Let My Heart Rest In Pieces

Let My Heart Rest In Pieces 051

Trick-or-Death

"Hey Linda!"

"Hi Lin!"

"How's it going Mrs. I?"

"Thanks for the snacks momma."

"Yeah Lindy, these taste awesome."

"Are you going trick-or-treating with us Lins?"

"Boys, boys! I can only respond to one thing at a time," Linda, Frankie's mom, laughed lightly, shaking her head. We had just made it inside the small boy's house and the males had bombarded her with welcomes.

She smiled at me, pulling me into a hug. "It's nice to see you again Envy, and this time not supporting an injury from my son."

"It was an accident!" said boy yelled from across the room.

"Yeah, and so was the time in the gym," I reminded, rolling my eyes.

"That was an accident too!"

Linda shook her head once again, escaping the room full of teenagers shouting at one another. Right now, we were all stuffed into Frankie's room, which was dark and decorated with posters all over his walls. Clothes had previously littered the entire floor, until the midget had kicked them all into his closet.

"Now, why did we all decide to come here and get ready for Halloween?" Taylor asked, trying to find a spot to sit down or place her stuff. It was a hard task, seeing as there were a handful of kids in the room. Not to mention that Frankie's room wasn't the cleanest, so that didn't help the space problem.

"Because I'm sick and tired of you guys coming and ruining my house," I said, sitting on one of the available spots on the bed. Frank sat next to me, smile on his face. I saw him absentmindedly playing with the bandage on his wrist. He said his still hurt, so he kept it on. No one questioned it, guessing that he had just hurt himself again. Mine was hidden—not really hidden, just out of sight—by the hair tie on my wrist.

"And Mom saw all of us and said 'Hell no'," Mikey reminded, chuckling a little.

"Then we came here, seeing as it’s the closest."

"Dude, you seriously need to clean your room," Quinn stated, looking around at all the things that littered the floor. Frankie rolled his eyes.

"Now you sound like my mom," he scoffed, picking up an acoustic guitar and beginning to strum it.

"Are you kids hungry?! I have some pizza down here!" Linda shouted up the stairs, catching everyone attention.

"Pizza!" the males in the room shouted, running out the door instantly. Roxy, Taylor, and I just sighed at their stupidity. The other two girls left, and I was about to when I noticed Frank hadn't gotten off his bed.

"Aren't you coming?"

"Nah," he started, doing a beautiful sounding scale, "I'll just stay up here and practice."

"Well, I can't just leave you up here alone to be all emo," I said and sat down next to him. He rolled his hazel eyes but continued to play. I smiled as I watched him, his nimble fingers dancing across the finger board. Even if he wasn't a complete master at it yet, Frankie was still damn good and I envied his talent. I wasn't making much progress on the piano, although I was better than most the people in the class.

"What?" he questioned after a while, looking at me.

"What do you mean what?"

"You're just staring at me."

I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly. "I was just admiring how good you are at the guitar, even though that will just boost your ego."

He smirked at me and chuckled lightly. "Just a tad, do you want to learn how to play?" he questioned. I gave him a skeptical look.

"I don't know, it looks hard."

"Oh, come on, I'll teach you the scales and stuff, that's pretty easy."

I thought about it for a second before nodding my head with a sigh. "Sure, why not?"

His grin was large and bright, showing just how happy he was to teach me, even though I wasn't sure exactly why. He handed over the wooden instrument and I noticed how large and bulky it really was. Frank showed me how to hold it, as well as taught me the order of the strings, then went to work.

"Okay, so we'll try the D scale first. Start off with the open D."

I looked down, found the string that I was looking for, then plucked it with my finger. The vibration of it went into my body, and it felt weird but pleasant at the same time. I gazed over at my 'teacher', waiting for the next instruction.

"Then we go to E, which is this finger here."

He simply pointed, expecting me to know where it was. I bit my lip, pressed my finger down, and plucked once again. I winced at the horrible sound that came from it and was reminded of the kid that had come to the shop not knowing how to play.

"Try a little sharper."

I went to move my finger up, but Frank shook his head, making his hair flail wildly. "No, when I say sharp I mean go down."

