He Calls a Mansion, Not a House, but a Tomb

Everything came rushing back. The hushed late nights, the wondering if he was alright; wondering if he was safe; wondering if he ever thought of me. Everything I didn't want to see, splayed out in front of my eyes, tattooed on the back of my eyelids; I didn't want to close them at night, and now I didn't want them open to see what I was doing.
I stopped, collapsing onto Gerard, my nose dug into the crook of his neck. It smelled like sweat and tasted like blood.
"I'm so sorry. Gerard, I am so sorry," I kept repeating, over and over against his skin. He was still, the only proof of consciousness was his grip around my shoulders, holding me against him (in an attempt to stop from further violence or to comfort me, I didn't know and I didn't care.)
"Gerard," I whimpered, tears streaming out of my eyes, a blurry image of my bloody knuckles in front of me as I rested my shaking hand on the floor.
Gerard coughed a bit before he spoke, and even then it was still a few minutes of a gap and his voice came out strained and hoarse. "Frank, what happened to you?"
I shivered, my breath couldn't help but quiver as I pathetically tried to stop crying.
"I- I'm sorry..." I began, sitting up, rolling over off of Gerard and onto the cold floor. Then I saw his face. It was a bloody mess; a little bit of it was already drying but being covered with a fresh pulse of blood when it did. "Oh, God, Gerard, we need a bathroom, or a hospital." I said, examining his nose as gently as I could.
"I don't think it's broken; I just need to clean up..." Gerard said sheepishly, standing up slowly. I rubbed my left ankle gently, massaging it as I heard Gerard stumble towards the adjointed bathroom, turn on the faucet and wash for a few minutes, and returned.
I looked up at him, grimacing as I spotted the early stages of a bruise on his left eye. Gerard was silent as he sat down beside me on the floor, a large scrunched up bunch of toilet paper pressed to his nose.
"I'm so sorry..." I whispered, scared even to try to touch him.
I closed my eyes and couldn't help but think -- funny how things work out: One minute we can't stop touching each other, the next we're brawling. Well, I don't think pinning a person down and punching them until they bleed unstoppably is a necessarily a brawl, but it's the closest thing I've ever been in to one, so I'll give that to myself.
Then I remembered where I was.
I wasn't in just some fight. I just punched out the man I'd basically had a disturbing infatuation with since I first met saw him.
"Frank -- who do you have those dreams about?" Gerard asked, his voice muffled and ironically nasally as his nose was blocked.
I gently placed a hand on the back of his head to lead him to tip it back.
"Frank." He said after he did so. I bit my lip and began to explain... To the best of my ability.
"His name is Laurent. We met at university; we were both taking a French course, but he was taking it just to get the credit towards graduation - he'd lived in France until he was like eighteen," I paused, moistening my lips. "He had the smallest hint of a French accent..." I whispered, staring into space for a moment.
"I... I think I invited him over for coffee or something. Maybe to read some of my writing -- when I had told him I was a writer, he was excited and said he wanted to read some of my work. When we got to my house, we read about half a page before we kissed." The sensations of the memories slowly returned as I spoke, remembering the taste of mint and coffee. I had noted the taste at that moment; thinking I might be able to enjoy that for the rest of my life. It's ridiculous how much of a hopeless romantic I was back then.
I looked back at Gerard, who was peering at me curiously over his nose and mound of toilet paper almost comically.
"Well, we dated for two years, and he had a key to my house, Tammy liked him, my friends liked him, my mother liked him." I huffed a chuckle, thinking of the moment my mother had met Laurent. "We had been out that day, me and her, shopping, eating, I don't remember - but we came home to my house late and Laurent - we had been dating, I think, for about one year and a bit at the time, and he had apparently prepared a special night for us. Some sort of schedule malfunction had occurred and rendered us unable to celebrate our first anniversary, so that was him making up for it. There were rose petals leading from the front door towards the dining room (now, living room) where a wafty smell of fresh vegetable something-French that Laurent liked to cook for me, and Laurent. Laurent standing in the frame of the dining room archway, a gorgeous suit on - one that I had picked out for him because I had insisted he learned to tie his own tie so consequently he wanted to buy a full suit. It had been so awkward; my mother had eaten the dinner with us, Laurent pulling in another chair from another room for her... Candlelight dinner with your boyfriend and your mom. Lovely."
I felt Gerard's hand rest on my shoulder. I looked at him and smiled, a little drop of blood trickling out of his nose, but he smiled sweetly at me when he removed the paper from his face. "What happened?"
I doubt what he meant was how the evening went, so continued with the more difficult part of my story.
"Into year three of the relationship - Laurent was running a restaurant, going well, and I had my first novel made into a film adaptation... And I... One day I found Laurent in bed with another guy. It started with yelling, and the unknown character being all "what the fuck, man". You know what I mean? And so things escalated to throwing and..." I paused, noticing Gerard's hand was now between my shoulder blades, rubbing in a gentle circular motion. I closed my eyes for a moment, relishing the comfort with a deep breath before I finished. "Laurent pulled out a gun and the guy freaked out and went in front of him, trying to calm him down and Laurent pulled the trigger. Blood and... brain, and mess beyond forgetting. It stays like a tattoo; a burn, a brand. No matter what I do..." I felt my eyes burning, and I didn't even care to refrain from crying.
"I changed the locks, I gated the fucking house, I repainted the house, redid the flooring in the bedroom, redecorated, renovated. Anything to try and make the house look different from the horrible memories. Something to help them fade." I leaned against Gerard's chest as I felt his hand pull me in towards him. "But they just won't."
"We'll go back to my house in the morning."