I See You Lying Next To Me

Unlocking his hotel room door Gerard felt exhausted but he also felt glad that while he was talking to Eliza, Alicia had appeared and asked Eliza if she’d like to make the most of the day and go shopping. He felt Eliza’s eyes bore into his as he excused himself from the two girls and headed over to the elevator.

He needed to be alone.

Alone to think about Kitty and the evening they’d shared ending perfectly with her falling asleep on him, just like she always used to.

Entering the hotel room he felt so tired and emotional he just wanted to get into bed so he stripped off his clothes as quick as he could, got into the welcoming bed and drifted off into a deep contented sleep, quite content because he was sure that Kitty felt the same way as he did.

He wanted her back and he was quite sure that she felt the same way.

**

“So are you going to tell me about Bob? I’ve been waiting all morning for god’s sake,” I said to Liz as she entered the back room where I was washing some brushes. I’d finally finished the picture I’d been working on for weeks.

“Only if you make me a strong cup of coffee, I feel exhausted,” said Liz. She did look tired, we’d been busy this morning with a few more customers than usual, mainly tourists and I wondered what time she’d got home last night. Had she been with Bob? I was dying to know but wasn’t sure how much she’d tell me.

“After you’d gone the guys finished off an interview,” said Liz sitting down at the table, “and then Gerard spotted me and came over. That’s when the conversation came about you going home and I gave him the key, he disappeared pretty quickly after that and I remember Eliza asking me if I’d seen him. I just said yes I had seen Gerard but not for some time. Then Bob came over and he brought me a Vodka and Coke, he remembered what I drank and I thought that was very sweet of him.” She said looking down.

“Bob’s like that,” I said, “I’m sure he has some photographic memory going on in that head of his,” I said pouring the coffee into the mugs.

“So…what else?” I said turning to look at her.

“We just stood and chatted for ages, he asked me about my teaching and working here at the gallery. I told him I was kind of getting fed up of teaching.”

”Are you?” She hadn’t mentioned this to me, this was news.

“Yes, some of the kids are shits and don’t want to seem to learn. I’ve been fed up for a while and the only time I’m truly happy is here, working in your gallery. I’ve been thinking of giving up teaching for a long time but I’m not sure what I want to do.”

“But you used to love teaching art, you said you lived for it and you loved it when the kids you taught took your advice and passed all their exams and got amazing jobs.” I said getting some milk from the fridge.

“I know,” said Liz then sighed. “But some of the kids just don’t want to know. Not many kids are good at art, I could teach for a few years and then only find one or two excellent artists. I’ve kind of lost that drive I had in the beginning.”

“So what do you want to do?” I said pouring some milk into the mugs feeling quite shocked by Liz’s confession. I hadn’t realised she was that fed up teaching at the school she said she adored once upon a time.

“I don’t know, I really don’t know, I feel that may be I’ve come to a fork in the road, a turning point or something,” she said. “Jeeze that sounded like a line from one of your favourite Green Day songs,” she said smiling up at me.

“Yeah, it did I was just thinking that,” I said bringing the hot mugs over and sitting down at the table opposite Liz.

“You won’t know about them will you?” said Liz.

“Know what?” I replied picking up my mug and wrapping both my hands round it.

“The guys toured with Green Day, not that long after you split up, may be six months or so after,” she said looking at me and waiting for my response.

”I don’t believe you. They’ve met Green Day? Stop it,” I said almost blushing and thinking about my obsession that I once had with Billie Joe.

“Yep, they got pretty close to them. I think Green Day have kind of become their mentors, well this is the impression I get, I don’t know for sure,” said Liz.

“So Gerard has met Billie Joe,” I said quite gob smacked. “He always said he didn’t know how he’d react if he met someone famous, some rock star,” I said laughing at the thought of my Gerard as he was years ago meeting up with someone famous.

“Kitty, Gerard is famous himself now, they’re famous in their own right and they’re going to get bigger, this album is going to shoot them up to the top, they’re going to be household names.”

“Oh come on, really?” I said. My Gerard, he of the paint spattered jeans, ripped jeans at that, my Gerard who used to scrape loose change together to buy yet another packet of cigarettes, my Gerard who wore odd socks, hated visiting the dentist, hated needles and piercings who loved his family and who had shared his little secrets and thoughts and future aspirations with me, he, my Gerard was famous, just like Billie Joe? I knew MCR were becoming well known, but I don’t think I realised how much so.

“Kitty are you OK?” said Liz suddenly.

“Yeah. Just thinking about Gerard and…how we used to be. I don’t think they ever really wanted the fame thing, not like some bands, they just loved doing what they love doing, singing and enjoying playing to their fans. I guess their little group of fans has grown. I knew they toured Europe but…as famous as Billie Joe? Poor Gerard.”

“Why poor?” Said Liz frowning at me.

“Because…because I can’t imagine it, my Gerard used to be so shy sometimes, he hated crowds of people, he used to get embarrassed by groups of girls around him giggling and asking for his autograph. He always spent time with them though, always posed for photographs and put his arms around them.” He took time out for everybody, one of the reasons why I truly loved him.

”The girls still love him and did you realise you said ‘my’ Gerard.”

“Did I?”

“Yep.”

We were quiet for a moment, each with our own thoughts.

“So…when are you going to tell Dan?” Liz finally said.

“He’s back tomorrow so…tomorrow, yeah, I suppose tomorrow,” I said suddenly feeling apprehensive but not because I didn’t want to do it but to hurt someone, someone like that who was a good guy and also knowing that I had to face Mel and Ted and explain to them that…that may be I was going to get back with Gerard and yes, I wanted to.

I wanted Gerard back.

Just like we’d been for all those years.

