Glades and Playgrounds

“You survived” Gerard stated with a smile as we were walking back home. The sun was still standing high on the sky but I knew it must be around dinner time since we spent hours on the schoolyard.

“They weren’t that bad” I shrugged.

“Dude, Bert nearly made out with you… and you’re calling them ‘not that bad’?”

“Oh, yeah thanks for saving me from that” I laughed, “But no, seriously, they’re cool”

“Great” he said, exhaling as if he was relieved. We reached our street and just as I was gonna say good bye to him, I realized it wasn’t that late and that we didn’t have to separate just yet.

“Hey, Gerard?” I asked, stopping him when we were almost outside his house. He turned to me, still with one hand linked with mine, smiling.

“Yeah?”

“I was just wondering… you know, if… uhm, if you’d like to come over to my house?”

“Like, now?”

“Yes, like know” I grinned, “what do you think?”

“I’m thinking that I should probably ask my mom first since she’s probably expecting me for dinner, but that sounds too lame so yeah, I’ll come with you” he said, smiling and I returned it, thinking of how much I liked that hoarsely, slightly nasally tone in his voice.

“Ah, Gerard! You’re home” Mr. Way said behind us as he stepped out of the front door of his house, holding a bag of trash in his left hand. “Grandma’s here, she won’t stop asking for you”

“Oh” Gerard responded and I couldn’t help feeling kinda happy when I saw his disappointed face. “Tell her I’ll be right there”

His father nodded, throwing the bag in the trashcan and went back inside, and as soon as he was gone, Gerard turned to face me.

“Sorry, I have to go”

“S’okay” I smiled, my eyes falling to look at his chest for a second since he was looking at me rather intently. “What?”

He leaned forward, tilting his head to the left and placed his lips softly against mine. It was deeper than just a simple peck, but yet not a full kiss. Since his head was cocked to the side, he nearly made me separate my lips as he pressed his own together, but before I even could ask myself whether I wanted to turn it into something deeper, he pulled away.

“Bye” he said softly, letting go of my hand and then he was gone.

I blinked a few times, trying to comprehend what just happened, and as I did, my face broke out into a smile. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the most passionate make out session ever, but hey…

As I walked home, I couldn’t help running my tongue over my lips. They weren’t wet… Had Gerard’s lips been wet? Well, apparently not. That means he didn’t prepare himself before, which also means he didn’t plan on doing it… well, what-freakin’-ever, I just got kissed.

*

Soon enough, school started. It wasn’t bad… not bad at all actually. At my old school, I hadn’t been cool nor a nerd, just simply an outsider; along with my friends. Here, I was pretty cool since I hung out with kids a grade above mine. A lot of people knew about me dating Gerard and surprisingly, they didn’t give a damn about it, which I was more than grateful for. Not that they were totally okay with it. We got our share of remarks, but it never got out of hand.

In class, I almost always sat with Mikey; he was the only one I knew, but on breaks, I hung out with Gerard and the guys. Mikey never wanted to come, although I asked him every time. Instead, he went to sit in the corridors with his back leaned to the wall, reading.

So the first week at school flew by and as Friday came, I was pretty pleased. The lessons weren’t exactly fun, but sometimes interesting, mostly because the teachers here actually seemed to like, and believe in, what they taught; something I thought was long forgotten.

“Hey” Gerard said as he sneaked up behind me as I was standing at my locker, dragging my bag out of the cramped area.

“Hey” I responded, turning around after I’d closed the door.

“So… How was your first week?” he asked, holding out his hand for me to take it, and I did. We were past that stage of not being sure of how to approach each other and were acting more and more natural.

“Fun” I shrugged, giggling as I saw his mocked, exaggerative shocked face.

“You’re hanging out with Mikey waytoo much, man. You’re turning into a geek!”

“Am not!” I laughed, hoisting my school bag further up on my shoulder when we exited the school. “When are they guys showing up?”

“Bert’s getting his stuff, Mike’s off in ten minutes and I heard Bill got a detention so he’ll walk home alone. Where’s Mikey?”

