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

The next week I called Mrs. Way to see if there was anything I could do for them. She politely declined, but she asked me about Gerard.

“He is so... far away. He’s completely shut the rest of us out. He hasn’t even gone to band practice. That’s all he would ever do.”

“He’s staying with you guys?” I asked, I hadn’t even thought about where he had been.

“Yes, but it’s almost like he’s not here at all.”

“Mmmhmm, “ I didn’t know what to say, “I think he just needs some time. Perhaps a long time."

“Yes... perhaps.” She worried.

Despite her modesty about accepting help, I made the family dinner and brought it over that night, along with some of Gerard’s things. Family members I had never met were there, and they all bombarded me with questions about Gerard. I had no answers. But, within a few minutes they had convinced me to go downstairs and talk to him.

The stairs creaked in an old familiar way. I knocked on his door.

“I’m not hungry!” He shouted.

“Gerard?”

He didn’t say anything, but I wasn’t expecting him to.

“I’m just gonna put your stuff here on the stairs.” I turned to leave, but then I heard his door open.

“We need to talk.” He said.

I waited a moment before I turned around. My heart was racing as I stepped down the few stairs and entered his room. It was bare and didn’t look lived in, other than the few unfinished canvases.

“C’mere, sit down,” He instructed as he sat down on his bed.

I tenatively took the seat next to him.

“Look, we knew this was gonna happen.” He began, sounding unaffected.

I pretended, at the time, to not know what he was talking about. I just stared down at my hands that were laced together in my lap. I saw that I was still wearing the two bracelets that we had made a while ago. Before he left for Europe, he gave me his to wear.

Mine said ‘Lovers,’ his said ‘Demolition’.

He sighed, “ 'They spoil every great romance by trying to make it last forever,' ” He quoted Oscar Wilde.

‘How dare he,’ I thought, ‘Wilde was our guy. The poet ‘we’ loved while we were still ‘us’. How dare he think he can use it to tear me apart.’

“I lov-... ed you.” He said, stabbing me in the heart.

Ouch.

“We were perfect... for a while. But, not anymore. We... can’t-”

“No, Gerard. You can’t,” I cut him off.

“And with the whole Frank thing and all...” Gerard continued.

“What about it? It was before-” I snapped.

“If it was before, why couldn’t you tell me about it?”

“Why would I tell you? It would only hurt you. I’m not so selfish that I’d tell you about something that wouldn’t help you at all.”

“That makes no fucking sense!” He fumed, getting up and walking away from me.

“What?! It makes perfect sense. You’re just... you’re just not...” Something caught my eye, and I looked down, “What are these?” On the table next to his bed was a pile of multicolored pills.

He turned and looked panicked, “Nothing! Jesus Christ! We’re so fucking over! Get the fuck out!”

“I only want to help you-”

“No one can help me! Especially not some whore.”

Bang, bang.

My baby shot me down.

I shifted to face him with a smug, cruel look, “Pft, Wilde? Huh? How many times did you practice that in the mirror?” I got up and headed for the door.

I opened the door, “You know, ‘Illusion is the first of all pleasures’. There was never an ‘us,’ you just made it up to dull the pain,” I looked over my shoulder, “...and I made it up to fill the void of boredom.”

I walked out of the back door of his room, for the last time as it seems. I was almost up the stairs when he came to the door. I stopped in mid-stride.

“ ‘Experience is the name everyone gives their MISTAKES’,” He spat through grinding teeth, “That’s exactly what you are. A mistake. The biggest one of my life.”

I didn’t turn around, just took off our bracelets, threw them on the stair at my feet, then completed the walk to my car.

I got home and, miraculously, didn’t cry a single tear.