Keep the Faith

I'll stand by you.

Evening of May 17.

A 7-year old little girl was caged in the confinements of her bedroom. She was forcibly locked inside by her own emotional fears of this one thing happening and that was...the collapsing and rising arguments she heard from her parents.

And she thought she might have been blinded by the joyous sight of cake and ice cream, then unexpectedly visited by the ironies of celebrating a child's birthday and fighting at the event.

She was more afraid now than she was before. She didn't go without a night where her parents weren't raising their voices in the pitch black the evening held and apprehensively sketching the vivid sight of a warring disagreement between two spouses.

It was even her birthday that night, and it had to be brutally interrupted by an endless spat between her parents. She only wanted one night of peace. One night of where the best of her memories of birthdays wouldn't fall to a tragic state.

"You don't at all have any emotions to understand!"

"I do understand! You just are so careless to feel my pain! You wait for it to come, not see it right aWay!"

"You call yourself a formidable wife to be with?"

"YOU call yourself a loving husband?"

The little girl heard fights of these before, but she never heard them fight with levelling voices that rose higher and higher with every raising disagreement. Such a famimal relationship was bonded between these two...as if.

The little girl poked her head from the door. "Mommy...daddy...please...stop...fighting..." Tears flagrantly corroded from her eyes. "I wanted this day to be perfect. No fighting. Can't there be one day I won't hear anymore fights?"

The parents ignored the trembling sadness she couldn't conceal. Ever so oblivious of her haughty disdain, they went on growling viciously at one another and ascending their voices before their child, redeeming the sight of a bad example.

"STOP IT!" Screamed the little girl, anger burning into her eyes.

Her ruthless parents couldn't bear more than to ignore and caress even more anger to their what started as a sinful choice to kill the spirit of their own flesh and blood.

Her friends started to crowd in groups, each with fear holding onto their hearts. So did their parents.

All the little girl could do now was bottle up all her anger. Practically even her mind was engulfed in the thrusting sensation that empowered her sadness. She couldn't succumb from this exhausted infuriation anymore.

She had no other choice but to interrupt. As seen of her being ignored by her own parents, she ran to her father's bedroom and pulled out a gun. Descending the steps to the floor downstairs, she fixtured her gun toward her two bawling parents.

"STOP IT OR ELSE I WON'T STOP!" She screamed as she fired the bullet toward them, golden sparks blazing in the atmosphere.

Everyone cowered in fear at the sight of this.

"We won't stop!" Her mother shrieked, anger enthralling her veins and escaping through her voice. "If you won't stop blaring that gun this instant, I'm going to step out of here!"

And just like that...everything the little girl ever wished the night would hold broke the pieces of every sinew snapped on the corners of her heart and fell only as distant memories.

So much for one happy ending.

6 years later...

Solemnly tired did he lay on the bed, the ceiling suspended above him, casting the illusion of the sky to drift in his mind. The peaceful, ebonic oblivion of sleep should have flattered the lashes on his eyes, but unfortunately fell to failure.

The expanding moonbeam sliced silver and cut like the hairsbreadth of glass against a worn leather scabbard. Perfection was distilled by the clouds that hovered over the moon. Ivory highlighted by silver flowed tranquil divinity over the undone floor.

He longed for a dream to drift him upon the words of sleep. But so many thoughts occupied his mind and obliterated the faint drowsy stimulation intrigued by slumber.

Above all the contrasted figures that defined an impression over the black oblivion of the night, the corona that would introduce the liberation of sunrise reigned over his emotions.

The caterwauling sound of the clock artlessly seconded the linear ideals that endlessly flowed within the boundaries surrounding his mind. A period sauntering drowsily within the dark hours awakes no meaning of being awake at all.

How ironic it was for him to liberate thoughts in his mind, yet simultaneously he felt so exhausted with them being the only ideas that stood to glide free within his mind.

To calisthenisize the mood to sleep was an obstacle the night had to warm a threshold on him. Could he concentrate in doing so?

Then a somber alarm blaring on the phone line rang. Throbbing ever so vividly monotonous, his voice cracked wearily on the phone.

