Cherishing. Lingering. Lusty. Infuriated. Blazing. Somber.

So many emotions I could just choke on them all.

Some would call him insensitive to kiss me after I had admitted something as heavy and emotionally-damaging as that. I call it saving my life. He really really did, I think.

And now I'm feeling like a little kid. Fingering his slightly greasy hair as he slides his thin fingers up my boxers to apply band-aids to the worst of the cuts on my thighs. What's even more embarrassing is the fact that I've only got Spiderman band-aids (So sue me, I've been geeking out on Spiderman since I was like, six years old.)

"Frankie," he mumbles, nudging my calf as he tosses another band-aid wrapper into the trashbin in my bathroom.

"Sorry, what?" I say, shaking my head and snapping out of my own little world.

He smiles. Gerard's been smiling a lot since the truth slipped out nearly half an hour ago. I smile back. Both of our smiles are too tight, a little bit too forced. This is us trying to be normal. This is us trying to go back to where he didn't know and we were close to happy.

No, that's not right.

This is us just trying to move on forward. Towards happiness.

"What does he do to you?" he repeats.

I push my fingers further into his hair as another band-aid covers up the proof that I am never completely alone. "He fucks me," I say truthfully, "Recently he's begun using me as his carving board." I will not lie to him any longer. He deserves so much better than that.

Gerard flinches at my bluntness. He traces the long cut on my abdomen. "How long?"

"Since I was thirteen." I observe wordlessly as the wheels in his head begin to turn, connecting Owen with my first time, and me regretting it, and not being able to walk straight for a week. I know he's remembering me saying this, because he leans in and kisses the spot on my inner thigh that he just bandaged, softly and sweetly and apologetic. But not understanding. He can never understand what happened to me.

"But he's been touching me since I was nine," I add. Strange how the truth is addicting, like so many other things. I guess it's different for other people. Some get that rush from cocaine, heroine, little colored pills. I tell the truth, and my world stops spinning.

Oh holy Bejesus, how weird it does feel to be admitting this all to him though. How did trust ever get to be such a hard concept to grasp?

He slowly stands, sliding his hands up my sides as he goes so that they end up on my shoulders when he's at full height. He kisses my forehead. "I'm not leaving you here," he says, as if reminding me.

"Then stay."

"No, I'm taking you with me."

"Why?"

"You bled all over my pants. I need to change. You owe me."

"Then come back when you're done."

He sighs. "Please, don't be difficult, Frankie."

"You can't just kidnap me from my own house without telling me why."

"Do kidnappers usually give their victims an explanation?"

"They do if they're nice."

He scowls. "Would you come if I told you it was because I really, really want to sleep next to you tonight?"

Of course I'd already been sold since the moment he'd implied that he wanted to take me anywhere at all for a certain amount of time. And there's nothing I'd like better to get out of this house. Especially if it means sleeping in his bed...

He sees my face and decides that my silence must mean that I agree.

"So just stuff some clothes in a bag. And a tooth brush or something, I guess."

"How long am I being kidnapped for? Will there be a need for a ransom letter? Should we leave cryptic clues behind?"

I'll admit I'm a weird motherfucker. How I could be in any sort of a good mood is beyond me.

"Just until that son-of-a-bitch is dead and buried," he mumbles under his breath, and I'm not even sure I heard him right. To my face he simply shrugs and says, "I dunno," and then walks back into my bedroom.

I'm just feeling so goddamn safe. It's going to sound cheesy and strange, but telling him was like giving him a piece of my soul. Gerard now has a piece of my soul in his body. For safekeeping. As long as he feels anything at all for me, I can continue on. You have no idea how incredible that feeling has proven to be.

He's protecting me and he doesn't even know it.

Packing is a thoughtless process. I push a few tee shirts into my backpack, a few rolls of socks. I would have completely forgotten about jeans and boxers had Gerard not impatiently grabbed my bag at one point, dug through it, then scowled his disapproval and begun packing it himself. He effortlessly swept around my room, picking up clothes off the floor and out of my dresser drawers and stuffing it all in my bag.

I find myself following him around. Trailing after like a lost puppy. When he crosses to my desk, I stumble along behind him. When he goes back to the bed, I follow on his heels. As he heads into the bathroom, I cling to his trail.

