Keep the Faith

Gerard looked up at the overcast sky that was billowing with gray, heavy and ominous crowds hanging above us as a sharp chill entered his nose. It wasn't the sunshine, birds-chirping, flowers-dancing parade he was expecting to welcome him, and honestly, it was perfect.

He secured the hat on his head, thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat and put the collars up, which made him feel like either a homicidal stalker or some Elvis-wannabe, but it was better than being recognized and mobbed by fans when all he wanted was to be alone.

Speaking of the fans... as if he didn't have more things to think about. Touring, the new album, the media, the rest of the band, his family, his wife... it had been a crazy year, complete with its highs and lows, and with so many happening around him, all he wanted was to not be left behind as the world continued to spin.

But it turns out, maybe nobody wanted to wait for him after all.

He kicked at a twisted Coke can on the sidewalk, hearing it clatter against the cemented ground. Somehow the sound stood out amongst the city noise of cars wheezing by and people hustling, trying to live before it was too late.

It began almost immediately after The Black Parade came out. Outcries about them selling out and going into the mainstream, disapprovals over their new image and sound, but they all thought it was just something every band had to go through, something that accompanies success and having your dreams coming through. They assumed it would die down when they started touring, as soon as everyone can see that they were still the messed up little fuckers everyone knew and loved.

But it didn't. Instead of cooling down and eventually dissipating, the rumors spread like wildfire, burning down whatever they had worked so hard for. It targeted everything from their personal lives, their antics onstage, and even bringing up the vices they had already conquered.

As if, in the span of less than a year, fan turned into foe. As in the process of seeing them grow and change and unfold into something different, their belief turned into hatred, all hopes dashed to the floor.

Sometimes he wondered how many people went to their shows only to watch them fall and slip up from the pedestal everyone had put them on. Looking for more things to criticize, more mistakes to point out and sneer at. He seemed to be in a constant state of paranoia and disbelief, now wary of every move lest he might be scorned for breathing oxygen.

His wandering eyes suddenly came upon a large poster that marred the skyline, side by side with other huge, brightly-colored billboards that advertised things that society insisted was needed to survive. It was a black and white photo of five men, their faces either pissed off or sad, you couldn't tell which, with a wide logo naming their band and details for an upcoming concert at its lower right side.

He stared intently at the pale features of the man in the very middle, the tip of an 'R' from the My Chemical Romance insignia barely touching his head. Every lock of hair was in place, an intentional mess, his indecipherable eyes shooting straight into your soul, yet anyone who looked hard enough would see emptiness, as if he himself was asking why he was there.

He looked at that picture of himself, so flawless and photoshopped and commercial, and he almost saw what made them all think he was indestructible.

Almost.

His reveries where interrupted when he felt something knock softly on the top of his head. Tipping it back slightly, a droplet hit him right in the eye, making him squint at the clouds. They were laced with silver and were obviously just about to burst.

"Fuck," said a voice disconnected from his body. Which summarized it all, really.

Seconds later, a million more raindrops accompanied the one that splattered on his face, this time soaking him as he tried to outrun it, knowing full well how futile his journey would be.

And maybe it was because his eyes were cast low, watching out merely for puddles and obstacles, that he didn't notice the other body that was about to collide with his own, and when he did, he had just recovered enough balance to remain standing while the other party involved was not as fortunate.

"AY TAE--!" Was what a high-pitched girl voice managed to emit before its owner fell back, right on her ass.

"Oh, shit!" He exclaimed upon seeing her pitiful state, dazed and quickly getting wet from the unforgiving rain. He extended a hand, which she stared at for a confused moment, before taking it and casting herself up to her feet.

"Oh man, I'm so so sorry," he couldn't help but repeat over and over upon glancing at her bewildered expression, then realized that they were both still standing in the rain.

"We need to find some kind of shelter," he suggested, and she nodded, still a bit lost.

He scanned the area for anything that resembled a roof, and only came upon a telephone booth on the other side of the street. He looked at the girl's shivering frame, then back at the booth.

'Beggars can't be choosers.'

Putting an arm around her shoulders, he did his best to shield her from the rain as they ran for cover, their footsteps making splashes onto their jeans. He yanked the booth door open and pulled her inside, panting in spite of himself, though glad to be away from the raining parade.