"Hi...this is Gerard, whoever this is, I'm sorry I can't speak so well...I'm very tired, I'll try to answer as much as I can..." He breathed rigidly at the mouth of the phone.

"You can't sleep either?" The person calling from the other line croaked, his voice trembling with drowsiness.

"Frank?" An emblem of recognition hung over Gerard's mind.

"Hey Gee," Frank replied, his acknowledgement so intrigued by joy you could sense the atmosphere of his smile.

"God, man. It's been long since I've talked to you. How are you and Jamia?" The cadence of Gerard's voice shrilled to a fresher and more revitalized rhythm, at his recognizing of Frank's voice.

"She...left us." Frank's voice drowned shallowly.

Concern revealed itself through Gerard's words. "Oh dear...how's Scarlet taking it?"

"...So far, she's not going so well...she just told me she was bisexual..." From the ever warm grin atmospherically handling a threshold onto Frank's heart, then came acid tears that also incinerated Gerard's eyes.

"Oh God...she been going out late at night?" Gerard weakly spoke.

"I don't know...I haven't seen her all evening...I can't go to sleep without her here." Frank replied as disdain groaned it's Way out of his mouth.

Then the ideal planted from Gerard's mind and redeemed from the pitch black background of the room. She might be going to bars and drinking booze and taking pills, came to Gerard's insight. She might die on the highwire life and be suicidally prone to death.

He replied to the disdain conceited in Frank, "She has a cellphone right? Call her."

Frank momentously paused to regain memory of what he punished her for doing. "I can't...I grounded her from using the phone, because she was using it to threaten and destroy some of people's reputations and lives."

He stopped and simultaneously added, "...She did that to Jamia."

Frank then narrated the life line he shared with Jamia and Scarlet and what happened after the release of the tight friendship MCR once had.

He mentioned about what happened during Scarlet's 7th birthday and how Scarlet used to scare him by purposely pretending to commit suicide.

He also told Gerard about how she often stole cigarettes from drug stores and how she used to survive on drinking and taking whiskey without even telling him.

"She was only 9...she said, 'Daddy, if mommy doesn't come back, I'll take this full bottle of whiskey.' And she did...She drank each night, bottle after bottle...I couldn't stop her...She wouldn't listen, even after having her go through even her whole life of 5th grade in prison..." Frank sobbed in his narration.

"And she also stole money from kids to buy drugs and.she remained a virgin until she was 11...she pleaded each night for Jamia to come back, and when I said I couldn't, she would take pills and drink beer and cut herself..."

Each spill of misery that came from Frank's words were untamely sinking deeper into deep anger, frustration, melancholy, morosed apathy and even confusion. Gerard was breaking for him in everything he heard.

"And she told me on her 12th birthday, 'It's not fair, for me. You haven't changed, dad. After all those nights where I pleaded mom to come back, you only said no, and not trying to respect my feelings and make her come back! You never even bothered to spare my emotions, or explain why my own mother isn't coming back!'" Frank erupted in inked tears.

Frank was lying on the facade of desperado. Gerard questioned himself if he could be of any help. He couldn't stay living up his own life while an old friend was hanging on the brinks of insanity.

He felt every thing Frank was on the risk of taking a stand and going against. He could feel the ice cold tears searing his face at that precise moment.

Calmly, Gerard tried to soothe Frank in rebuilding a gain in defeating his drastic dilemma. "Frank, I don't know...but maybe--"

Just then, the rustling of footsteps leveled on the mouth of the door Frank's home owned. The white embellishing fog that settled over the floor revealed two police officers who stood like vague shadows contrasting the misty labyrinth outside.

Setting down the phone, Frank inquired, "May I help you?"

"Frank Iero?" A tall, Caucasian officer called aloud.

"Yes, that's me." Frank responded, his identity revealed in the midst of the night atmosphere.

Another officer appeared from behind the first. "This is officer De Lero, and I'm officer Sainisford."

Gerard overheard this conversation as both the officers confronted Frank. He apprehensively awaited for a reason concealed within the presence of these two officers and the shared conversation between them and Frank.

Officer De Lero said, "Sir, is this your daughter?" He revealed a photograph of a 5-foot tall girl with ginger brown locks and peachy, fair skin.

