Keep the Faith

Change is a funny word.

But though it was the same word running through everyone's head during those forty-five minutes, no one in that room seemed to be laughing. No one was even cracking a smile.

The way he kicked out those battered angel wings instead of spreading them wide like before; the way his arrogance shone through the broken lyrics as if they meant jack shit compared to when he first penned them; the way his once-full eyes had become so hollow, staring round at us all but never taking a single one of us in.

And I wondered, was that the case? Was it really the factor of change? Or was it a simple off-night stuck in with a new-style revolution: the revolution of letting songs speak for themselves.

He dropped the seemingly poisoned microphone at his feet and sauntered off; not even a goodbye. Let alone a fucking hello. I counted his steps as he got further from view and I couldn't help myself, for every step he took I thought up another reason why we shouldn't turn our backs.

But no one else seemed to be sharing that idea.

"What a fucking rip off," a girl said beside me. "What a God-awful good for nothing let-down."

"Fuck this," her friend replied. "Fuck them all, I didn't want to believe it but their right. Everyone was right."

And the crowd starting parting, talking amongst themselves, but all I could do was stand there and think no, no. Everyone was wrong.

This was just a crazy, catapulting game of Chinse Whispers- one bad night would lead to another simply from reviews and ruins told repeatedly the day before. And by the time people tried to hear it straight from the horses mouth, they were so convinced and content on it being a mess that it automatically just was. They became narrow-minded. They became set on going against him and all he stood for. They became enemies of what had saved them and they became everything they had once loathed.

If change came into it at all, it was good change. Not change of the heart and not change of the mind, but change that still seemed to effect so many people for the simple reason that they just couldn't face it being any different.

The security guards left the now empty arena to handle the furious scrum in the next room, at the merchandise stands. I stared around at the debri of what should have been the greatest night of my life and it took every ounce of dignity I had left to stop myself from crying.

Scrunched-up tickets like unwanted feathers littered the ground in a treacherous carpet, so that everywhere I walked, inbetween the stage and the seats, I was standing on someone else's false mistake.

"You shouldn't be here."

I spun around, shocked, and started uttering my excuses,

"I'm sorry, I don't- I didn't- I was just- I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I am..."

He said nothing. I wish he said something, anything. I wanted him to yell. I wanted him to make himself the monster everyone presumed him to be; I wanted a reason for feeling so empty and alone. But he didn't. And deep down inside, I knew he never would.

"I'm sorry too," he said quietly, sitting down just feet in front of me, on the edge of the stage. I shuffled forwards hesitantly, not knowing what to say or do, just knowing surely something had to be said.

"It- it was an amazing show," I whispered, taking one last step forwards and placing my trembling form in front of his. "It was really amazing. Fantastic, truly-"

"I know what they've been saying about me."

I bit my lip and blinked, unsure. I knew too. I knew what they were saying- and I knew who 'they' were- old fans, disappointed fans, fans who felt they'd been pushed aside by his growing ego. I glanced up at him and he looked so much like a child, only showing his true colours when shut alone in the dark.

No. Not alone.

With me, so surely I had to do something?

"Listen..." I took a deep breath in, gathering up ever ounce of courage I could, "Everyone has off-nights... everyone has bad days, and bad times. You're not to blame. No one's to blame, really, it's just- it's just-"

"It's just what?" He looked up at me, his pale pasty skin gleaming from sweat and stage dirt.

"It's just difficult," I finally continued. "It's difficult for some people to see good change and bad change. It's difficult for people to get used to things, they get scared-"

"Scared! That's the excuse everyone uses! Tell me, I pray tell me please, how the hell do I get myself out of this mess?"

"I don't know! I don't fucking know, I- Christ- I'm just one of them! I'm just one of them!I don't know how to do it. I don't know what you're asking of me, I don't- I don't- I don't know, Gerard fucking Way, I just don't know."

His face was becoming more controrted and emotional by the minute. I knew there were things he wanted to say, he just didn't know how to say them.

"I just- I want it to be okay," he whispered softly. I nodded, and trying to put my feelings into words, I said,

"I do too. But people will only go by what they went by before. They have to realise like I have, and like so many others have- change is an endless expression, just like love is an endless battle. It's not right to live as if you don't have your own mind or your own way of life. You taught us differently, and you taught me differently, and some people just let that comforting knowledge of understanding slip away..." As I carried on, I couldn't believe I was saying this to him; spilling out my intermost thoughts and feelings, the same ones that had been eating me up inside for the past few months.

"But why?" He stared down at me, not in a patronising way, but in a sense that was more pleading, than anything else. "What exactly have I got left to prove?"

"Nothing," I said firmly, shaking my head, my recently-retrieved confidence returning. "But those are you fans and you deserve to fucking show them. You deserve to remined them, united we stand and divided we fall."

He wiped his face with the back of his hand and stood up, smiling genuinly for the first time all night.

"Are you coming to the show tomorrow?"

I shook my head, confusion showing on my face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few peices of paper, one of them looking suspiciously like- you guessed it- a concert ticket. He handed it to me and I took it, still as confused as ever; surely I hadn't been that much help?

"Thank you," he said, brushing off the legs of his jeans and turning around. He started walking off stage but before he reached the wings he said over his soulder, repeating my previous phrase,

"United we stand, and divided we fall. Thank you."

* * *

I couldn't look. I couldn't look as he walked onstage, I couldn't keep my eyes open because what if I hadn't helped? What if nothing I told him mattered? What if, what if, what if- I couldn't. I fucking couldn't.

But it was almost virtually impossible; because the lights are so much brighter when you're trying not to look.

I realised faith could not be found again just by a simple speech from a tired fan. Faith was not just an emotion, faith was not just an expression; faith was a key. A key that would hold us all together, and sometimes that key got lost, and sometimes that key got broken, but I knew for sure that key could always, always be fixed.

I stared up at him; outlined with a glittering glaze of pure beauty, he seemed to stare straight back. Those dangerous hazel eyes had become simple knowledge to me over the past four years, but seeing them blink and break for real just made every other glance I've shot him inadaquet. The words he sang, but not just that: it was the way he sang them, like the end of the world was the end of the night and he needed to get it all out. Fast. His face shone with adoration as he stared out at a crowd of expectation, and somewhere in that marvelling mass was me. I was one in a million. I was a stranger in the stands. And so that begs the question- how can you cope with that? Surely you want the person you love and adore more than anything else in the world to love you in the same way back? Surely you want to be his forever and after, just like he is yours? Surely you want every second you spend together to be as important to him as it is to you?

No.

Not to me.

For love is a journey, not a destination, and seeing the smile on his face and the stars in his eyes, I know he is happy.

And that, on it's own, is enough.