"Excuse me," I mumbled. I went down, picked a random spot, then pulled. Again, I was met with a very unattractive noise, but it didn't sound as bad as it did before.

"You suck at this."

"Hey!" I exclaimed, "you're a horrible teacher. You're supposed to encourage your student, not reprimand them."

He rolled his eyes at my pout, coming up behind me and gripping the guitar. His arms were around me and he moved my fingers, putting them where they needed to be. His proximity made my heart beat a little faster, but I kept my cool.

"Now try it," he breathed into my ear while I did as told. The note was in tune now, which meant I could move on to the next step.

"Now we go to the F, which is right here."

Once again, he moved my fingers, but this time, his entire hand stayed on mine and he helped me pluck the string, even though I had that down pat.

"Do you hear how it sounds better now?"

I nodded my head, not trusting my voice at this moment in time. Frank scooted closer to me, pressing his entire front against my back and rested his cheek against mine.

"G, A, B, C, and D."

We went through the motions in the order, and none of them were out of tune thanks to Franks help. I turned my face towards him, biting my lip as I stared at him. He looked at me, a ghost of a smile on his face.

"Frank, I-"

"What are you two doing up here? If you don't hurry, all the Pizza will be gone!" Gerard interrupted, a large slice in his hand and some in his mouth.

"Go ahead and eat it all, we're not really hungry," Frank voiced, starting to slowly pull away from me. I cursed the tall and pale man in the doorway who had come in. I was just about to ask Frank to—never mind, it didn't really matter.

When Roxy popped in behind us, she saw Frank still behind me and the disappointed look on my face. She groaned loudly, catching her boyfriend's attention.

"Ger, I'm going to kill you!" she threatened, taking him by the ear and dragging him away. She turned around once, ignoring Gerard's pained cries, and gave me an apologetic look.

"Well, um, that was a fun lesson," I stuttered, getting up and setting the guitar back in its spot. "I'm just, uh, going to go down stairs."

