I'm the Kind of Human Wreckage That You Love.

The next day of work came and went, Nat visited and left, calls were made and ended with no sign of life from Gerard. I got home and it looked the same as it did this morning when I left it.

“So you haven’t seen him, huh? Where the fuck could he be and what could possibly be his problem?” I vented to Sid on the phone.

“I don’t know... Oh! Mikey just got home, I’ll ask him. Hold on a sec.”

I heard Sid ask Mikey if he’s seen Gerard.

I can hear him answer very collected, “Oh, yeah, he’s in his room, but he hasn’t come out since he got here.”

“What?!” Sid exclaimed sharply, “Why didn’t you tell me!?”

“I just got home!” Mikey complained.

Sid directed her voice back to me, “I’m sorry he’s so retarded.” She got louder at the end so Mikey would hear, “You want me to go get Gerard?”

“Um, I don’t know... yeah, sure.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

She brought the phone with her.

“Hey, Gerard,” She said, quietly knocking on his door, “Are you in there?”

“Well, is he?” I asked loudly so she’d hear me from the receiver in her hand.

“He told me ‘no’. He’s says he’s not here.” Sid reported back to me walking back upstairs.

“Oh my God. Why is he acting like such a child?” I wondered out loud, “For christsakes, he’s a college graduate! I don’t give a flying fuck if he is on...” My voice stopped short with my realization, “...medication. Fuck... I’m so stupid! Godamit, I’m coming over.” I told Sid.

“Do you guys want some privacy? ‘Cuz I’ll make Mikey leave with me somewhere.”

“That would be awesome, Sid.”

“Sure thing.”

We hung up and I grabbed my purse heading for Gerard’s house.

When I got there I went around to the side of the house. Standing outside of his bedroom door I tried to decide what I was going to say that would make everything all better and make him want to jump my bones right here on the stairs.

I knocked on the door.

“Gerard? I’m pretty sure you’re in there.”

I waited for him to open the door, but he didn’t.

“We don’t have to talk. You know how we do that thing where we just kiss and make up? We can do that...”

Silence.

“I promise.”

More silence.

“Fuck...” I said under my breath, “Babe, just please let me in....” I didn’t know what to do. I turned around to leave, but then looked back to the door, then turned to leave, but then back at the door, “You’re worrying me Gerard,” I felt like I was talking to myself again, “Let me in! Just let me in, Gerard...”

I wanted him to let me in physically and emotionally. I couldn’t leave because I couldn’t get the picture of him swallowing all of his antidepressants and overdosing out of my head. I started to cry and took a seat on the bottom stair. Then my ‘whys of worry’ began. When I first started dating Gerard, I would go to bed at night and all of these questions would rush into my head, too fast for me to answer them all. I had to give them a name so they didn’t seem so destructive and hurtful.

Why did I meet him?
Why does it all still seem like a dream?
Why do I feel like I have to watch him like a hawk all the time?
Why is he so different from any other person I’ve ever met?
Why now?
Why do I ask myself these questions?
Why don’t I have any control?

The questions scared me at first, but they eventually ceased, and I just figured they were normal to any young woman falling in love for, essentially, the first time. I sat and cried there and cried for a while, a long while, an hour maybe. I knocked on the door again, if just to tell Gerard that I was still there. Another long while passed. I couldn’t move. All I did was sit on the bottom step at the end of his stairs with my head in my hands. Then I heard thunder. When I looked up I saw the sky had filled with big dark clouds.

“Fucking May showers.” I cursed the weather.

Raindrops started falling. The only way I could tell was by the polka dots they began leaving all around me. I was numb to their dampness. I was numb to his cold. As more and more time passed I smoked every cigarette in the pack and chewed through all the gum I had in my purse. I had managed to convince myself that if I left this spot, something bad would happen, so I stayed. The thought of how long I was going to be there never crossed my mind, neither did the notion of leaving. My clothes were completely soaked through with the warm spring rain. It had gotten dark when I stood up again to knock on the door again. I raised my arm back and took a deep breath.

“Darling?”

I turned suddenly to meet the sound of Helen’s soothing voice. She stood at the top of the stair with a bright purple raincoat and a matching umbrella.

I couldn’t help myself from grinning slightly whenever I saw her.

“Um...” I sputtered out, at a loss for words.

“Please come inside, I’ll make us some tea.” She attentively directed me, walking down the stairs.

“I can’t,” I whispered abruptly staring at Gerard’s door, “I’m sorry. Go back inside before you catch cold.”

