I Will Not Kiss You

I stared at the carefully drawn plan in front of me. All the rooms were written out in a neat print. I’m seriously beginning to have second thoughts. I hate new places! I get scared. Why did I agree to go? That’s right; I said I’d be ok if I had a plan of the house. But I still don’t know exactly what the house is like! A map doesn’t tell you what colour the walls are or where the cracks in the wall are. Maybe I should just tell Mikey I’ve changed my mind. But Chrissie said it’s rude to cancel plans at the last minute and you shouldn’t do it without a very good reason.

“Frank? Mr Iero.” Came Mrs White’s voice.

I looked up attentively at her. She was staring at me through her small, thick rimmed glasses. I don’t like her glasses; they don’t suit her! Not like Mikey’s. They suit him really well. But Mrs White’s glasses make her look like a demented owl. I’ve been asked not to say that to her. Mainly because I called her short once when she was telling me off for reacting when Ellis did a buck-toothed, over-exaggerated imitation of me when I put my hand up to answer a question. I apologised to her afterwards, even though I wasn’t sorry, and she said that was ok and asked me not to retaliate if Ellis gets on my nerves. She said that if he ever annoys me again, I can leave the room to calm down as long as I tell her.

“Can you put that away please?” She asked politely “Because I’m trying to teach you and there’s no point if you’re not paying attention.”

I folded up Mikey’s plan equally into four and slipped it into my pocket.

“Thank you.” Mrs White nodded, returning to her history class…

…When the bell went, I slowly and carefully put my stuff into my bag; unlike everyone else, who just shove their stuff in and run for it. Mikey waited patiently by my side while I sluggishly placed everything neatly in my bag.

“You ready?” He questioned as I stood up and put my bag over my shoulder.

“Y-yeah.” I replied, following him as he set off out the classroom.

We trailed down the hallway, our footsteps echoing in the silence as the hall was deserted. I didn’t like it. I’m afraid of being alone in big areas. Like once, Mom left me at home while she went shopping with my Aunt and I didn’t leave my room because I was frightened.

“Frankie?” Mikey asked “Are you sure about coming over tonight? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No I’d like to,” I assured “But I think I’ll be a little scared…Like our first day at this school; remember?”

“Yeah,” He smiled “You wouldn’t go anywhere without me and you wouldn’t talk to anyone.”

I remember that day perfectly. I literally refused to talk to anyone other than Mikey and if he left me on my own, I’d stand totally still and refuse to move until he came back. It went on like this for the next few weeks. Then I’d cautiously ask people questions about themselves if they talked to me so that I had some background information on them.

As we continued down the hall, Mikey paused to look at the ‘Support department’ display board. It’s a horrible bright blue and yellow theme that I don’t like. There are loads of pictures on it. Along the top, underneath the cut out letters that spell ‘Support department’, are pictures of all the support staff. Then there are examples of the work that the students produce. There’s a poem I wrote on the right hand side, along with my name and picture. There’s a story that a girl called ‘Cindy’ wrote on the left. I’ve met Cindy once or twice. She’s not very good with letters or numbers because she has dyslexia. But she’s still very smart. She’s very good at practical Spanish but she has trouble writing in Spanish because she told me all the letters get jumbled up in her brain. After all the work examples, there are loads of pictures of us all in class, during sessions, hanging out with our friends…

“Hey look!” Mikey grinned; pointing to a picture of us that was taken at middle school during art class.

I laughed because it looked funny. Mikey had a big splodge of purple paint smeared across his cheek because I’d attacked him with my paintbrush. In the picture, he’s trying to get me back with a bright red dollop of paint on his brush and I’ve got my arms out in front of me to try and stop him.

“Purple’s your colour.” I teased as we continued down the hall.

“Why, thank you.” He laughed.

There was a man sitting on the gate when we came out. He looked suspect because he was wearing all black and his hair was black too. I automatically shuffled closer to Mikey in case he was someone who would try and hurt us. Mikey, on the other hand, squinted to get a closer look at him. A grin suddenly spread across his face and he dashed forwards.

“Mikey!” The man cried, swinging off the gate and accepting a hug.

“Mikey!” I shouted, running after him “Mikey wait!”

Mikey was hugging the man tightly when I reached them. The man was wearing a tight-fitting black t-shirt and a pair of black drainpipes with some black converses. His hair was black and looked like some kind of fluffy mop. He had hazel eyes like mine and he wore eyeliner. I thought this was strange because I’d never seen a man wearing make-up before. His skin was very pale, even paler than mine or Mikey’s. I could see a very faint dark brown colour just beginning to show at the roots of his hair. This means he dyes his hair black. Mikey saw me glaring at the man and put his hand out.

“It’s ok Frankie,” He insisted “This is my brother Gerard. Gerard; this is my best friend Frank.”

“Frank…” He smiled “Are you the boy from the phone?”

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what he meant. I must’ve looked confused though because he said:

“You’re the guy Mikey was talking on the phone to last night?”

And I said “Yeah.”

“Right;” He began awkwardly, looking at Mikey, who nodded “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“What?”

“Last night. On the phone?”

“Huh?”

“When I was playing around!”

“Are you the man who said I was a girl?”

“Yeah that was me,” He nodded “I heard you got offended; so…I’m sorry about that.”

“That’s ok.” I said flatly, even though it wasn’t.

Mom says I should always accept an apology because it’s not nice when you say sorry and someone throws it back in your face. I find it hard to apologise to people and I wouldn’t like it if I managed to psyche myself up to apologise, even if I didn’t want to, and then have it spat back in my face. Metaphorically of course. Gerard extended a hand to shake.

“How ‘bout we start again?” He questioned “Hi, I’m Gerard. Pleased to meet you.”

“What’s your full-name?”

“What?” He questioned, laughing “Why d’you wanna’ know that?”

Mikey saw my face and nudged him. He gave Mikey a funny look that I didn’t get. So while they were making strange faces I switched off because I felt left out and didn’t understand what they were ‘saying’ to each other.

“Just tell him, Gee.” Mikey ordered.

“But why?”

“Just do it!”

He sighed heavily and turned back to me.

“Frank; my full name is Gerard Arthur Way.” Then he turned to Mikey “Happy now?”

“Yes.”

“Nice to meet you Gerard.” I said politely.

“You can call me Gee,” He said “Everyone does.”

“No I have to call you Gerard.”

“Ok; ok, chill.”

I don’t know what he meant by ‘chill’ because to chill is to cool something. For example, Mom makes these really yummy raspberry meringue mousse things that she has to keep chilled in the fridge until she’s ready to serve them or they go bad.

“When’s your birthday?” I questioned.

“April 9th.”

“And you’re twenty years old?”

“Yeah…look, not to sound rude or anything but why do you need to know all this stuff?”

“Because I do.”

“Leave it Gee,” Mikey commanded “C’mon let’s go home.”

While we were walking, I pulled Mikey’s carefully drawn plan of his house out and looked at it again so that I would know exactly where every room is when I arrived. I’m beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea now.