Keep the Faith

"He's so different."

"Well, what d'you expect, he's married now."

"To that Linda girl."

"Lindsay."

"Whatever. I mean, what a fucking excuse for a marriage."

"I heard she got him drinking again."

"And on drugs too."

"No wonder he acts like such a fuckwit nowadays."

"Christ... he's become such an idiot."

"Become? If you ask me, he's always been an idiot."

Another outburst of hollow laughter shot out around the lonely bathroom stalls. It was, unknown to anyone outside these damp walls, an angry night in the middle of London, England.

"Her band though - what a fucking embarrassment!"

"Self-Indulgent is appropriate, don't you think?"

"Hell, I don't know what he sees in her."

"They obviously deserve each other."

"Fuck, yeah, what with them both being blue-ribbon jerks!"

More laughter.

This is, to anyone who does not know, how it all began. Rumor after rumor, the simple destruction from word of mouth.

As these melodramatic thoughts penetrated my overflowing skull, the talk outside only got louder; fiercer. Such harsh comments that were nothing but exactly that - comments - yet I could feel my blood start to boil at the sheer unfairness of it all.

"Failure."

"Idiot."

"Whore."

Stop.

"Sellout."

"Traitor."

"Fag-"

"STOP!"

I couldn't hold it in any longer, and as soon as the demand- or rather, the plead- was out of my Godforsaken mouth, the entire gritty and foul-smelling out house fell silent.

"Who's in there?" one of them spoke up. I knew staying silent would do no good for me, so after taking a deep breath and reminding myself they were just kids, just teenage girls like me, I unlocked the cubicle door and stepped outside to face them.

"Oh fuck, she's one of them."

"So you've been spying on us, have you?"

I shook my head, blinking hard, "I just- I was just- I wasn't spying."

"Yeah, right. And fuck- what's up with your accent? Are you Irish?"

"'I'm Scottish."

"Aw, well, that's even worse," one of them stepped forwards to face me, narrowing her eyes and muttering something over her shoulder to her friends. They snorted with that same earaching laughter once again, and despite knowing that their repetitive words should have been mere pinpricks, they felt like huge daggers stabbing away at my useless heart.

They continued hurling insults at me, and I'd like to tell you I stood up for myself and for what I believe in; I'd like to tell you they left feeling ashamed and won over; I'd like to tell you I gave as good as I damn well got; but I can't, because I didn't. Not at all.

And as for what happened next? I should've expected it. I should've ran while I was still fueled, I should've hid while I was still fearless. But considering running and hiding, it means I am not fueled nor fearless, and never have been. And never will be. At that moment in time I was nothing but everything those three firestarters said I was-

"Loser-"

"Coward-"

"Freak-"

"Bitch."

I was drained, I was weak, so fucking weak; and their immature name-calling deflated me even further. I did not think it possible for me to feel anymore emotional damage, and so I should've been grateful once they started causing me physical damage.

SLAP.

The harsh contact of skin on skin rung out around the otherwise silent room. I felt a single tear drip down my cheek and they mocked me, but I stared them out defiantly, achingly desperate to stand by what made me complete.

PUNCH.

Fist, face, bones, blood; Something in the middle of my skull exploded into a starburst of agony. Two strikes, two blows; how many more?

KICK. KICK. KICK.

Triple strike. That's six blows.

I'm on the floor, I-I was on the floor and I couldn't see. I can't see! I can't-

PUNCH. KICK. KICK. PUNCH.

More blood, more bones; I can't see. My knees automatically folded themselves up to rest below my chin for protection, but needless to say, it was useless.

PUNCH. PUNCH. Punch...

The thumping sound of contact between their fists and feet and my shattering frame grew quieter; I could feel the pain twice as much but the sound, it was blocking itself out- I don't know if my ears were bleeding or my skull was bleeding, my eyes, my mouth, there was just blood, and I just felt dead. I felt so completely dead.

As I tried painfully hard to stay conscious, I wondered exactly why they were doing this. What had I done wrong? What had I said that was so bad? What in the name of Morrissey had I inflicted on them that had been so offensive, they had to cause me this?

I vaguely remember the thumping stopping, and then mutters, then a squeal, then a yell. The scuffling of feet drowned out anything else around me as I closed my broken eyes and was asleep.

- - - - - - -

"...Parents, but I've no idea, her cell phone is there but it's switched off. I don't know how on earth to work it."

"If she doesn't wake up soon we'll have to call the ambulance- hell, and the police. We should do that now."

"I'm gonna call Mikey first, tell him what's going on. Stay with her?"

"Of course, Ger. Of course."

I opened my eyes.

Staring around at my new surroundings, I tried to recall exactly where I'd been, and where I was for that matter. Though in saying that, it was rather hard- a tall and black-haired female figure rushed towards me, giving me no time to reflect on anything at all.

"Oh, thank God you're awake!" She exclaimed. As the stranger stood by my bedside, I screwed up my face in concentration, trying to remember where I knew her from.

"How are you feeling, sweetie? Are you okay? We had our medics check you over, and the arena's First Aid staff, they say it's just mild concussion but we can call a doctor if need be? Would you like that? A doctor? Would you?"