I don’t think I could of handled the truth I felt pouring from her eyes, so I didn’t look at her. We stood there for a while. I looked at my feet and I think she could tell that she had done her job because she rubbed my arm and turned to leave.

“I know that being here is childish. I really don’t know why I’m here.” I mumbled to Helen with a sorrowful sigh.

She turned back around and pulled me into a hug. I broke down and you couldn’t differentiate my tears from raindrops. Bawling, she held me until I calmed down.

“Honey, I know it’s so hard for you right now,” She pushed the hair out of my face and behind my ear, “Love is the enigma of life, and very few people get it right. You just have to know that if you can survive true love,” She pointed to my heart and smiled at me, “which is what all the pain here is, you can survive everything else that comes after it.”

I opened my mouth to question her, but then realized she was right. I completely trusted her and could not remember, for the life of me, a single ‘why of worry’ to ask her. She pulled me into another big hug.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” She asked again.

“Um, yeah... I’m just gonna... I’ll leave in a second...” I said wiping tears and makeup and rain from my face.

“Okay.” I could tell she didn’t believe me, but she smiled, her heart-warming smile, and turned to leave again.

I was going to leave, I just had to compose myself before I did. My hands were trembling and I tried to shake it off. I took a few long, ‘relaxing’, breaths before I tried to drag my heavy legs up the dozen stairs to my car. While looking up to the top of the steps, pacing my self, I heard Gerard’s door unlock behind me. I was actually afraid of turning around. I felt Gerard’s hands on my shoulders, turning me around to face him. He dropped to his knees.

“I don’t know why you waited. I’m nothing worth waiting for. I’m nothing period.” He told me, practically imperceptible.

I fell to the ground next to him. I looked at him, trying to see his eyes beneath his black veil of hair. I wanted to punch him right in the face. I wanted to kiss him so hard he would never catch his breath. I wanted to... I don’t know what I wanted.

“Why?... Why?...Why?! Why?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!” I screamed at him, then I began to punch the wall next to me, over and over again. It was all I could say.



“Stop. Stop!” He tried to pull me away from the wall, but I shoved him away.

“WHY?!” ... BANG!

“STOP!” ... SMACK!

“why...?” I finally stopped my wall abuse and looked down at my hand. Before I got a good look at the damage, Gerard pulled it close to him.

“Look what you did...” He combed his hair out of his face, with terror in his eyes looking down at my hand in his.

“Good. Now it’s numb and broken and battered. Just like ME!” I shrieked at him while standing up and running up the stairs.

He ran after me, but I was having none of it.

“Don’t you fucking touch me.” I’d spit out at him when he tried to slow me down.

“Stop. Let me help you.”

“Why now, huh?!”

We flew down the street like that, hollering at each other. I reached my car and struggled to open my door. I got in and I had to push Gerard out of the car several times before I could drive away. He ran after me for a block before I turned and he left my sight.

For the first time ever, I was relieved to not know where he was or what he was doing. I got home and, yet again, surprise, surprise, I didn’t know what to do. I still couldn’t feel my hand but I simply washed my hands in my bathroom sink, like an idiot, changed into some dry clothes and laid down on the couch to try and fall asleep.

About twenty minutes later, I heard a knock on my front window. I was just going to ignore it, but it just got louder and louder. I peeked over the back of the couch and could make out Gerard’s outline. Stepping over to the window I pulled back the curtain and looked out at Gerard. With his hair plastered to his head from the rain and barefoot, I’d never seen him look so pathetic. I wasn’t about to open the door, but I did bring a piece of paper and a pen to the window. I wrote down, “Not so fun, is it?” and slammed it on the window.

“I get it! Okay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.... I’m so, so sorry. Sweetheart? Please, please let me in.”

I rolled my eyes at him, snorted, and took the paper from the window and wrote something else down. ’Why am I such a good girlfriend?

“Because, you’re just a better person than I am.” He looked down at the floor, but then up at me, with little lost puppy eyes. They weren’t what made me let him in, but I did anyway.

“Why don’t you care about me?” I asked him, mournfully after I opened the door.

“I do. You’re all I care about.” He put his hands on my face and looked me in the eyes, he was telling the truth.

“Yeah, but I care about you too much for you not to care about yourself. Why don’t you love yourself? Why don’t you see all the good things I see?” I rubbed my head against his hands on my face. “I love you so much. So much...”

He didn’t say anything after that. He kissed my forehead and led me into my bathroom where he nursed my wound as best he could. He put me to bed, but didn’t join me. I could sense him standing watch outside of my door. I barely slept a wink and I had to force myself not to imagine what he was thinking.