I See You Lying Next To Me

I was back with Gerard and not with Dan so I didn’t have to go to Dan did I?

All of a sudden I felt faint and had to sit down on the edge of the bed my eyes staring at the photograph that I’d taken of Gerard not that long ago, just a few hours ago on the boat. I was back with you again, wasn’t I? I thought looking at him just standing there watching me.

I lay down on the pillows thinking that I should go and visit Dan, just to see how he was and may be tomorrow when he felt a lot better, then I’d tell him that it was over and I was with someone else and that he could have his ring back I thought fingering my ring finger but then realising that there was no ring there for I hadn’t even put it back on my finger since the other night at the VMAs.

I closed my eyes feeling ever so tired all of a sudden. I’d go and visit Dan this evening, a little later. Liz would be coming soon to help me set up the small exhibition of a young student that was just starting out but for now, all I wanted to do was to sleep for a while, to sleep and to dream and imagine being with Gerard again.

**

The first time Gerard took to the stage he had to have a drink and it was my fault. He was nervous and had smoked about five cigarettes in as many minutes. He was pacing up and down and I kept on telling him to relax. They had been so very excited and had been all day, that was up until now, ten minutes before they were due to go on and they were practically shitting themselves.

“Have a beer,” I said handing him an ice cold beer, “it’ll relax you.”

“Yeah, lets have a beer,” said Mikey going to the table and taking one. The rest of them then came and got a beer too.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t drank before but he wasn’t a huge drinker, two or three beers on a night out, the occasional shot of whiskey or an after shot depending on where we were, sometimes wine if we were out for a meal or at his parents house on a Sunday but we never set out to get roaring drunk because we couldn’t really afford to but when it was here, for free and for the taking at the gig it was easy and that was how it began.

Always, after the first song Gerard seemed to get real sweaty, soaking with sweat, his long black hair dripping over his face and when he shook his head I was sure that the kids in the front row got some of his sweat droplets on them.

So coming off stage at the very beginning, rather than drink water after sweating, Gerard took what was on offer which was mainly beer and sometimes in one evening it would work out that he’d have about ten beers and mixed with his antidepressants the combination spelt trouble.

We all drank though, every one of us, Matt the drummer, Mikey, Frank, Ray, Jamia, Alicia and Liz and myself. All of us at the end of the night, midnight and 1am were stone cold drunk in the bus but some nights I could turn the drink down and so could the others, some nights just taking a rain check on having a drink but I noticed suddenly that Gerard never turned a drink down, he always had one, he always started drinking before anyone else and he always had that one extra at the end of the night.

Then he began drinking Jack Daniels on top of the ten beers a night, a couple of Jack Daniels after the gig without even thinking about it, each glass holding more than the last. I lost count of the times I found him out cold then had to call for one of the guys to help him into the bunk. By morning he was OK, he was normal during the day and some nights even after he’d drunk he seemed normal as he cuddled me close in the bunk and we made love.

Then the following night, it would all begin again and the mistake that I made was as the touring went on, the longer I spent with him I started to meet him match for match for drink and loads of times we’d crash out anyway, fully clothed, in our own little world, drunk and disgusting.

It wasn’t until the next tour after Matt had left and they’d replaced him with the wonderful Bob that things got worse and once again I blamed myself.

**

“Kitty, wake up, what are you doing?” said a voice, Liz’s voice and she was shaking me awake.

“Kitty its almost one o’clock and Jerry is bringing his stuff in from the car, all his paintings and a couple of those sculptures that you said he could show. What’s wrong Kitty? Are you ill?” She said.

I looked up at her, my eyes adjusting.

“No, I’m not ill,” I said sitting up.

That’s when she spotted the photograph of Gerard. “That’s a great photograph of him, was that earlier?” she said sitting on the side of the bed next to me.

“Yeah we went out on a boat,” I said.

“I need to tell you all about my evening with Bob,” she said, her eyes sparkling and she looked so happy. “But right now, you need to get yourself up and changed and help Jerry with his exhibition,” she said pulling the covers from me.

“I know but I don’t feel up to it,” I said. I was confused, my fiancée who I was about to leave was lying in a hospital with possibly paralysed legs and the guy I wanted to be with, should be with was flying off to LA and I didn’t know really how things stood with him but I knew I wanted him, very much.

“What’s wrong Kitty? Did you have a heavy night?” She said rolling her eyebrows at me. “Look, we’ve no time to talk now, I’m going to help Jerry get started, please don’t be too long, you need to be down there to meet some of his visitors,” she said getting up off the bed and heading over to the bedroom door.

“Liz,” I said but my voice was practically a whisper so she didn’t hear me at first then she stopped and looked back.

“What is it Kitty?” She said.

“Its Gerard,” I said. She wandered back over to me and sat back down on bed.

“What about him sweetheart?” She said. I knew she was concerned as I could tell the way she was looking at me.

“I want to be with him but I… can’t,” I said. I could. I could just fly off to him right then, close up the gallery and go to him but that was my dream and this was the real world.

“Yes you can, what’s stopping you?” She said. I knew she was going to get annoyed with me, she’d wanted me back with Gerard all along but it couldn’t be. I was engaged to Dan, Dan was ill and needed me, he was a good guy and he needed me.

“Dan has been in an accident, earlier today, he’s at the hospital and he may never walk again, he’s going to need me,” I said.

I’d convinced myself, now all I had to do was convince Liz.

I couldn’t be with Gerard, not now and I was partly scared, I didn’t want him to get back into his old ways, I’d started it, I’d caused it all the drinking binges, they were all my fault and he had this huge tour, The Black Parade coming up, he wouldn’t need me around.

So I’d made my decision.

Gerard would be safer without me after all.