Frank's eyes widened as Gerard stayed hung on the phone, shivering coldly as they spoke to one another.

"...That's my daughter..." Frank trembled as he replied to the two men.

The fear that Gerard sensed in Frank also came to his eyes...

especially when the door of his room mysteriously opened, revealing a tall silhouette of a young lady that veiled a shadow on the floor cause by the leveling light that ascended before the figure appeared.

Instantly, in such a tracery that nearly had the same climactic obedience, the creature haunting the night of the place where Gerard stood collapsed in that of also the Way Gerard dropped his phone.

Gerard hurried to the girl lying on the floor as she was momentously quaking so artlessly, as if she was in a quandary of blood. Her eyes strained so visibly that the tracery of her veins were no longer concealed by the white of her eyes.

"...Are you Scarlet?" Gerard demanded for an answer, yet his voice quaked so inaudibly.

Her hard yellow eyes staggeringly stared at Gerard's cowering with fear and simultaneous indignation. "Don't...tell...dad..." She growled.

"I...sorry..." Gerard couldn't do more than to disagree with her.

"DON'T TELL DAD." Scarlet's voice staggered like villainous bullets against Gerard's fear and defiant disagreement with her.

"I can't...he knows." Gerard started to break in inky glass tears.

Morosely tenacious...but would Gerard deny this in willing to add a second chance? She was still young--she still had yet so much to learn. She could have a second chance. But would she want to take this?

It was more than hard for Gerard to say her father knew of her disobedience and murdering of Frank's threshold in helping himself raise her to grow goldenly and pure in heart.

She didn't understand that all those nights where he had to tuck her in bed and bid her a goodnight kiss meant even deeper sadness within.

She didn't understand that Frank was the only family she could have at that time since Jamia had no heart to take care and nurture her. She had no conception of understanding that she wasn't the only one with pain when it came to Jamia's departure.

She didn't understand that she was doing these for no reason at all.

Frank did know it was unfair for Jamia to leave. But Jamia couldn't care less.

It just came in showing she never had at all a love for Scarlet or cared to be the one to give her a hug every night, to hold her close to her forever, to dry her tears from heart break...to watch her walk this world on her own...to fly to find her own Way in this world.

It would only just shatter the pieces of her heart until she could no longer stay still. She would fall all the Way until nobody would want to catch her anymore. The face she only wanted to see once more was her mom.

She wanted to receive kisses from her mother's lips. She wanted a cheerful birthday where her mother would greet her again.

She wouldn't release any memory they had together and continue to move on. She wouldn't forget that awful night that made a remark as to be known for her 7th birthday.

She wouldn't forget how much her father wouldn't give her any more chances to see her mother again. She then found hatred and no love in her dad.

No famimal relationship at all. She alWays had in her mind that it was her father's fault for her misery and pain. She made it seem unanimous and let the pain come out to show.

It was very sad that he never apologized to her for being wrong. Or take any disdain or blame. And he never even claimed a reason. No feelings or compassion to give her an answer.

He never showed he loved her mother in the same Way she did.

Frank never told Scarlet the reason why he forced Jamia to leave. Scarlet thought he might have been blind, never wanting to see the sad face spun on his little girl.

He never dared to soothe the pain inside her, or even bothered to cleanse it aWay.

After so many times of telling Frank he was the reason for her pain, Scarlet couldn't say that she loved her father. She wouldn't call him a dad if he didn't share any love for her. To even hold her until all the tears she needed to go aWay never came back.

It was just hard to let go.

"Don't tell...please..." Scarlet quivered again.

Then all of a sudden, she revealed a gun, a match box and a lighter, infused with butane. "...Or else..."

Gerard's eyes caught that horrible vision once again. "No! I won't let you kill yourself! If you die, I'll go with you! I would rather kill myself than take blame for not protecting you. I promised your dad I would help him do anything to help you get through this pain. I can help you, Scarlet. You have another chance to redeem yourself. Don't die..."

Scarlet couldn't care less. She started igniting the butane and incinerating leaping flames among them. It emitted carbon monoxide fumes that could intoxicate and poison every square inch of salt-tinged oxygen the broad space could acquire.

