Glades and Playgrounds

The inside of my mouth seemed to be coated with glue. My tongue felt too thick, my teeth as fur had started to grow on them and my eyelids almost refused to open. The sheets were clinging onto my body. I was cold sweating and my head felt numb, though not too numb; I could feel a heavy throbbing pain just behind my eyeballs. A moan slipped out of my mouth and I felt someone stir next to me.

“Mmh…” Gerard mumbled, and for about five seconds, I had to rack my brain for information. Why was Gerard here? Where had we been yesterday? What had we been doing yesterday? Why did I feel like shit? And then, like a lightning, one word appeared in my brain, and it was the answer to all my questions. Party.

I closed my eyes momentarily, fighting back the headache that was slowly building up like a raging storm and then reached out my arm to touch Gerard. My limb seemed heavier than normal, like it was protesting, refusing to defy gravity.

“Gerard…?” My voice was a raw growl, like someone had sandpapered the inside of my throat. I had my back against Gerard, so I turned around to look at him. “Gerard, wake up.”

“Mmh…” he mumbled again with his face in the pillow. “Mm-yeah…”

Sighing, I propped myself up on my elbows, sighed again when I saw that it was 2pm and then gave Gerard a light shove. “Gerard.”

Suddenly I felt bile came rushing up my throat and I instantly put a hand on my stomach, managing to calm myself down to the point where I could force it down again. Gerard was lying lifeless and limb, not noticing shit. “Gerard… Gera-a-ard… Gerard!”

He shot up at the sudden yell from me and looked around, bewildered, “W-what?!”

And I realized I didn’t have anything to say to him.

“Mm, nothing” I mumbled and lay down again on the bed. Still with a bewildered look, he blinked and looked at me. I hope I didn’t look as bad as him; his hair was uncontrollably wild, and not in a nice way, he seemed to have a grey tinge in his skin except for under his eyes where a dark purpleish colour dominated and his neck was full with red marks. “You look like shit.”

“Are we always so brutally honest in the mornings?”

I grinned tiredly at him and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt, forcing him down to lie next to me.

“By the way, you don’t look so good yourself” he continued and I sighed for the hundredth time that morning. “Ew… Don’t breathe on me.”

Normally I would’ve, well, breathed on him, but the headache was becoming worse and worse by every second. It didn’t even matter that I was lying perfectly still.

“Mm… I’m gonna go get some pain killers… want one?”

“No. Your mom will kick your ass,” he mumbled. I barely took in his words and was already half out of bed before the words actually made sense.

“What?”

“Mm, yeah.”

“What?”

“What?”

I sighed at him, cursing his tiredness/hangover, “What are you talking about?”

“Pain killers. You’re not allowed to take any” he mumbled. His face was so deeply buried into the pillow, either to prevent his own headache from getting worse, or he was trying to suffocate himself, that I couldn’t make out many of his words.

“What do you mean, not allowed?”

“Like… I can’t come up with a synonym. Leave me alone.” He rolled over to lie on his back with the pillow covering his face. I thought about pressing out more information from him, but if it was something that he had heard yesterday, then he probably didn’t even remember much. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t remember much.

“Hey…” I said slowly, “What happened yesterday?”

All I could remember was a lot of beer and dancing, and, from the way my throat was dry and sore, some throwing up. Small images were flashing in my brain, like snapshots, without really making any sense.

“Hmm?” Gerard mumbled and I sighed, completely giving up on starting a conversation with him. Instead I crawled closer to him, lay down next to him and sighed at the feeling of his warm body against mine. My mood maybe wasn’t the best; headaches and nausea dominated my body, but at least I had Gerard next to me.

*

“Aren’t you up yet?”

An annoyed voice drilled into my head, interrupted my dreams and I slowly, very slowly opened up my heavy eyelids. In the doorway stood mom in one of her, very few, work-clothes; black skirt, black jacket, white blouse and her eyebrows furrowed.

“No” I mumbled and closed my eyes again. Sure she’d understand that I was tired.

“Then wake up. We have to talk”

And with that, she left the room. Feeling a little confused over her serious voice, I racked my head for information for the second time that morning, eh, early afternoon, but found nothing. Then I suddenly remembered Gerard.

“Gerard?” I asked but I didn’t get an answer. “Are you awake yet?”

I turned around in bed, but next to me was nothing but emptiness. I looked around in the room as well, thinking that maybe he had slipped out of the bed when I was closing my eyes, but no. His clothes weren’t on the floor either, which killed my last theory; that he was in the bathroom.

When I got up from the bed, I saw a white note lying on my bedside table, and I took it up. Thankfully, my headache had disappeared to the point where I could sit, talk and move.

I have to go, but you look so peaceful so I won’t wake you up.
I’ll call you later, I have to go home and make sure my mom hasn’t called the police about her missing son. Hope your mom won’t go crazy on you… love,
Gerard.

And after that, Gerard had drawn a hell of a lot of hearts and smiley faces, which made me smile for a second.
I even caught myself missing him for a moment.