He turns around at the sink, my toothbrush in hand. I'm not really paying attention, so I walk face-first into his chest. My toothbrush leaps from his hands, clattering against the tile floor.

"Hey," he murmurs, placing one hand on my cheek. "I'm not going anywhere."

And with those words he relaxes the fears that I didn't even know were still clenching my stomach up tight. He's not leaving me. He's still here. I don't know how long this will last, but what matters is that he's still here now. And he's not going anywhere.

"Do you understand what I mean by that?" he asks. He doesn't wait for me to answer. "It doesn't bother me, Frankie, it doesn't." His face darkens. "Well, that's not true. It kills me. But it doesn't change how I feel about you. Do you understand that?"

I nod, my throat closing up. Gerard will never know how grateful I am for this. Couldn't even guess.

"Good," he says. And he smiles, the first genuine smile of the night. I can't even help it when my own lips curve upwards, couldn't stop it if I tried. Somehow whenever he's around, I just can't help but smile too. "So you can stop following me around then, right?"

And we laugh. Somehow, in the midst of everything, I think I always knew we'd laugh again. I just knew we'd always keep on laughing.

~ ~ ~

School is a bitch. Money is a bitch. Life is a bitch.

But I think Karma wins the Bitch Award, hands down.

Gee and I are walking down the hallway, my bag over his shoulder and his fingers brushing mine. Even though everything is messed up, mixed up, screwed up, and fucked up, things are looking up. Us leaving this house feels like the start of something. Not something new...just something different.

The back door slams downstairs.

"Fuck," I mutter. Could this night get any worse? Tell me it's Mom, please just tell me it's her.

"Frankie," Owen shouts up the stairs. "Is Mom home?"

Now this may seem like a perfectly normal question. In any other situation, it really could be. But in this case, "Is Mom home?" translates into, "If she isn't, I'm going to make you suck me off. And if you don't do it well, I'm going to fuck you up."

I freeze and actually look around for escape routes. Hell, I even consider trying to coax Gerard into jumping out the window.

Only thing is, his body goes all tense and his face gets absolutely livid. I don't think I've ever seen anyone angrier in my entire life. It's really actually frightening, and I'm seriously not sure who I'm more afraid of at the moment.

"Gee..."

"Frankie, please, shut up," he says abruptly, and I snap my mouth shut.

Owen comes clomping up the stairs. He looks to be in a good mood, which is a fairly bad sign for me. He's smiling, and when he reaches the hallway and sees Gerard and I standing statue-still, his smile just gets even wider.

Oh shit.

"Hey," he says casually, leaning up against the wall. For a moment I get the briefest glimpse of what normal, every-day people must see in him. A fairly handsome young man, dark brown hair falling casually into his eyes, a perfect smile. But I've known him too long, been submitted to that smile too many times, and only I can see the cruel glint in his dark eyes. He is not my brother.

I glance between him and Gerard, watching their eyes land on each other. Sparks fly through the air, sparkling and crackling between them. The tension is suffocating. Owen looks disturbingly pleased. Gerard looks like he's about to commit a murder.

"You didn't tell me you'd be having company, Frankie," Owen says in a measured voice.

"Um, we were just leaving," I choke out and I look at Gerard to communicate that we'll indeed be leaving now.

He doesn't move an inch. Like his feet are fucking stapled to the floor or something. There's a dangerous fire raging behind his darkened eyes.

"So soon?" Owen asks.

"Right now," I say, a little more forcefully. Gerard does not move. I raise my eyebrows at him. He doesn't even seem to see me. He's only looking at Owen, who's still fucking smiling. So I reach out, and I wrap my fingers around his own.

This simple touch seems to bring him back to the living world, like he was electrocuted or something. His lip goes up in an almost snarl, the most threatening sound escaping his mouth. He pulls out of my hand and walks straight up to Owen. He's an inch or so taller, though about ten pounds thinner. Still, Gerard looks fucking intimidating.

Owen flinches and his smile thins out as Gerard walks right up to him and nearly presses up to his chest. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, fag?" he spits.

Gerard snorts. "Fag? What about you? I guess you didn't get the memo, but when you fuck guys, you're labeled gay too."

Owen's smile quickly turns into an ugly scowl. "You don't even know what the fuck you're talking about." His voice is threatening.

"I know more than you think."

