Eat My Heart Out

While I'm staring at the stash in the bottom of my closet trying to decide between dry gin or just vodka, the urge to call Bert grows. He used to bring such good things. Not just this cheap shit that he always let me have, but also some high-class stuff that he let me taste. It tasted so good. Much better than this cheap shit I had the bum from some alley buy for me in exchange for some of mom's leftovers and a few extra bucks.

I felt generous.

Right now, I feel frustrated. Why did I ever erase Bert's number from my phone? That is probably the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. I bet he'd forgive me for cutting off contact with him, if I told him I wanted to party with him again. I'm so stupid.

I grab the vodka and bring it over to my desk. Just as I place the bottle on the wooden surface, the front door slams shut. I didn't even hear it open.

I need a soda. Oh, fucking great. I have to go upstairs and face the depression-twins.

I stare at the bottle for a minute, considering whether or not I could just drink it straight, but decide against it. Last time I did that, I wound up with a major hangover and a lack of memory. I woke up in my own bed with no recollection of how I got there or how the blood got on my shirt.

I still don't know.

I go up the stairs and into the kitchen, ignoring Mikey when he exits the living room and follows me into the kitchen.

I walk over to the fridge, feeling my brother's eyes on me, and take a coke. Mikey stops behind me. He doesn't move.

I slam the fridge-door closed and turn to face him.

“What!” I demand. What is he staring at? Why the fuck is he following me?

He looks startled with his wide eyes and clenched jaw, but he visibly mentally shakes it off at glares at me.

“I'm making sandwiches.” More than one?

“For who?”

“Whom,” he corrects me, then continues before I can bite his head off:
“For me and Frank.” I smirk evilly.

“Frank and I.”

“What?” I look past Mikey to see Frank standing in the doorway. His clothes look like they're about ten sizes too big for his skeleton body.

My eyes rid themselves of the shock and turn vicious.

I speak to Mikey, but my eyes are still locked with Frank's lifeless ones.

“Why are you making one for him?” I nod my head towards Frank. He doesn't react to it.
“He won't eat it,” I sing-song, mocking both of them. But then again, I'm just telling the truth. If the truth hurts, then that's their own fault.

Frank snarls, then turns around and stamps down the hall, disappearing into his room at the end.

“What the fuck, Gerard?” Mikey asks, angry and disbelieving.
“Why are you being such an ass? Why are you drinking again?” My head turns so fast that my head spins and hurts all at once.

I didn't know I was that obvious about it. I thought I was so good at hiding it. My breath always smelled sweet or minty. My eyes were never bloodshot. My hands never trembled. My feet never stumbled.

“What happened between you and-” he stops his own sentence when Frank reenters the room. Without a word or even a single glance, Frank walks past us and sits down at the table. He's got something in his hands, but it disappears onto his lap under the table.

I look back at Mikey and receive a look I can't read, before he walks past me and opens the fridge door.

I don't know why I stay. The silence in the room is somehow intriguing. It's like one of those shows you can't click away from because of the tension – you just have to know what happens next.

Will Mikey seriously make them both sandwiches?

Will Frank eat his?

Will he hurl it up?

Will the silence continue?

Before I know it, Mikey slaps a piece of ham on one piece of white bread, a piece of salad on the other, places a piece of white bread on top of each and carries them over to the table. Both Mikey and Frank are obviously ignoring me – making sure to keep their faces turned away from me the entire time – but they both steal a glance over their shoulder when Frank accepts the salad sandwich.

And that's when I click. Not when Mikey hands it, not when Frank accepts it and not when Frank brings out a pencil. It's when Frank takes the notebook from his lap, opens it up and writes down everything that's in the sandwich – taking the top piece of bread off to check inside – that I click.

I run across the room, only taking about one or two steps before I'm at the table. I grab the notebook by slamming my palm over the half-naked page, tear it out of Frank's weak grasp and hurl it away. It flies through the air, the pages tearing and flapping before it hits the wall with a dull clank and hollow thud.

A silence follows when the notebook has hit the floor, but it doesn't last long. After just a second of deafening stillness, a chair screeches and Frank's furious, flaming eyes meet mine. He's shorter than me, but his eyes are at my level. The alcohol must be shrinking me. Or maybe it's the guilt weighing me down.

In one, single, sudden motion, Frank's hand comes through the air and a millisecond after I see it, it hits me. A loud smack resonates through the quiet room and leaves my cheek burning.

No other sound is made as Frank's sock-clad feet pound against the linoleum floor, before tramping on the wooden floorboard in the hallway.

The sound of the door crashing into its frame resounds down the hall, and though said hall isn't long at all, it seems like a mile when the echoing finally stops and everything is quiet.