His attention was diverted to the girl beside him, who was still out of sorts and perhaps trying to figure out how she got there. She was around fifteen or sixteen, with dark hair up to her mid-back and a mix of Latin and Oriental features, a hoodie serving as her only protection from the rain and perhaps, the world.

"Uh... you okay?" He asked awkwardly, and before long her brown eyes, underlined lightly with kohl, were gazing at him.

"Oh. Um, sure." She paused, as if trying to gather her thoughts. "Oh yeah. Thanks for getting me in here... and you know, this is really weird."

"What is?"

She glanced at him thoughtfully before leaning on the glass wall and slumping down to a sitting position.

"You're gonna think it's stupid."

He sat down beside her, folding his legs in the cramped space. "No, I won't."

"You so will."

"I won't, I swear." He insisted, still curious.

She rolled her eyes, but not in a rude fashion. He didn't know how she managed that, to be honest.

"Fine.

"What's weird is that I'm in some enclosed space with some middle-aged guy who might turn out to be a pedophile slash kidnapper slash rapist slash serial killer slash all of the above, and I should be shitting myself scared right now, but I'm not."

He laughed aloud, but tried to suppress it upon seeing the slight flush tainting her cheeks.

"I knew it was stupid," she pouted. "You're mean."

He shook his head, still smiling. "Sorry, but... do I really look that old?"

She peered at him, her hair swishing in sync with her movements, slipping over her ears and into her face. "Okay, maybe not that old... how old are you anyway?"

"Thirty," he replied. "And that's not old."

"For trees," she mumbled under her breath.

Something about that seemed familiar. "What was that?"

She smirked. "Nothing."

He fought the urge to stick his tongue out; something about the situation made him stop feeling like a dejected rockstar, but more like a normal teenager again. He scoffed inwardly. As if that would ever happen, but it was nice to pretend. And who better to do it with than another normal teenager equipped with dark wit?

"So... you have a name?" He wanted to smack himself; it came out sounding like a pick-up line.

She looked at him suspiciously. "Are you sure you're not all of the above?" The edges of her lips curled upwards, and she relaxed.

"I'm Isa. You?"

"Ger--" Gerard stopped himself. "Jerry. With a 'J.'" He said, aware of how dumb it must have sounded.

"Well, Jerry with a 'J'," Isa said skeptically, as if she doubted it was his real name, yet preferred to let it be. "Since I think we're gonna be stuck here for a long time and you're kinda boring..." She pulled out a scratched MP3 player and put an earphone into one of her ears, easily disappearing under her thick mass of hair, and offered him the other one.

Now he really stuck his tongue out, for an instant, which made her giggle. He tucked the earphone into his own and closed his eyes, allowing himself to drift to the music of the pounding rain and...

He quickly opened them again. He knew that song...

Beside him, Isa was singing along to it.

"And what's the worst you take? From every heart you break, and every blade you stain... well, I'll be holding on, tonight..."

God damn it, it was his own voice he was listening to! A song he had been singing onstage ever since they released it, an ultimate favorite... so why didn't he recognize it? Was he that disconnected from himself, his music, the faith he once lived for?

He pulled the cord from the piece attached to his ears, coughing uncomfortably.

"So, uh... you like this band?"

It took her a short while to snap out of the world the notes had been building around her, and she lowered the volume on the player.

"Yeah... what's the worst that I could say? My Chem--... things are better if I stay... Chemical Ro--... so long, and goodnight, so long and goodnight! Chemical Romance," she answered, singing along between sentences.

Only now did he notice that she had unzipped her hoodie, revealing a faded black shirt with the Revenge artwork cover emblazoned across her chest. Fortunately, she didn't seem to see it was him, unless she was one of those fans who only liked the music and wasn't into researching the band members and...

"I freaking love them," she continued. "It's pretty huge, actually. I'm like... obsessed. Which kinda weirds some people out."

She laughed, and he went along with it uneasily. So much for the 'not that kind of fan' theory. He was still thankful, though, since the last thing he wanted was to be stuck in a telephone booth with a fawning fangirl.