Gerard steps back and seems to be turning around to walk back to me, where I'm glued to the carpet, my eyes frozen wide. But at the last moment he whirls around and punches Owen smack in the jaw. I cringe as fist connects with bone, the crack echoing in my ear. The force is enough to send Owen crashing up against the wall, where he then crumbles to the floor. Gerard swears loudly, first in English, then in something that sounds a bit like Italian, clutching his fist to his chest. His knuckles are already bruising and swelling, and I'm pretty sure they're broken.

He walks up to where Owen is moaning and groaning and rolling on the floor, clutching his jaw. He lifts his foot and does a little less than slamming it down on Owen's chest, just hard enough for it to hurt as he holds Owen down to the floor. Not that Owen would have gotten up anyway. And for once in his life, he looks...scared.

"Did you fucking think what you do would be justified? That torturing people is alright as long as it's for a good fuck?" Gerard asks in a dangerously low voice. His right hand is uselessly dangling by his side, his other clenched into a ready fist. "Did you think you'd get away with it, you sick bastard?"

Owen whines in pain as Gerard's ratty old Converse presses harder down onto his chest. His eyes are tearing up.

"I want you to look Frankie, your brother, in the eyes, and then tell me what you see," Gerard continues.

When Owen refuses, Gerard digs his heel into Owen's ribs. He gasps and slowly turns his head towards me.

Our eyes meet. And it's like reliving the nightmares all over again. The endless, painful nights. The ache of losing what was rightfully mine. The fear. The numb. The tingling, icy numb that's never quite left my limbs for seven years. I feel my breaths, shallow and almost nonexistent, become frozen inside my lungs. The result is a funny gasping noise every time I suck in a mouthful of air.

"Now tell me what you see."

Owen simply whines and looks at me.

"Don't you fucking see it? There's the most innocent boy in the world standing right fucking in front of you, and you ruined it. You stole that innocence, you piece of shit. You stole it without even thinking of the consequences."

And with that, Gerard lifts his foot from Owen's chest. Owen takes a deep, gasping breath, tears streaming down his face. He immediately curls into a ball, sobbing against the wall.

I turn away. This isn't right. None of this should be happening. Owen fucked me up for so long, so long. But he was my brother, he used to be my brother...

Gerard is walking back to me, his mouth set in the thinnest of lines. For the first time in a week, I realize that he's older. He's three years older than me, a year older than Owen. But at this moment he seems ages older, older than I can even imagine. He looks ancient beyond his years.

I turn my gaze back to Owen, who's looking at me again. Seconds pass, Gerard is grabbing for my hand again, we should be leaving. We start walking, hand-in-hand, my bag over his shoulder again. I numbly follow, keeping my eyes on Owen. As we pass him, he smiles through his tears. I realize he looks like a child, just a little boy.

"C'mon, Frankie," he whispers, "We're brothers, remember?"

Gerard spins around so fast that I don't even know what's happening until I see his foot come down on Owen's face. The splintering crunch of Owen's nose shattering makes my stomach dip and then threaten to resurface, the blood makes my head swoon. I look away as fast as I can.

"Don't you fucking talk to him!" Gerard roars, grabbing the sobbing Owen by the collar of his shirt and thrusting him up against the wall. "If he ever tells me you touched him again, and he will tell me, I will fucking castrate your sorry ass so fast you'll never fuck again. Do fucking hear me?"

Owen cries and holds his bloody, mutilated face and nods. When Gerard lets him go he slides back down to the floor, cursing and weeping.

Gerard wipes off Owen's blood on his already bloody jeans, then takes my hand. I get the strange feeling that this is like a blood pact: We are bound by my blood and Owen's blood. Too much of it has been spilled over the course of my childhood. But it's ending now.

And as we go down the stairs, it's hard to say exactly what I'm feeling. Not regret. I don't think I regret Gerard fucking up Owen at all, there's no one who deserves it more.

But I realize that I'm scared. Scared of Owen. Scared of where this leaves us. Scared of Gerard. I have never seen that side of him, the raging, homicidal side that could do so much damage. For the first time I can see Gerard killing someone and feeling no regret.

It's a strange kind of high, being with someone so powerful. His grim mood is so frightening, but it's also a comfort. I know I'm protected. And I will never let Owen fuck me over again.