Let My Heart Rest In Pieces

Let My Heart Rest In Pieces 012

Keeper

Walking home from school, I don’t think I had ever been more confused in my entire life. The beautiful, but short, guy I liked who kissed me thinks of me as nothing more than a friend. But my friend, maybe best friend, goes and gives me a kiss.

Oh, and my hot teacher ended up being gay.

I sighed and ran a hand through my dark hair, pulling on some strands with frustration. My life was never simple. I heard the sound of something rolling across concrete and tried to look up, but was thrown to the ground before I even had the chance.

I felt the hard stone underneath me scrape against my left forearm, and I winced at the pain. I let out a low moan, followed by one that was not my own, and turned over on my good side, using my right arm to get in a sitting position. I squinted over at the other body and let out a long sigh.

“What the hell Frank?” I asked, standing up and walking over to the boy who was still on the ground. His hazel eyes opened and he stared up at me.

“You know, you’ve been the cause of a lot of pain today. First my nose, now this?”

I scoffed, glaring down at him. “Excuse me? You were the one who ran, excuse me, skateboarded, into me! And the Volleyball thing was an accident!” Not really.

He pushed himself up and stood up, brushing off dirt from his clothes. “Sorry, I kind of wasn’t paying attention.”

“That is something you’re supposed to do when you’re rolling down the street at 50 miles an hour.”

“Why weren’t you paying attention while you were walking?”

“That doesn’t matter, because I’m going the legal limit of two miles an hour.”

He rolled his eyes and was about to retort to my statement when he saw something on the ground. “Is that a pool of blood?”

I looked down and saw a small puddle forming, then looked at my arm. “Crap, that scrape was more serious than I thought.”

“Shit, I’m so sorry! Here, I’ll take you to my house and get you cleaned up!”

“I’ll be fi- ah!”

He grabbed my right wrist and dragged me off after collecting his skateboard, rushing in the direction of his house. Once we were there, he pushed the door open, not even minding to close it, and started to run up stairs. I got a quick glimpse of a woman poking her head out of the kitchen before she was out of my sight.

Frankie opened up another door and I was pushed into his bathroom. “Stay right there while I go get the First-Aid Kit.”

I blinked as he ran away and shook my head. That kid was surely strange. I bent my elbow so that I could see the damage done and winced again. It didn’t look pretty.

Letting out another sigh, I hopped up onto the counter next to the sink, being careful not to drip blood on anything nice.

“Okay, here we are.”

I looked up when I heard Frank’s voice but was shocked by the person behind him, who turned out to be the woman I had seen come out of kitchen.

“This is the best First-Aid around!”

The woman rolled her eyes while I smiled. She stepped into the bathroom, giving me a grin in return. “Hello, I’m Frank’s mom, or as he likes to call me, Mrs. First-Aid.”

“I’m Envy,” I replied with an even bigger smile.

She grabbed my arm gently and looked at the scrape. It had finally stopped bleeding and was starting to dry to my skin. Mrs. Iero opened the cabinet behind my head and took a couple supplies out. She ripped open an alcohol swab open with her teeth then unfolded it.

“This will probably hurt for a minute, but it will help clean out the wound.”

I nodded my head, and tried not to hiss too loudly when she started to swipe. It stung badly, but it didn’t hurt that much. She then blew on it to dry, then applied a gel like substance over my skin. Finally, she wrapped my arm up in gauze, looking down at her handiwork.

“That should do it. Just put a band aid on it after you’ve taken a shower and it should heal over soon.”

“Thank you Mrs. Iero.”

“It’s not a problem my dear, I do all kinds of stuff like this at work.”

“She’s the best Nurse ever!” Frank said from the door, a smirk plastered on his face.

His mother turned to me, giving me an look. “How did this happen exactly?”

“I was walking home and Frank ran into me while he was skateboarding.”

She turned to give Frank a glare. “I’ve told you a thousand times to pay attention when you ride that thing!”

“I know! I just got distracted for a second-“

“And you wonder why I don’t let you drive my car.”

Frankie pouted and I couldn’t help but laugh at the exchange that they were having. The boy looked over at me, an unfamiliar look in his eyes, something that made me shiver, but not in an unpleasant way.

“Is there anything that I can get you, to make up for my son’s rudeness?”

“No thank you ma’am, I have to be going home anyway. Lots of homework to complete, and I don’t want to fail my Senior year.”

“Oh, you brought home an older girl?”

“Mom!”

I let out a hearty laugh and winked at Frank. “Your son is a keeper Mrs. Iero.”