He was about to shut up, since he knew that she was going to figure out who he was if she was as obsessed as she implied, but an idea popped into his head. It was a terribly mean thing to do and he knew he shouldn't attempt it, not on some innocent little girl, but maybe he had been waiting for some kind of opportunity to try something out...

"Why? They suck," he blurted out, casting all thoughts that suggested otherwise aside. "And... ugly. Fucking rip-offs. Fucking emo. Fucking--" By now he was trying to remember every single hate comment people had been saying about them, some kind of malicious glee rising in him, but then Isa interrupted him.

"Oh my God. Shut up!" She exclaimed, eyes widened and mouth hanging open. "I thought you were supposed to get... I don't know... better when you're older, but I guess I'm wrong!" She pushed herself away from him, putting as much distance between them, which, in their limited space, meant a good five inches.

"Fucking fucker," she hissed under her breath, yanking the earphones out of her ears as she seethed. She turned to him, eyes blazing with so much fury it shocked him. "You don't fucking know what you're fucking talking about."

She had transformed before his eyes, from some sarcastic yet happy-go-lucky teenage girl to a raging machine that he assumed might attack him at any given moment.

He tried to compose himself, now a tad guilty about what he said. "Oh yeah? Well, what makes them so special? What sets them apart from all those other wannabe rockers who are just fucking out for the money and the fame?" The questions burned his mind, the questions everyone else asked, not caring about the answer but the negative response it would sure elicit, which would make them ask more of the vindictive inquiries.

"You don't even know the full story," she crossed her arms, marring the view of the bloody drawing he himself penned for their album. "Everyone's so fucking judgmental... why did I expect you to be any different? Tangina mo!" She spat in what seemed like another language, one that she seemed to slip into when she was upset.

He quieted, yet wasn't prepared to stop his experiment. What made this girl get so defensive over them, who people deemed as contemporary rock's biggest sellouts?

"Okay. Fine. So tell me about the full story."

"Why should I?" She glared at him.

He shrugged. "Maybe I'll change my mind?"

There was a heated pause that was filled only by the raindrops thumping against the roof, and finally Isa sighed, bowing her head so that her hair covered her face again.

"They helped me. A lot. Like, more than anyone can ever imagine."

"How? They're just a band."

She shook her head feverishly. "No, no. That's just it. You don't get it. No one does. It's..."

"It's what?"

"I was... in a bad place. A little over a year ago. I couldn't get out, you know? I couldn't get myself out. Nothing can. I mean, I even started to doubt God and... everything just seemed so bad, you know?"

He nodded but even though she didn't see it, she went on.

"And like, one day... I was ready to go. I wanted to sleep forever, and I didn't want to wake up anymore. There was nothing to look forward to. Like my whole life was so pointless and I felt like... like I wasn't going anywhere. And everything was just... falling apart, and that time, I honestly, truly, wanted to die."

The words spilled out as he listened, silenced by her tale.

"And then, just as I was gonna end it all... I remembered this song. By this band. I think you already know who they are.

"And I liked them quite a bit, for a while already. Then, all these things started to come into my head, like... battling the suicide. I mean, I'd already said goodbye to everyone and I was so ready, I had the pills in my hand and... like, a voice, began singing, and it was all I could hear...

"I am not afraid to keep on living, I am not afraid to walk this world alone..." Her voice trembled as she sang softly. "And it hit me, you know. Their lead singer... his name's Gerard Way, and... he was my favorite, and I followed what he said, and he once spoke about the thoughts you can get, and he's like...

"He was all, it's not the way out. Life was still beautiful, no matter how ugly it may seem, even though there's like, death, and just... bad things happening, but then he made me realize that there might still be a reason to keep going, you know?

"And then I begin to, like... see them in my head, and it was his eyes, oh God, his eyes... and they were telling me like... No. I couldn't do it. I shouldn't. Or I'll let them down. So, like... even if they weren't there, with me... not really, it felt like... they... Gerard... like, saved my life. Without him, and his words... I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have lived through that."

She raised her head, and met his gaze, so that he saw that her eyes were glistening.

