Kissing You Goodbye.

Gerard

I dialed Mikey’s cell phone number, then listened to it ring four times before my brother answered.

“Yeah, what is it, Gerard?” Mikey asked. He sounded like he was in pain. It worried me deeply. I was his big brother. I couldn’t stand by if he was hurting.

“Um, I called to see if you had a ride home. Are you alright, Mikes? You sound like you’re hurt,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

“Uh, yeah, I’m not all that great right now, Gee. I ran into David. He said he was sick of us dumbasses messing around with his life. So now I’m sitting in the restroom, takin’ care of a bloody nose. I’m just glad it’s not broken!” Mikey said. I could kill David. Dumb bastard. Why hurt Mikey over something that was my fault? Was he afraid to beat up someone who was dying, so he had to take it out on Mikey?!

“Mikey, I’ll come get you. I’m sorry, this is my fault. It’s about Frank. I’ll get him out of the basement and come ASAP,” I said, grabbing my keys and heading down the steps. Frank sat cross-legged on my bed, leafing through a sketchpad. He stopped when he saw me. His face turned a little pink, but faded when I grabbed his hand and had him stand up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mikey got into a fight at school. C’mon, we gotta go pick him up,” I said, pulling Frank gently along behind me.

*******

When we got to the school, Mikey was just finishing cleaning himself up. There was a small barely visible blood stain down his upper lip, and there were red rings around his nostrils. I helped him get the rest of the blood off of him as best as I could, then grabbed his arm and led him from the school.

********

Once we were back at the house, I found Mikey some Tylenol and then made to watch a movie with him and Frank. I felt anxious to talk to Mikey alone. I needed to talk to him about me and Frank’s earlier experiences. I needed help.

I put a cheesy looking chick flick we rented in the DVD player. According to the case, some human chick fell in love with a vampire and a whole bunch of shit tried to keep them apart. Woo, sucky movie plot! But all the girls in the school seemed to like it, and several of the boys, so we wanted to watch it to see if it was that good.

“Wow, why would a vampire who looks like a gay guy and has shitty special effects go out with a girl who’s a terrible actress and sounds like a man?! This movie is lame!” Frank said. I smiled, but turned it to a more actiony part.

Eventually, the gay vampire went to find the bad actress who blinks too much because a slightly attractive evil vampire kidnapped the bad actress because he wanted her blood. This movie was very pointless.

Frank yawned as the bad actress was thrown into a pole inside a big ballet studio. He obviously didn’t like this as much as I didn’t. He leaned his head on my shoulder, attracting a glance from Mikey. Mikey’s eyebrows were raised questioningly. I mouthed “I’ll tell you later” to him. He nodded.

Frank ended up falling asleep right before the end of the movie. Right before the bad actress and the gay guy went to prom. He was lucky to miss that crap. I poked Frank to wake him up. He stirred and rolled over in a weird way so he ended up with his head on my lap. I shook him a little, and he eventually rolled his head over to face me and opened his eyes sleepily.

“What?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and taking off half his eyeliner by doing so. I smiled, pushing him off my lap.

“Movie’s over, nerd. Let’s find some food, alright?” I said. Frank and Mikey followed me out to my car. We eventually just decided to stop at Pizza Hut. We all ordered p’zones. Frank got veggie lovers, Mikey got pepperoni, and I got meat lovers.

After eating, we headed to the store to get supplies, then home to party. Mikey’s and my mom were out of town for the weekend, so we had the house to ourselves. We planned to party. Earlier in the week, I had Mikey send out a text to half the school inviting them over. The first of the partiers had just started to arrive.

Frank put all of the alcohol in the fridge. We’d conviently offed it from a cousin of his. The party was sure to be a hit.

********

I woke up lying on the kitchen counter, clutching a small bottle of vodka. The events of the night before were fuzzy. I felt horrendous. I looked upon the mess that was my house. Several partiers were strewn about the house. Bottles were everywhere. Things were broken. I found Mikey passed out on the stairs, cuddling some chick.

Frank was sleeping with his head on some dude’s crotch. I shook him gently, awakening him. His tired, green eyes opened and he smiled.

“’Sup?”

“You know you’re sleeping on someone’s crotch, right?” I asked. Frank looked down in surprise, then quickly rolled off the guy. I laughed.

“I feel like shit,” Frank said.

“Me too. Should we wake Mikey? He’s passed out on the stairs,” I said. Frank shook his head, then pushed back his hair off his face.

“Nah. He’ll probably feel better if he sleeps it off.”

“Lets get these people out of my house and go get something to eat. Okay?” I asked. Frank nodded.

We corralled all the hungover unhappy people out, then took my car to Denny’s. We ordered as much as Frank’s full wallet could pay for, ate all of it, and then went back to the house. Mikey must’ve woken up and shooed the girl out because when we walked in, he was sitting alone at the kitchen table with a coffee.

“Hey, Mikes,” I said, dropping a small bag of food we’d picked him up on the table in front of him. He peeked into the top of the bag, smiled, and pulled out his McDonald’s cheeseburger.

“Yo.”

“Who was the chick?” Frank asked. Mikey looked a little guilty.

“Umm, I don’t know, really. But I’m not a virgin anymore!” Mikey said, his eyes dropping to his sandwich as he held it up to take a bite.

“You say it like it’s a bad thing!” Frank laughed. Mikey frowned. I rushed to his side to comfort him.

“I didn’t even know her! I wanted it to mean something!” Mikey said. Frank dropped the jokes, quickly noticing they weren’t going to make Mikey any less upset.

“It’s okay, Mikey. It doesn’t really matter,” Frank said. Mikey’s brows furrowed together.

“It matters to me, Frank! I didn’t want that to be with some slut who took advantage of me! I wanted it to be special!” Mikey said.

“Look, Mikes. How about you go upstairs and rest, okay?” I said, wanting this to not turn out badly. Mikey silently got up and left the room.

“Frank, please don’t. This was really important to him,” I said, putting the rest of Mikey’s meal in the fridge.

“I’m sorry. I really wasn’t trying to upset him…” Frank said, running a hand through his hair.