I closed the door gently behind me and slowly made my way into the kitchen where everyone was talking happily. I really just wanted to bash my head into the wall. That had been the perfect time to ask Frank if he wanted to be with me, but it had been ruined. Maybe this was a sign that we weren't ready yet?

~~~~~

"I love Halloween!" Mikey squealed as he came out of Frankie's room dressed as Robin, side kick to Batman. Roxy, who was already in her cop outfit, wolf whistled at the teen. "Pretty sexy there Mikey!"

"Even sexier than me?" Gerard whined, coming out behind his brother, his pale skin going perfectly along with his vampire attire.

"Aw, babe, you know I have a thing for vampires." Gerard seemed triumphant in what his girlfriend had said to him.

"Alright, enough with all this mushy crap, I'm going to go change in the bathroom now, seeing as Taylor is out," I said when I noticed the blond coming down the stairs, her cute bee costume fitting her body perfectly.

I made my way up the stairs and into the bathroom quickly, taking the genie outfit out of the plastic bag and starting to slip it on easily. Once everything was in place, it was makeup time. The entire thing was white, so it was common knowledge that the makeup had to match. It looked too plain in the beginning, so I added some light blue into it to add some color. After all the little things were done, I put my hair into a high ponytail as I made my way towards my friends in the living room.

"Okay, I'm done," I announced, making sure my hair was prefect.

"Oh, Envy dear, your Dad is on the phone."

"Hello!" I greeted cheerfully, excited for the events that were going to take place tonight.

"Hey V, I was just checking up on you. Are you all about to leave soon?"

"Yeah, we're just waiting for everyone to finish getting ready before we head out."

"When are you and Frank going to get your tattoos?"

Without thinking, I started to caress the black ink that was on my wrist. "Well, our appointment isn't until nine, so we're all going to on the candy search until then. You have the number for it if you need anything, right?"

"Yes," my father announced, reciting the correct number to me, "I think we need cell phones, that way I don't have to be at the house or work for you to call me."

"You can buy me a cell phone any day Dad," I teased.

"How cruel you are. Have a good time, be careful at the parlor, and don't eat any candy until I inspect it!"

I rolled my eyes at his last request. He always said that every year, that I wasn't allowed to even think about consuming one of the delicious treats before he made sure that it hadn't been poisoned. I always agreed to it, although I found it a little silly.

"Fine, just don't steal all my candy like you did last year!"

"Hmm, I can't make that promise," he laughed and hung up before I could say anything. Jerk face.

"Um, Envy, what's that on your wrist?" Quinn, in his very hot Fireman outfit, questioned as he pointed to my wrist. Damn, he must have seen it.

"Me and V got matching tattoos!" Frank exclaimed as he came down from his room in hissexy Greek costume. I was, once again, put into a shock from all the skin I was looking at from him. For a couple of moments, I didn't even register the shocked looks on my friends faces until they turned them towards me.

"Let me see!" they all shouted, running to either Frank or I. My sleeve—damn see through had given me away—was pulled up to almost my elbow and everyone took my arm to look at the ink that was permanently on my skin.

"That-that's kind of cute," Roxy cooed, looking up at me with a look a proud mother would give her daughter.

"When did you guys get this done?" Bert asked as he looked at Frank's.

"Two days ago," I said, pulling my arm back and gently fixing my clothes.

"Okay, enough of this, I want my damn candy already!" Dan sighed, storming out the door to get a head start. We all just shrugged our shoulders and followed after him. I looked out into the sky and saw that the sun was slowly setting, noting that it would be dark in around twenty minutes.

"What I love about living here is that all these people have the best candy!" Frank said in content, day dreaming about the bag full of treats he was going to have collected by the end of tonight.

"Yeah! Two years ago, we went to this one dude's house and he gave us each three pound bars of chocolate," Ray exclaimed, going down memory lane.

"Then we were so excited about it that we decided to eat the whole thing in one day and got stomach aches the next morning."

I snorted. "That sounds exactly like something you guys would do."

"They do it every year," Taylor started, "they get a bunch of candy, then they eat almost half of it and get sick the next day. We tell them not to, but it's like they have amnesia and don't remember what happened the year before."

"Yeah, well, it won't happen this year!" Jepha swore, throwing his fist in the air.

"They all said that last year too," Roxy whispered to me with an eye roll. I giggled at that, hiding the sound in my hand.

"Come on! I want to get a boat load of candy before our appointment!" Frankie whined, lacing his fingers with mine and dragging me off. I heard the pounding of everyone's feet as they followed behind us.

As we walked and talked, we all got a few differing looks from parents. Usually, most kids stop trick-or-treating at the age of, maybe, thirteen. Yeah, we were the exception. Ranging from the ages 16-22, we were still dressing up and demanding candy from strangers.

"Who wants the butterfingers I get? I hate that shit," Ray shivered, making a face. Many hands went up to his question, but Mikey ended up winning.

"The first house!"

"Trick-or-treat!" our grouped chimed, looking at the woman who was dressed up like an angel at the door. A smile lit up her face and she laughed.

"It's nice to see you all again this year, my favorite kids."

"Aw, we love ya too Mrs. A!"

The woman gave each of us a hefty handful of candy, all different kinds of flavors, before shooing us off so she could pay more attention to the little ones at the door.

"I'm guessing most of the people that we'll be visiting tonight will know who you guys are?" I asked as we marched down the sidewalks, our bags swinging at our sides.

"Yeah, pretty much," Bert grinned, doing a little skip as he replied.

"This is going to be a long night."

~~~~~

"Ugh, this is crap! I think half of my candy turned out to be butterfingers."

"Dude, you have a job, you can just go buy yourself some candy!"

"That's not the point!"

I scoffed at the arguing friends, popping a dum-dum into my mouth. I sighed at the sweet flavor—bubble gum.

"Alright, Envy and I have to head off to the shop now. You guys keep going because Ben said he didn't want you all crowding his shop."

"Psh," Dan said, "we didn't want to come anyway!"

"See you guys later!" I waved as Frankie, once again, dragged me off.

"I'm guessing you're excited seeing as we're sprinting?" I teased my friend while we tried not to run over the little children who had run in front of their parents.

"Yes, I'm excited! I've wanted this tattoo for, like, ever!"