"Oh my God! No, Scarlet!" Gerard's voice expanded throughout the boundaries of the open space occupied by flames.

The phone still hanging could capture the terrors Gerard was trying to break free from. Frank could hear the roaring flames leaping above them and Gerard gasping for breath as the oxygen smoldering the room was nearly draining aWay from their lungs.

"Officer De Lero! Officer Sainisford!" Frank cried at hearing this rancid segregation of life unfolding to tear those of Scarlet's and Gerard's.

"My daughter is attempting to commit suicide! She snuck in the house of an old friend of mine and is burning every living figure standing there!" Frank erupted in hopeless tears as a monarchy of disastrous contradiction was leaping on his daughter and on Gerard.

He could imagine the redolent fumes smothering them and suffocating every single corpuscle built in them. Frank would accuse his daughter of being such an infidel of his aims to protect and rebuild her from her disdains.

But he would just want only that one thing that can fulfill happiness in his heart--his daughter.

Officer De Lero took hold of the phone, requesting of Gerard's address as the flames starting rising and leveling above the atmosphere. In such suspended animation, Frank, Officer De Lero and Officer Sanisford dashed out of the house.

Unaware of what may come, Frank Iero broke out of the car to see how much of the house was obliterated by gutter flames that seemed invincible even against the out burning of water.

Officer Sanisford tried to contact a team of firemen that lived near as Officer De Lero phoned some officers at the station.

Not ever had Frank see so many soaring spears of flames before. Even after the Famous Last Words video, he had never seen such putridly flagrant veiling of fire before.

They torched windows, scorned the path to the doorWays and arcanely melted the imposing iron gates introducing the world behind it.

"Gee! Scarlet! Where are you?" Frank shouted in such fear.

Gerard yelled, "Frank! Scarlet and I are up here!" He stood on a position fixtured before Frank's eyes.

Scarlet screamed, "Dad! Save us!"

Frank was more than joyous to see Scarlet once again. He couldn't wait to pull her in his arms.

Those unbeknownst of what Frank was about to do next were very amazed when Frank blazed from each path that was scratched with sketches of burning oblivions and smoldered in red arms of piercing enragement.

In some matter of minutes, Frank came to Gerard and Scarlet and immediately grasped his daughter in an embrace.

"Love you, dad." Scarlet smiled as tears flamed her eyes, just like fire burned every square inch of the room to ashes.

"I love you too, Scarlet. I'll alWays be here to stay with you on your side. I'm sorry for everything that made you leave. I won't be that same father who couldn't care less about how my daughter feels. I'll be here to help you understand. I won't be afraid to tell you why anymore." Frank vowed as he ruffled his daughter's hair.

Despite the ascent of flames that roared above them, they stood shielded from the realm of incinerating regret. A new famimal relationship was now born. Frank couldn't be more blessed.

Few weeks past after adjacent line of Scarlet's suicidal disdain.

Frank again couldn't sleep. Even though Scarlet was tucked in bed, asleep as the night strewn a large arRay of clouds that bid her a goodnight's sleep, Frank's eyes were still weary and over-worked. He tried so hard to sleep, but his eyes just strained from the black of the darkest hours.

The night grew old at that point. He could visibly map out the fleshy blue sky blending with the glossy yellow glow made evident by the warren of the sun and it's alliance with the blue of the sundewn clouds.

The moon nestled high in the aura embellishing the sky and a flock of Swallows danced overhead. Frank couldn't bear to risk taking his vision off this.

He tried to focus on the black oblivion of sleep, yet the panoramas amplifying beauty to his mind wouldn't just stop.

Then suddenly, he remembered a graceful embrace that gained his flame that night...

"Dad..." Scarlet said as her father draped a gossamer bed sheet over her body.

"Yes, Scarlet?" Frank sat at the edge of her mattress, wiping her bangs from her face as the tangerine glow of the lamp pounded softly on her forehead.

"I love you very much... Thank you for giving me a second chance. I was too foolish not to know I was making a fool of who I have become. It just made me realize, you love me so much, you would give up mom just for me."