“Please, call me Linda.”

“It was nice meeting you Linda. I’ll see you at school tomorrow Frankie.”

They both waved me goodbye and I continued my trek home. He really was a keeper.

Just not mine to keep.

~~~~~

When I got home, I dragged myself up the stairs, my shoulders sagging at just how tired I had become on the short walk over to my own home. Opening my room door, I dropped my bag and flopped onto the inviting mattress, sighing contently as the softness of my blankets rubbed against my face.

Not too soon after closing my eyes had I begun to doze off, quickly sweeping into dream land. My dreams, whenever I did remember, were always so vivid. The detail in each one could make anyone feel that they were truly living in what the mind had created to make your sleeping hours pass by.

As my dark eyes scanned the crowd around me, I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t expect so many people to be here tonight, but apparently word got around quickly about the performance.

I turned around to look at Jeremy, who had a slightly nervous expression on his face.

“Come on Jer, you’ve played in venues ten times the size of this. Why are you so nervous?”

“There are so many different bands here, famous ones V. What if we mess up and-“

“Shut up man! Or you’ll make us freak too!” Adam said, shoving the lead singer.

“Are you all ready?” The manager of the club asked, bored tone in his voice. I gave him a glare but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah…”

“Jer.”

He turned to me, his blond hair falling into his face. I just smiled at him and he returned the gesture, relaxing slightly.

“Thanks for helping us out here. You’re the only one I trust to sing with me and play at the same time.”

“You know me, I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to show my face to the public.”

“That’s for sure,” Scott replied, earning a narrowing of the eyes from me.

“Guys, let’s start.”

We all nodded and looked out onto the crowd in front of us. My eyes darted to a lot of people in the room, and there were many popular faces which I recognized.

“-coming out here tonight! Before we start, I want to give an acknowledgment to our beautiful pianist over here, she’ll be featuring in this song, thanks to all the begging we’ve done.”

Some laughs went around and I heard some catcalls. I ignored them and gave the band a nod, telling them that everything was fine and that they should start.

Scott started the song, the acoustics of his guitar echoing throughout the room. Here and there, I would have small piano parts, but for the time being, I stared at Jeremy as he started to belt out his tune.

“ Yesterday I died; tomorrow's bleeding
Fall into your sunlight
The future's open wide beyond believing
To know why hope dies
And losing what was found, a world so hollow
Suspended in a compromise
But the silence of this sound is soon to follow
Somehow sundown
And finding answers
Is forgetting all of the questions we call home
Passing the graves of the unknown

As reason clouds my eyes with splendor fading
Illusions of the sunlight
A reflection of a lie will keep me waiting
With love gone for so long
And this day's ending
Is the proof of time killing all the faith I know
Knowing that faith is all I hold”

There was a pause in the music, and some people clapped, thinking it was over, but I began my soft piano solo before singing along with Jeremy, our voices complimenting each other’s so well.

“ And I've lost who I am,
and I can't understand
Why my heart is so broken,
rejecting your love, without,
love gone wrong; lifeless words carry on
But I know, all I know's that the end's beginning
who I am from the start,
take me home to my heart
Let me go and I will run,
I will not be silent, all this time
spent in vain; wasted years wasted gain
All is lost, hope remains and this war's not over
There's a light, there's a sun
taking all shattered ones
To the place we belong
and his love will conquer

And I've lost who I am,
and I can't understand
Why my heart is so broken,
rejecting your love, without,
love gone wrong; lifeless words carry on
But I know, all I know's that the end's beginning
who I am from the start,
take me home to my heart
Let me go and I will run,
I will not be silent, all this time
spent in vain; wasted years wasted gain
All is lost, hope remains and this war's not over
There's a light, there's a sun
taking all shattered ones
To the place we belong
and his love will conquer all

Yesterday I died; tomorrow's bleeding
Fall into your sunlight”

The whole room burst into an amazing round of applause and I grinned at every single band member, who returned it. They all took bows, acting goofy as they hit each other on the back and other things manly men do.

I once again looked around the club, liking the happy faces the band had created. My eyes passed by a large group of men who seemed to be staring at me, like a lot of others had. My eyes continued away from them, but something clicked in my brain and my orbs shot back at them.

It was them.

I jolted awake when I felt a hand shaking me roughly, and my eyes snapped open to see my father standing over me, a smile on his face.

“Wake up, it’s time for dinner, then you can go back to sleep.”

I nodded my head, rubbing my eyes before getting up to follow him down stairs.

“Did you get all your homework done?”

“Aw shit!”