"What did you want to get again?"

"A Jack-o-lantern."

I smiled, even though Frank couldn't see it since he was in front of me. "That fits perfectly."

The walk took around ten minutes, although it might have been less if there weren't what seemed like a million younglings running around trying to gather candy. When we entered the shop, for the second time that week, I saw that it was crowded. Almost all the chairs were filled with men and women, all dressed up by the way, getting ink on their bodies. The sound of buzzing from the gun was in the air, and it was actually a soothing sound. I noticed that there were two chairs in the back empty, for me and Frankie I was guessing.

"Look, you guys made it on time!"

We both turned to see Ben, dressed up as a biker—though I wondered if he really had to try to dress up—walking quickly over to us. He had his gloves set up, for when he did our tattoos, and I saw a woman sitting at one of the chairs, waiting on us.

"Yes, I was excited to finally get it, so I wanted to get here as early as possible."

Ben laughed, pointing over to the woman. "You're going to be with Venom for yours, I thought I would give Envy here her tattoo. I'm the best, and I thought we could get hers finished with fewer sessions if I did it."

"Thanks Ben," I voiced as I walked to the free chair. Sitting in it, I laid on my side, pulling up my costume so that my artist could place the tracing paper on my side. I shivered, getting goose bumps from the contact on my sensitive skin.

"Are you ready for this sweet heart?" Ben's soothing voice asked me. I turned my head so I could see him somewhat and gave him a nod. "Totally. Let's do this."

When the gun first touched my skin, I winced slightly at the pain. I had heard that whenever you got a tattoo, it was worse on the places that were closer to the bones. Seeing as this tattoo was going to be from my hip to the bottom of my bust, I knew that it would hurt more than the wrist one. And it did, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

"How are you doing over there Frankie?" I asked loudly, trying to get his attention.

"Pretty good, it's actually kind of soothing."

I laughed softly, but was scolded for it by the man above me. "Only you would Iero, only you."

"Not crying like a sissy like you thought, huh?"

"You know I was kidding," I replied, rolling my brown eyes.

"How is her tattoo looking Ben?"

"I'm fast boy, but I'm not that fast. I got half the outline done right now. But I have to say, it's going to look really good."

"You're only saying that because you're the one doing it."

Ben looked down at me, his grin showing all of his teeth. "Yeah, pretty much."

I suppressed my laughter as to not mess up the tattooing process and continued to talk to Frankie as we sat there. Every once in a while, I would see him wince in pain and give him a reassuring smile. He would do the same for me when Ben hit a very sensitive spot, but I wish he could have held my hand instead.

When I looked up at the clock, I could see that it was almost eleven and I began to wonder how our friends were doing and how much candy they had gotten. Venom said Frank could get up to take a break, since we had been still for so long, and I got to do the same after Ben cleaned me off.

"Damn, that looks pretty damn good so far."

I smiled at my friend and told him to turn around so I could see his tattoo. The Jack-o-Lantern, as most usually were, looked pretty scary and I gave Frank the thumbs up. I could tell that he was almost done and would probably only need another session after this one.

"Yours-"

"Yo, Envy, someone is on the phone for you," Sal, an artist I had spoken to before, called out while holding the phone to me.

Frankie gave me a confused look and I could only return it to him. Maybe it was my dad checking up on me, making sure I hadn't eaten any candy? I'd be sure not to tell him about the lollipop.

"Hello?"

"Envy?"

My breath caught at who was on the other end. "D-Drake, why did you call me? And how did you even get this number?"

"I called your dad and asked if he had any way to get a hold of you, so he gave me this number," his voice cracked at the end, and I was starting to get worried. Sure, we ignored each other, but that didn't mean I wasn't still concerned about him; even though he had broken my heart.

"Drake, what's wrong? You wouldn't call me at home unless it was important, and you sure wouldn't call me if I was gone, so this must be serious."

"It is," he sighed. "It's Gina."

My heart stopped at Ms. Den's name and I instantly knew that what he was going to tell me next wasn't going to be good.

"She came into the hospital a couple hours ago in pain and the doctors just got finished tracking the progress of the cancer. Envy, she's fading fast."