She chewed at her bottom lip nervously as I sat up, immediately clutching my thumping head.

"Owwww," I groaned, rubbing my forehead as if it would somehow help the pain go away. I blinked and looked across at her again, sighing.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Oh fuck, she's awake!"

More bodies came piling into the room, and these ones, like before, I recognised. I blinked my bleary eyes again and again, thinking I was dreaming, thinking I was dying, thinking I was anything but actually living. But the feeling of disbelief was gone soon enough- after a few incoherent mutters from someone at the door, they all piled out and I was left not with the woman, but with a man.

He smiled at me and I felt not empty, but so overflowing I became the perfect epitome of everything's opposite. He began asking me questions, and I think I answered; silly questions, unimportant. Inadequate.

I felt nothing.

The realisation and understanding didn't shock him as much as I expected. He did not even blink, he simply sat there at my bedside and humbly requested I tell him everything.

And so I took a deep breath and forgot about the splitting pain in my head and my ribs and my knees, and I forgot about the blood still seeping from every cut and gash in my battered body; and I forgot about the bruises decorating my face like a sculpture's first mistake on a porcelain doll; I forgot all of this, just to make him listen. Just to make him know, to make him understand.

I told him about the girls, about what they said, and he immediately asked why they said it. I knew he didn't mean for me to feel as if I had all the answers, as we both knew I certainly did not. But I also knew I had to tell him something.

"They just... sometimes, recently, a few people... or maybe a lot of people, well, they've lost faith."

"Faith in what?"

"Faith in you."

He blinked at me and I took it as a cue to continue on,

"I think... some people just grow out of whatever they used to be part of. Some people just let it go and give up on everything they once loved. But not everyone. Trust me, nowhere near everyone. Just a few last-minute stragglers. Just a few people who see something more shiny and bright on their horizon and they... they fall for that instead."

I looked up to meet his gaze but looked away again unsuccessful; he was staring downwards, at his feet, clearly as deflated as I was just hours ago. He looked so much like a child, acting as if someone had taken the last cookie or broken his favourite toy. Maybe he felt like a toy. Maybe he felt as if he was broken. I began whispering to him again, desperate to fix him.

But at the end of the day I knew it wasn't my place to be fixing anyone. He didn't fix me, he didn't cure me; for he is no doctor and I am no disease. This is not a game, but nor is it a battlefield; I've realised you must come to terms with what you lose just as you do with what you gain, and if someone falls behind you, you do all you can to pick them up and get them flying again, but sometimes you just can't make their wings work. Sometimes you just have to let them go, and realise, they weren't meant for you anyway.

The police came and went. Important looking men informed me that my parents were on their way. People I knew and people I'd never seen before in my life stopped by, asking how I was, asking more questions when all I wanted was to give that saviour of a man some straight-up answers.

Eventually we were left alone again. His hand in mine, limp but not lifeless, I leant back onto the pillows and knew, if I hadn't been concussed or whatever it is they called it; if my brain and all else that made me function hadn't been just a tiny bit off the radar, I would never be so calm. Never ever. But I had to be calm, I had to stay steady and brave and I had to bring him back. Just like he did for me.

"Some of them... some of them just couldn't handle the fact that you've changed so much."

His head snapped around to stare at me, eyes wide and confused. I carried on,

"The reason some of them are so... uninterested now, in the band or in you or in all of it, is because you've changed. You're changed so much. Ever since you got married all you can talk about in interviews or magazines or even onstage is how okay you are, and how okay everything is, and how she's exactly what you've been looking for and she's just made you so okay. And I swear- everyone besides them is just so happy and proud of you. I mean it, I really do, we are- but there's no denying how different you are these days. You say you felt like you lost touch with us for a while, well, we felt like that too. Some of us, some fans, are just unable to grasp the fact that you're happy now. And I know that probably sounds so strange. But you know as well as I do that the majority of people who are with this band are with them because they were messed up, and fucked up, and borderline unhappy, and to now have you prancing around broadcasting how happy you are... it just made some of them confused. And I don't know why I'm making excuses for them, I don't know why it's any concern of mine, it's just... the people you touched with your music, most of them were never and have never been okay. I just- I really- I just wanted you to know, not everyone sees it that way. And I guess not everyone lets go of you for that reason either, but some of them do, and as selfish and self-centered as it is for someone to base their every decision entirely on themself, well, I can't help it. You can't help it. No one can help it and all I'm trying to say is you won't- I mean, you'll never- you'll never be alone, Gerard."

And though by now, at thirty years of age with the world at his feet and everything going for him, he surely must have known it already; yet his smile was still genuine and his eyes were still sparkling like I'd told him something that was completely worthwhile. I didn't feel nothing, not anymore. I felt everything.

When my parents came they thanked Gerard in the gushiest way possible, and then moved on to thank just about anyone else they happened to run into. I got hugs and autographs and get-better-soon's from the rest of the band, and then an extra-tight hug and a whisper in my ear from Gerard.

As he queitly said the two words to me, I felt an explosion of something brand new in the pit of my stomach. Hope? Faith? Honesty? Relief?

"Be okay," he said.

Be okay.

And I might be. I just might be.