"And... and it really sucks, you know? How people don't understand that?" Her tone cracked slightly. "They think I'm some depressed cutter who listens to music that makes me wanna kill myself even more. And... I can't take that, you know? Like... these guys helped me through so much, and they don't deserve so much shit thrown at them.

"They're just so inspiring and hopeful and just... if you look past it all, you know that they wanna make a difference. They know something's wrong with the way things are and they're like... out to change it. They want to reach into your heart and make you believe it's gonna be all right, and they did that for me, you know?"

A lone tear descended the curve of her cheek, and she wiped it away with her open palm, a rueful smile dancing on her lips as her eyes sparkled and stung.

"One time, I just got so sick of it all, so I wrote a story. I'm this aspiring writer, you know, and my dream is for my words to matter, to mean something to someone, like Gerard's do to me, you know? I wanna be like him, and how... just... he's just amazing, you know, and it sounds corny but he's like... my hero. Yeah.

"Anyway, so I wrote this story, and I was like... wondering if other people thought like I did. Maybe, you know, I wasn't so alone. Maybe other people didn't abandon them, despite all the rumors and shit about how they, like... changed. As if the success went to their heads, you know? It sounded pretty stupid, and I hated thinking that they must feel crap for all that... so, even though it may not make a difference, I asked other people to write about the same thing I did.

"And it was just... wow. Like, stories came in, and I found out that other people... other fans... some of them were just like me, you know? My Chemical Romance, like... all of them... Mikey and Bob and Ray and Frank... and Gerard, especially Gerard... they didn't give up because of them. And... it was just.. wow, you know?

"Then you know, they played a show at my country. I never thought it could happen 'coz we're so isolated, but it did, and I was like... deliriously happy." She laughed for a bright, fleeting instant. "And then we thought... maybe we could like... collect all the stories and I could, you know... give it to them, so they know people still trusted them.

"So like... I made it into a book, with letters and stuff... and the show... oh my God... it just... kept me going. I swear I cried through the whole thing, and I just couldn't... absorb that they were there, they were breathing my air, they were saving me again. I'd been going through bad times again... I didn't know if I was depressed and I didn't wanna be, like... judged for being bipolar, but it really felt like that and I was just losing... everything that saved me... but that one night, that one concert... I just... it kept me alive. Again.

"So, yeah. I didn't get to give it to them, but... I don't know. It's like... a test, or something. And I knew I'll find a way to give it to them, someday. 'Coz that's what we've been writing about, you know?

"Our motto, it was Keep the Faith. In like, everything. In the band, in Gerard, in ourselves... and in the world. 'Coz we were gonna make it. And... they gave us that belief, and we just wanted to return the favor. We just wanted them to know... that people still believed in them too."

Isa wrapped her arms around herself, smiling as she reminisced.

"And... you know at that concert? Gerard said... he said... he said 'Mahal ko kayo!'... that's like, I love you, in my language, and it's what all the other artists who come say, like they learn that line at every country they tour... crowd-pleaser, I guess... but this was different. Gerard was. It's like... he really, really meant it, you know. He loved us. And... shit, did we love him. So, so much.

"And... that's why I love them. That's why I keep the faith. 'Coz they deserve it, and even if they really changed and all, it's not gonna change anything. 'Coz heroes are forever, you know? They'll always be there. Living, loving, and saving you, and...

"And that's what they do for me. Time after time."

She breathed deeply, wiping at her dried tear streaks. Isa's gaze turned to Gerard, who just sat there, speechless and overwhelmed by the truth she just divulged.

"T-that's quite... a story." He said finally, staring at her in awe.

"I know, right?" She yawned dreamily, as if relieved but at the same time tired by her confession. "I know."

"You sleepy?"

"Uh-huh."

He patted his shoulder as an invitation, and she gratefully scooted closer and laid her head down, and in mere seconds, was fast asleep with the steady barrage of never-ending rain serving as a lullaby.

Gerard, on the other hand, was shaken awake by everything he had just learned.

"By the way..." Isa suddenly spoke, her voice a contented whisper. The coldness of their skin was stark in contrast to the warmth underneath, and she hugged one of his arms as if it was a pillow, adjusting the position of her head so that strands of her dark hair fell over her face.

"Thanks for listening, Gerard."