“Oh, he uh…” I started. Mikey said he was gonna stay and talk to our English teacher after class, but I wasn’t sure I should tell Gerard that since he really didn’t have any high thoughts about his younger brother, “I don’t know, he didn’t tell me”

“How come you’re always the first ones out?” I heard Bert call from behind us.

“Dunno” Gerard replied lamely. “Is Mike coming?”

“In a second” Bert responded and soon enough, Mike emerged out of the school. “Hey Mikes, where’s Billie?”

“He got himself a triple detention” Mike smirked, running a hand through his short hair and tilting his head back a little to let the sun warm up his face.

“Triple? Well that’s fucking amazing… Sometimes I wish he wasn’t such a rebel, he would have a lot more time hanging out with us if he’d just shut up every ones in awhile” Gerard sighed, “How did he get detention this time?”

The four of us had slowly started walking.

“Uhm… He had a wild debate with our music teacher…. and you all know that Bill has got strong opinions… so when the teacher didn’t budge, he called him a motherfucking hypocrite or something like that. I wasn’t really listening, I was laughing”

“Did he get a triple detention just because of that?” I laughed, admiring Billie’s courage.

“Nah, then the teacher said something like ‘repeat that, if you dare’ and uh, Billie dared. Three times, actually”

We reached my house, and just as I was gonna say good bye, Gerard spoke up.

“Look, no one’s home at my place and I don’t have any keys, so uhm, can I come with you?” I could clearly hear Bert and Mike making some kissing sounds were they stood behind Gerard.

I nodded, almost shyly and before Mike and Bert could make a comment, Gerard and I had waved good bye to them and taking off into my house. Well inside, I found mom sitting in the living room, curled up on the couch with Ben and Jerry ice cream in her lap, watching a movie.

“You upset or something?” I asked as Gerard and I approached her and she cocked her head to the left, looking at me.

“Nah, why?” she asked, but then realized what I was talking about “Oh, this…” she looked down at the ice cream as if she’d never seen it before, “I’m going to the gym tomorrow so I thought I deserved this”

Gerard laughed but I just sighed, shaking my head as mom grinned sheepishly, “Do we have anything to eat?”

“Ice cream” mom suggested, turning her eyes back to the tv and dug the spoon deep into the bucket of ice cream to spoon up a mouthful of it, shoving it into her mouth.

“Do we have something with less sugar?”

“Old pizza” she said, her voice evasive and I could clearly see she had lost interest in the matter.

“Want some old pizza?” I smiled sheepishly at Gerard, who responded with a ‘sure’ and we went into the kitchen. I walked up to the fridge, taking out the carton with pizza and handed it to Gerard who stood behind me, who passed it over to the table.

“So… we have Coke Zero and Diet Coke, what do you want?”

“Diet” he responded and I took out two Diet Cokes, handed them to him and he put them on the table as well. “Is your class going to the Museum this Tuesday?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Just wondering. I think the whole school’s going there”

“Ah… so you want me and Mikey to sneak away from our group to join yours?” I grinned, taking a bite from the vegetarian pizza.

“Mikey can do whatever he wants, it was you I meant”

I laughed; “Alright, I think I can manage to escape… Mrs. Torn is basically blind anyway”

*

“Wanna go up to my room?” I asked as we’d finished eating and were now kinda lost in what to say, “It’s kinda messy but since Linda’s downstairs…”

“D’you have your own room?”

“Uh, no. I share with Linda” I said, rolling my eyes at his shocked face, “I’m kidding! Come on”

He followed me up the stairs, copying me as I turned left. Mom and I had managed to pack up and make the house liveable in the month that had passed since we moved here, as well as painting the walls in my room in a deep, red colour.

“God, your room’s so much cooler than mine!” Gerard exclaimed as soon as we entered it, “And you have a guitar!”

“You play?”

“Pff, no. But guitarists are cool” he laughed, “Can I pick it up?”

“Of course not, it’s contagious”

He seemed to get the joke, because he picked it up anyway, but he didn’t position it across his stomach, instead he handed it to me.

“Play something”

“Nah… I haven’t played since I moved here so I have to tune it and shit”

“Oh” he responded, putting it down to rest against the amp and turned away from it, sitting down on the edge of my bed. I joined him, although sitting further in, leaning my back against the wall.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked, turning his head to look back at me. I nodded, making a gesture for him to come closer and he did, now sitting next to me in the same position. “Does your dad work a lot or something?”