-

“What do you have to say for yourself?” was the question I was met by when I staggered into the kitchen, hair in a mess and forehead pounding. With a coffee in front of her, warming her hands, mom was sitting at the table and with a quick glance at the chair opposite of her I realized she wanted me to sit down. As I did so, it suddenly hit me that I had been drunk.
I had understood that before though; the headache and the mere feeling of feeling like something someone had puked up I knew I was hang-over, but it wasn’t until now that I also realized that I had broken my promise.

“Uhm,” I mumbled tiredly and fiddled absentmindedly with the hem of my red t-shirt. It was clean, somewhat stiff, but it was better than the shirt I had fallen asleep in. Mom would probably not be so impressed if I came down with clothes covered in beer and puke. “I,”

“What were you thinking?”

Wasn’t really thinking…

“You promised, Frank! You could’ve gotten hurt!”

But I didn’t.

“Thank God that Gerard was there with you!”

Yeah, because Gerard wasn’t drunk at all…

“Oh, GOD, what were you thinking?!”

But I didn’t say any of what I’d been thinking; I just kept quiet as she pressed out question after question without even demanding answers. She wanted me to feel guilty; this was her way of telling me about all the things she had been worrying about while I was gone.

She rose up from her chair as she spoke, clutching her coffee with one hand as the other one waved frantically.

“It’s not a big deal, really” I muttered, interrupting her, and she fell silent with a look of utter confusion and disbelief.

“Not… Not a big deal?” she asked calmly, eyebrow lifted. My heart started to beat faster, like I was nervous.

“No,” I said, “You know it’d happen sometime. Everyone does it. Everyone gets drunk at some point.”

“Everyone?” she rose her eyebrow, “Everyone? So if everyone jumped off a bridge, so would you?”

“Well… uh, yes?”

“What?”

“Yeah, I mean… no point in being all alone in the world, right?” I grinned goofily.

Safe to say; I was grounded.

-

“Hi,” I cooed into the phone and smiled once I heard a familiar voice answer.

“Hey! How did it go with your mom?” Gerard asked. I could hear a scraping noise in the background, but decided to ignore it. Though the next second Gerard groaned, followed by a 'thump' and a person in the background yelled out an 'ow!'. It sure can't be easy to be Gerard's little brother...

“Awesome. I’m grounded. You?”

“Grounded… ‘But I’m allowed to talk on the phone and watch tv’,” he said the last part in a mocked way and I highly suspected it was his mother he was mirroring.

“Lucky you then… I’m not allowed to do anything.”

“Oh yeah? What are you holding in your hand?”

I looked down at my hand with a bewildered look, “A magazine! How did you know?”

He sighed heavily, “I meant the other hand… You’re talking to me on the phone, but you weren’t allowed to”

“Oh…” I said slowly, “Yeah, I uh, said I was gonna call Mikey and ask about some assignment, so if mom comes by, I’ll start talking homework.”

Gerard laughed, then asked, “So when’s your mom letting you out from your prison?”

“Monday, you?”

“Same… Wanna play Prison Break?”

Even though he wasn’t in my room, I still made a curious yet suspicious look and leaned back to lie on my stomach in my bed. “Maybe I do. What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know yet, I’m not good with plans. You get to be Micheal.”

“Arh, damn. I wanted to be Lincoln” I laughed, then went silent as mom walked up the stairs. Seconds later I heard the bathroom door close. “But Michael’s hotter. Can you get out of your house without anyone waking up?”

“I share room with my brother, what the hell do you think?!” Gerard had started to whisper so he wouldn’t get caught which I found rather cute.

“Is he a heavy sleeper?”

“No.”

“Hm… Do you have sleeping-pills at home? Or rat-poison?”

Gerard laughed and my heart made a ridiculous loop in my chest. If our plan wouldn’t work, I’d personally drag him out of his house. I wanted to see him. Badly. “We have rat-poison, but honey; please don’t take the Micheal Scofield role so seriously.”

I laughed, “Alright, screw the rat-poison. Tell him that you have to go out; I’m sure he owes you for something, so just use that against him.”

“Got it, boss” he said and hung up. I smiled to myself, pressed the red button on the phone and picked up the magazine I had placed next to me on the bed. There wouldn’t be much to do before mom had went to bed, possibly just to wait for Gerard to call and see if our plan had worked. Though I don’t think our plan deserves to be called a plan… It’s more of an idea, and Mikey better not fuck that idea up. It’s two days from Monday, and there’s no way I’ll spend them without seeing Gerard at all.

Thankfully, Gerard was smart enough not to call me to set a time. Instead, he sent me a SMS where he told me Mikey would be quiet, thanks to me for telling Gerard about how Mikey used to be at the playground, alias; the crime scene. I hope Mikey won’t be mad at me for that…

“What time?” I sent back and received an answer shortly after.

“1 h? 2?”

The neon-green numbers on my alarm clock was showing 11pm, and I knew for sure that mom wouldn’t go to bed until at least 11.30, so I sent back “2 h”, and then there was nothing to do but wait.