Frank guided a smile to his lips. "I did for you, after all. Even if you hated me, blasphemed me and tried to even hurt me, I'd still love you so much to give you another chance. I've been here to regain the aim of showing you that you'll alWays gain a second chance. But there'll come a time you can't receive another second chance. That is when you should realize your sins and gain in yourself that confession to mend your bad deeds."

"Thank you dad. You have been so willing to give me one more decision. I'm glad I chose the right one." Scarlet beamed, as tears furrowed in her eyes.

This was a love not even Him above could break. They had one famimal bond now and for all time they caressed in their hearts. Even if it meant the future would turn to black...

They promised even after the night will turn to gold...even after the moon would shed to red... even after life couldn't stay on Earth, they would still remain standing forever as a family.

One could never do without the other.

It'll never shatter even after the end of time had to step before them. Even if one day, one of them could never come home. Or if one of them had to walk this world on their own.

Frank then dug in his pockets to search for a gift he bought for Scarlet. "Close your eyes."

Scarlet locked her leather lashes together as her eyes, concealed under her eyelids, freely imagined a bonding treasure that will attach herself to her father and never release the goodness of his blessing.

Silently, Frank fished the gift into the fleshy palms of his hands and draped it over Scarlet's neck. It was a White Gold locket obtaining a form in that of a heart. Scarlet felt the warm material silky and soft on her neck. It veiled her neck perfectly and fitted like a glove.

"Open it." Frank beseeched.

Scarlet unlocked the portal of the locket hanging over her heart. It was a picture of Frank, Scarlet and Jamia backstage of MCR's last concert that made itself built on world history a few years ago.

"For all times, no matter what, I'll be there for you." Frank shared a blessed embrace with his daughter.

"Love you dad." Scarlet said as her father clicked off the lights.

"For all eternity and beyond, Scarlet." Frank brushed off a tears hanging from a lustrous lash.

It endlessly continued to grace him.

Suddenly, the phone alarmed and awoke Frank's drowsy senses. "Hi?" He croaked.

"Hey Frank," A voice soothingly greeted him from his tired weariness.

Recognition ignited Frank's mind again. "Gee?"

"Yeah...you tired? Me too..." Gerard's voice expressed his smiles even if they were both black-voiced.

"Look outside." Gerard said, redeeming color and vibrant fulfilled joy in their dark conversation.

Frank's feet flipped him off his bed as he settled down the phone. He hurriedly clutched the cold doorknob and unlocked the door with two consecutive clicks.

The silhouette that sketched the tracery of Gerard appeared before the open door leading to the yondering realm reaching out toward Frank. "Hi Frankie."

They reminisced over old memories and pastimes too precious to release, corrode and rock. After overlooking old albums, old places they used to go touring together before MCR broke up, Gerard then met a new apple that built a facade on his eye.

Then the confinement of a new friendship occurred. Or rather, it was reborn. They found it hard to let go because without one another's words, they wouldn't make it through the rest of the night.

"You're living alone, right Gee?" Frank asked as he smacked his lips after a sip of coffee.

"Yeah...pretty much..." Gerard slowly stirred his spoon in his mug.

"Mmm.why don't you stay? Like, move in with us. Scarlet wouldn't mind. She would really like your being here, I bet." Frank coaxed Gee.

Gerard smiled. "Don't mind if I do."

Setting into bed, Gerard welcomed himself onto the comforter as Frank reigned the bed. Before Frank switched off the lights, Gerard said one last bid of goodnight to him.

"If I hadn't come here, would you give me a hug for me to be able to sleep?" Gerard smirked.

"Not unless I also include a kiss." Frank leered at Gerard.

Along with this reincarnated friendship, came a new breed of love. Wasn't it unanimous before? And above all turns of the lives they had to overcome, why only now did they have to see it?

Frank's mouth smirked as he silently whispered at him, "I love you, Gee."

At hearing this, pricking the needles at the back of his neck and stimulating a fluttery heartbeat, Gerard replied, " I love you too, Frankie...Be known that I'll forever stand by you..."

Frank smiled as his eyes gleamed in the dark.

With a flick of the lights off, the two of them slept in harmony beating as two hearts and deep into the ground their love shined even under the pages of the darkest night.