Anorex-a-Gogo

It's a very freeing feeling, really, walking out a door. If you've ever heard that phrase, when one door closes, another one opens...it's not always true. Not really.

Gerard and I walk out the front door. It closes. No other door magically appears before us, opening for us to walk through. Okay, so maybe it's a symbolic thing. But that's not how it feels to me. One door closes, and then you're just outside.

And then you're free.

I almost feel like dancing when the crisp December chill bites at my cheeks as we step outside. I am finally free. Owen will not hurt me ever again. I'm finally outside. Of my house. Of my head. Of my world.

Almost.

But Gerard is still fuming. I can tell by the way his mouth is set in a straight, thin line. The way his eyes are dark in the night. His rigid movements and the stiff way he's holding my hand.

I stop walking down the driveway, and he notices almost immediately. Almost. He sort of walks a bit further and then gets yanked back when I'm not moving.

So there we are, standing in the snowy driveway. He's looking frustrated and a little impatient, I'm looking into his eyes. How can I thank him? Like, really truly get him to understand just how grateful I am for all that he's done for me tonight? For all that he's ever done for me?

Wait. Why are his eyes tearing up? Why does he look like he's going to break down? Why is he putting distance between us, so that my hand sort of slips limply out of his?

"I'm sorry," Gerard whispers.

It takes me a moment to be able grasp my own voice. "For what?"

"I never wanted you to see that. To see me like that." He reaches his good hand up as if he's going to touch my face, then flinches and drops it back to his side again. "You're scared of Owen. You're scared of the things he's done to you. You're scared of trusting people." Here he lets out something almost like a sob, but his tears haven't fallen yet. "But I never wanted you to be scared of me."

I flash back to the fire behind his eyes as he glared at Owen. The pure hatred he used to punch him. The absolute lividity with which he smashed his foot down on Owen's chest, his face.

Yes, it was scary. And yes, I saw a side of Gerard that I'd never really noticed was there. But was I scared of him? No. In awe, maybe. Grateful, absolutely. Scared, no.

"I'm not scared of you," I reply.

He simply looks at me like he wants to believe me so badly. Chewing his lip and contemplating whether or not I'm lying to make him feel better, or if I'm just really not frightened of him.

"Seriously. I'm not scared of you, Gee."

That last word, that last syllable seems to break something in him. He takes one large step and is holding me close, his face buried in my neck. He's breathing on my skin, making goosebumps raise all along my arms. He's holding me so tight that I almost can't breath. Almost. But I do breath in, deeply, becoming relaxed within the circle of his arms.

Maybe this is that second door opening. A door of trust. Tonight is practically dripping trust. Gerard and I, we trust each other. With our secrets. With our tears. The air is cold and frosty, but with his arms around me I am warm and I trust him and he's trusting me to believe that he's really not a violent person.

He kisses me, wet and sloppy. It's a happy kiss. A kiss of freedom. A kiss in the snow. A kiss of trust. Mostly though, it's just a kiss between two boys who are finally figuring out what it means to be in love.

* * *

It's about 10 at night, and Gerard and I are back in the Emergency Room. This time it's him who's on the examining table, and me who's holding his hand. We're both staring at the X-ray photos of his right hand that are up on the lit up X-ray board.

"I've taken a look at your X-rays, Mr. Way, and nothing appears to be broken. Just some extensive bruising." The doctor examining his hand is a woman, instead of the handsome doctor I'd gotten. This reminds me that I'll be needing to get the stitches out of my own hand pretty soon.

"So I can just go?" Gerard is nervous. He gets so uneasy around hospitals.

"Well, not so fast." She cautiously looks at him, at his appearance. I can see why anyone would be reluctant to let to blood-stained boys leave the hospital. "What exactly happened to you two?"

"We got in a fight," he mutters.

"I really think I should check you both out for other injuries..."

But Gerard is already climbing off the table, and I'm following close behind him as usual.

So we just go. After over an hour of sitting in the waiting room, we get to leave after ten minutes of an examination and some good friendly advice. What a rip off.

Gerard is still cradling his hand. It looks terrible. I offer to drive us back to his house.

The thing is, I really like to drive. It's a shame that I don't get to do it more often, but Owen's usually got the car, and I'm stuck walking everywhere. I like the peace of mind when I get when I drive. I don't have to think about anything but the road in front of me, the traffic at the tollbooth, the motherfucker who just cut me off. Sounds weird, huh? But those sort of things really calm me down.

So I'm driving Gerard's old-as-fuck car away from the hospital and he's sitting in the passenger seat. He's staring at me. I'm looking at him too, but from my peripheral vision, so he can't tell. For once it doesn't make me uncomfortable that someone's looking at me for an extended period of time. I'm just wondering what he's thinking when he sees me.

I turn down his street and turn off the headlights as I coast into his driveway. All of the lights in the house are turned off except for one. I'm assuming that's Mikey's.