“So tell me more about you and Bob, what happened after your chat?”

“Nothing apart from we went outside into the cool night air and he asked me outright if I ever thought about those old days. I said of course I did that I missed them and how much fun they were. Then he said he had one regret and that was that he hadn’t spent more time with me.”

Liz blushed then.

“Oh Liz, he likes you, I knew he did. How do you feel about him?”

“Well he has these amazingly bright blue eyes and…oh fuck it Kitty, we kissed and…well if you’ve never kissed a guy with a lip ring you should give it a go,”

Liz was bright red by this point.

“Yeah, like Dan is going to get a lip ring” I said rolling my eyes.

“But you won’t be kissing Dan again will you?” Liz said to me and looking directly at me waiting for my answer.

“Of course I wont,” I said but scared once more of doing the dirty on him.

“Gerard then.” Said Liz still staring at me, I wished she’d stop just looking at me like that, waiting for my answers.

“Of course Gerard wont get a lip ring, he says he hates the thought of piercings.”

Then the thought of kissing Gerard again swept over me and I felt my stomach dance.

“So…you and Bob, what now?” I said to her, changing the subject away from Gerard.

“I don’t know, he wants to meet up tonight but then they are going away to LA tomorrow. As you know, he’s from Chicago and I just don’t know how it will work out. I do know one thing though; Bob advised me that if I was unhappy with the teaching then I should definitely give it up. I’m taking his advice and I’m doing it. I shall resign when I get back to school.”

“Are you sure about this,” I said putting my hand out onto Liz’s.

“Very sure.” She said and she looked it. Looked as thought she’d made her mind up.

”And then what?” I asked.

“Who knows?” She said, shrugging.

“Liz, I can’t offer you any more work here you know, I couldn’t afford to keep you on full time as well,” I said feeling sorry for her now, if I could I would take Liz on full time, she was great with the customers.

”I know. I’ve still got time to think about this but actually Bob said I could tour with them for a while.”

“Really?” I felt jealous then thinking about how I used to tour sometimes with them when they toured America and how much I’d love to do it again but that wasn’t realistic, I had my gallery, this was my career, my living and doing the touring thing, that was in the past.

How would it work? If I got back with Gerard I’d want to be with him as much as possible but I’d need to be here too. May be it wouldn’t work out for us after all.

Shaking my head of these thoughts, Liz interrupted me.

“I do like Bob, its like something I’ve never experienced before,” she said then drained her coffee.

The door to the gallery pinged, we had another customer so she got up and left the room without saying anymore.

I was so glad for Liz, she seemed happy, I hoped it worked out for her and Bob. Would it work out for Gerard and I again? Would things be the same as they used to be?

A small part of me was scared.

I wanted it, I wanted him.

But I wanted it how it used to be.

And didn’t know if it could ever be like that again.

**

Gerard woke up in a hot sweat, sitting bolt upright, clammy and panting slightly.

Those nightmares again.

The nightmares that had haunted him since that day.

The first time he had the nightmare was the day after it had happened and Kitty was with him, comforting him from the sights that he had seen. When she slept with him he didn’t have the nightmares and they’d got worse after they’d split, first of all they were weekly then every few days, now they were almost nightly, they came so often that he didn’t want to go to sleep most nights.

Going to the mini fridge he got out a bottle of water, ice-cold water and he gulped it down, the water dripping down his chin.

He turned on the radio then, just to have some background noise, some ‘company’ and a song that Kitty always said was one of her lifetime favourites, ‘One’ by U2 came on, another reminder of his time with Kitty, reminders were constantly around him.

He just could rid her from his mind but then he didn’t want to.

Then he went to the double doors that led onto the balcony the words from the song ringing through his mind, he needed some air, some air to rid his mind of these awful thoughts of that day. Those thoughts would never leave him he was sure of that but being with Kitty made everything seem OK and he could cope easier with those thoughts for she’d understood.

Glancing at the view from the hotel of the skyline, it took him right back, right back to that day when everything changed…changed for him and for the world.

**

“Remember,” Kitty said to me, “I’m visiting the dentist in the morning so you won’t need to take me to the station, and I don’t have to wake up as early as you,” she said touching my face then kissing me on my nose in her usual fashion, her eyes sparkling their blueness at me. I was always so forgetful, so often she’d have to remind me of things, remind me to take my anti-depressants that I’d been on since before even I’d met her. She understood why I needed them but always said “one day Gerard, we won’t need them anymore.” The ‘we’ word that we often used, almost as if we were ‘one’.

I loved this woman.

“You’d forgotten hadn’t you?” she said looking at me and smiling away at me.

”What do you think?” I said. “So does this mean I won’t have you falling asleep on my shoulder on the train, leaning on me while I try and read my comics, I shall miss that,” I said to her as I pulled her in for a hug. We’d just made love and her eyes always sparkled and her face was flushed just afterwards, I loved that look on her, I brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her gently.

“Goodnight Kitten,” I said to her. “Promise I won’t wake you when I leave,” I said nuzzling against her to go to sleep.

”You’d better not otherwise I’m going to tell the dentist to extract three teeth from you whether they’re needed or not next time you visit,” she said as she drew the blankets up around us.

I just laughed for she knew how much I hated the dentist.

She also knew how much I loved her.

The train was slow, sluggish and the air was hot and humid. Some people were coughing, sneezing, shuffling around. I looked around at me, some of the faces were familiar as I’d commuted like this for a couple of years now, Kitty and I travelling to the City, snuggling up together, her trying to read my comic and me not letting her.

He missed her just sitting here beside him.

But little did Gerard know that what he was about to witness would change everything.

It would change his whole outlook on life, change his career and even change how he felt about Kitty.

And without either of them realising, it was also the beginning of the end.