“My dad?” I questioned, “I don’t have a dad”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I just don’t have one”

“Everyone has one…” he said, smiling as I was stupid. His tone was making me slightly annoyed, but decided not to show it.

“Not me. There is a person that made Linda pregnant… But he’s not here, so he’s not my dad”

Gerard seemed to miss the logic behind this, since his face turned into a confused look.

“So where is he?”

“I don’t know”

“You’re not gonna explain anything to me, are you?”

“Not really” I answered shortly and the room fell silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry if-“

“No, it’s okay; I don’t mind talking about it… It’s just… It kinda reminds me about my step-father and stuff”

“What about him?”

“Now that is something I don’t wanna talk about” I said, the wound of losing Stephen still fresh. It was rather painful to talk about it to someone that hadn’t known him.

He nodded, his eyes spying my walls; “Hey, you’re into The Clash”

I could tell by his nervous voice that he was just saying it to find a new subject to talk about, but welcomed it.

“Yeah, they’re the best punk band… Or well, except for Ramones”

“Nah, Clash’s better. Clash had more variety in their songs”

“Maybe, but I like the simple lyrics in the Ramones’ songs… Now, “Hey little girl; I wanna be your boyfriend. Sweet little girl; I wanna be your boyfriend” there’s two sentences you don’t need to analyze!”

He laughed and we continued out conversation until we simply agreed that Sex Pistols are at least is the worst of the three.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked, watching his lips curl up in a smile as he nodded. I got a strong urge to peck his lips, but wouldn’t that look really… stupid? I shrugged it off.

“Sure…”

“You told me you asked a lot of guys out, remember?”

“Yeah?” he asked, cocking his head to the side slightly as his index finger started to follow the pattern of the cover of my bed. His hand occasionally drew closer to mine and I found myself get hypnotized by it.

“Uh, yeah, so uh… do you still do that?” I was kinda worried about the answer. I didn’t know anything about dating rules; hell, I didn’t care about them, but if he was dating other guys, and me, it’d just be… weird.

“Uhm, not since… not since we got a little more serious” he responded, looking at his own hand, stopping it from moving and instead placed it on top of mine.

“Serious?” I smiled, flipping my hand over so my palm was against his instead of the sheet. I hardly doubted our relationship could be classed as “serious”…

“Yeah, I mean, I can do this now” he leaned forward and I watched him close his eyes, pecking my lips quickly. It went so fast, too fast; so as he slowly pulled his head back to sit back next to me, I leaned forward, pressing my lips against his. He stopped moving backwards and after a second, the hand that was on top of mine moved away and he placed it to the right of my hip on the bed for support.

Suddenly, something wet and warm touched my bottom lip, catching me off guard and I furrowed my eyebrows before realizing it was his tongue. So what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

But obviously, I can’t just let him lick my lips… Not really sure of what was going on, I separated my lips slightly and he put more pressure against them, before I knew it, his tongue was touching mine. God, this is so weird… It felt odd, like it wasn’t even me sitting in that bed with someone else’s tongue in my mouth, more like I was watching myself instead of being myself, but yet nice. Like, soft and warm.

Still not exactly knowing what to do, I insecurely separated my lips further, also allowing my tongue to press back against his. He leaned closer, pressing my back against the wall. Since he had been sitting next to me, he was now bent twisted over me with his hands on each side of me in a quite uncomfortable position, but he made no signs of ending the kiss.

I gently craned my head down, successfully getting our lips separated without making it seem like I was uncomfortable in the situation or freaked out and he gave me a small smile, his head and eyes dropping to look at my lips for a second before pulling away completely. I smiled back, not knowing what to say or do, but frankly, I enjoyed the silence…

“Alright, awkward moment!” Gerard exclaimed with a slight tone of amusement and before I knew it, he was sitting on top of me, pinning down my arms to the bed. I raised my eyebrow, looking into his foggy hazel eyes and watching the small wrinkles appear under his eyes as he smiled.

“You killed the moment”