"Does Mikey even know where you are?" I hear myself ask.

He gets this look of complete guilt on his face. "No," he mutters.

So we get out of the car and we go up to his door before he realizes that he doesn't have his key with him. Then I'm calling Mikey's cell phone, and he's laughing when I say I'm down stairs, please let me in. I don't know why I don't mention Gerard is here too.

Mikey opens the door less than a minute later. He's grinning, up until he sees Gerard. His face is still sort of frozen in a grin, but his eyes are shocked, and way less amused.

"Gerard? Shit, man, where have you been? You know Mom's been having a complete aneurysm?"

I know this probably isn't true. Mikey once told me that his parents aren't really around much. They like to go to art shows out of state to pick up weird paintings and sculptures like the ones that decorate their disturbing walls. But I know that Mikey was worried, despite the front he tried to put up.

"Sorry, Mikes, I was at a convention in New York. I thought I told you," Gerard says calmly. Any sort of guilt he had show in the car was erased. He's all business now. "Frankie's going to stay with us for a couple of days while some things get sorted out. Are Mom and Dad actually home?"

"No, they went to visit Aunt Rena in Maine. And to go antiquing or something."

Gerard pulls me into the light of the house. Mikey's face contorts in shock. There is a full-length medieval-looking mirror near the stairs, and I catch a glimpse of us. Gerard's jeans are stained beyond repair. My arms have streaks of Owen's blood on them, my crotch is entirely stained, and my face is dirty with tear-streaks. We look like we just came from a battle scene.

"What happened to you guys?" Mikey asks, trailing after us as Gerard pulls me up the stairs. He's staring at Gerard's limp hand.

"Gee beat up my brother," I tell him. I can't help the small dose of glee that makes its way into my reply. Damn, Owen deserved that.

"Cool," Mikey says, his eyes lighting up with childish excitement. "What'd he do?"

Gerard turns. "No, it's not cool to beat someone up. Don't ever do it," he says in a paternal voice, but I can tell he's kind of enjoying the fact that he kicked some sense into Owen too.

My stomach growls loudly.

"Oh, are you guys hungry?" Mikey asks, "I ordered Chinese a while ago."

We agree to go down and have Chinese food after we get cleaned up, and then leave Mikey to his own devices.

Gerard's room has been cleaned since I was last here. The liquor bottles and crumpled up pieces of paper were gone, the drawings of me stashed somewhere else. I didn't know who had cleaned it, but it made me feel better not having to remember drunk, rambling Gerard getting sick in my bathroom and passing out on my bed.

He almost immediately strips. Almost. First he empties his overnight bag into a hamper in his closet, then sets down my backpack near his drawing table. Then he peels off his bloody jeans, which he throws in the trashcan by the bed, and the rest of his clothes end up in the hamper too. He's perfectly naked and perfectly comfortable with it too.

"I'm going to take a shower," he mumbles. He looks a little grimy. I'm feeling a little grimy too. I almost say this...almost. But that would be embarrassing. He looks up. "Care to join me?"

I nearly gag on air, which there suddenly seems to be too little of. I start hacking and coughing up a lung, and Gerard comes over and whacks my back a couple of times before my airways open up again. I realize that I'm hunched over and level with his dick, and I straighten the hell up right away.

"What?" I gasp.

"Don't sound so prudish, Frankie," he teases, "I just wanted to know if you'd like a shower. I'm going to take a shower because I'm disgusting and gory and you're fucking brother got his blood all over me. And you're not much better." He grins and opens his bedroom door to head down the hallway to the bathroom. "Just putting out the offer."

The answer is yes. Of course I'd like to shower with you. Of course I'd like to trap myself naked in a steamy, enclosed space with you.

But I'm not sure I'd be brave enough. Gerard may be able to just drop all his clothes and prance around naked (and that's a funny sight), but I can't. I'm fat, and ugly, and not too desirable without clothing. Plus, my ass is the palest thing you've ever seen.

Then again...I am feeling pretty gross. And he put the offer up for me to take.

I'm feeling like someone else as I walk down the hall and through the bathroom door, which Gerard has conveniently left wide open. He's already under the water, humming something behind the curtain. Damn, he knows me too well.

Or maybe he's just got a hell of a lot more self-confidence than me.

I shut the door behind me, but he goes on humming as if he doesn't even realize this. Then I slowly begin removing my own clothes, trying not to let my body issues take over. When I pull open the shower, Gerard is already grinning, his body sudsy and pale and shining with water. I shyly smile back and he pulls me under the spray of the nozzle.

Unlike last time, he kisses me. He kisses me under the hot water and makes me forget about every bad thing that's happened tonight. He kisses me to let me know that he knows me well. He kisses me because that's what you do when you've had a really bad night and you just want to unwind.

And I almost tell him I love him. I really almost do...almost. But I don't. Because my tongue is stuck somewhere in his mouth and my brain is occupied anyway.

One door closes and the bathroom door opens.