Sleeping Beauty

Chapter 5

“Mikey? Gee? Anybody home?”

“Upstairs!”

Frank walked through the Way house and looked around. The house felt so... cozy. It had a warm feeling. Frank had never anything like that in his home.

“Hey, Frank!” Mikey greeted when Frank stepped in Gerard’s room. They were playing some videogame. Gerard was winning Mikey, easily.

“What’s up?” Gerard asked, not lifting his eyes from the screen.

“Nothing. Just thought we could hang out?” Frank asked hishands in his pockets. Frank knew he had been a bad friend but he really missed Gerard and Mikey.
Mikey looked at Gerard who didn’t look back.

“Yeah, sure” Mikey said with a warm smile.

“Gee?”

Now Gerard turned to look at Frank. Frank was glad to see his friend smiling.

“Sure, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. It seems like forever since we last did something together. Wanna go and see a movie?” Frank asked.

“I’m always up for a good movie” Mikey smirked and Gerard laughed a little. Frank smirked back at the brothers.

“Let’s go, guys!”

After the movie, the boys went to get a cup of coffee and discussed about the movie. Frank thought it was awesome, Gerard liked it and Mikey wasn’t sure.

“I’m telling you, there was too much nudity!” Mikey tried to say but Gerard and Frank just laughed.

“Poor boy, can’t handle the sex talk” Frank laughed.

“No, it’s not that!”

“It’s okay Mikey, we’re just kidding... kind of” Gerard laughed at him. Frank giggled when he saw the expression on Mikey’s face. The boy was turning red and looked very uncomfortable.

“Sorry, Mikey. We’ll stop now” Gerard said smiling.

“You sure you don’t want to stay?” Frank asked when Gerard and Mikey we’re leaving. They had ended up at Frank’s house and had drank some vodka Frank had in his room.

“No, I think I should get Mikey home. He looks sick”

That was true. Mikey had troubles to stay on his feet and he started to look like he could vomit any time soon.

“Yeah, you’re right” Frank said.

“But hey, I can come back, once I’ve got Mikey home safe” Gerard suggested.

“No, it’s okay. I’m good” Frank said and smiled and watched when Gerard and Mikey walked away.

Frank closed the door. The house was empty again. Three more days and it will be full of the smell of his mothers parfume and his father’s anger. Three more days of freedom and then... all hell breaks loose. He knew that when his parents would get home, it would all get back to the way it was. His parents would argue, they would shout and scream, Frank would try to cover his ears and pretend he was somewhere else. Frank would walk to the bathroom and take out the bottle of pills. He would swallow few pills and he would sleep. He would sleep the yelling and shouting off.
Then he’d wake up to his nightmare again.

Frank walked upstais and turned on his stereos. The loud music filled his head. Frank walked up to his guitar and looked at it. It was beautiful, but when Frank looked at it, the only thing he could see was a bribe. He loved the guitar, but he felt disgusted with it. He didn’t want to look at it. He felt sick. He really felt sick and ran to the bathroom and emptied his stomach.

Frank washed his face with cold water. Then he walked back downstairs. He picked up the half empty bottle of vodka and took a swig. It burned his throat, but he drank some more. He had already drank quite a lot of that stuff with Gee and Mikey, but he didn’t care. He drank more. Then he took the bottle with him upstairs. He walked to the bathroom and took out the bottle of pills.The bottle was almost empty. He took out five pills and swallowed them with vodka.

“I want some fucking sleep!” Frank said angry. He just wanted to sleep. What was so wrong about it? He wanted to sleep. He wanted to dream.

Frank looked at his reflection on the mirror. He felt disgusted. The reflection showed him as a drunk boy, who looked pretty pathetic and tired. He wasn’t pathetic and he certainly wasn’t drunk. He was just pissed and he wanted to sleep. Frank sighed. Who was he trying to fool? Frank knew Gerard was right, always had been. He wasn’t alright, he had a problem. But he just wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep it all off. One little tear escaped Frank’s eye, but he wiped it off. Frank looked at himself again. He looked like death. He had shadows under his eyes and his skin was pale. He felt sick again. He was disgusted with his own reflection. He was disgusting. With that, Frank hit his fist in the mirror. The mirror broke into thousands of little pieces and Frank felt pain in his hand. Some pieces cut his face. He felt the blood running across his face.

Frank dropped down on his knees. He felt sick. He felt wrong. He felt alone. He felt the world on his shoulders. He could hear his parents yelling. He could feel the numbness of the pills take over his body. He was pathetic. He was in pain. Everything was wrong. Everything hurt. He wanted to vomit, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have the strenght to do anything. He couldn’t even get up. He fell from his knees to the floor and started sobbing. He didn’t want to cry, he was Frank fucking Iero!, but he couldn’t stop the tears falling. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to get away.

Frank could hear the bathroom door open, he didn’t remember closing it, but he couldn’t see who came in. His tears had blinded him.

“Frank? Oh my god, Frank!”

Frank heard Gerard’s voice. The boy rushed over him and kneeled next to him.

“Frank! Oh God, Frank! What happened?” Gerard asked in shock. He saw a lot of blood, way too much blood. It was everywhere. On the floor, on the walls, on the mirror and on it’s piece’s, on Frank, on his Frank.

“Gerard? Gerard, you’re here” Frank said in a weak voice.

Gerard had never seen Frank like this. Bleeding. Both, physically and mentally. Frank had a desperate look on his eyes and his whole face was striped by blood anf tears.

“I’m here, Frank. I’m here” Gerard said and helped Frank to get up on his knees.

Frank felt dizzy, so he couldn’t get up. He still felt sick. Suddenly, Frank just jumped on Gerard and hugged him tight. He sobbed into Gerard’s black t-shirt.

“Shh, Frank. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not...” Frank sobbed.
Gerard caressed Frank’s head.

“It’s not okay. I’m not okay. Nothing’s okay!” Frank sobbed.

“Shh, let’s just get you cleaned up, okay?”

“No, don’t leave me!” Frank said and hold on tighter to Gerard.

“I won’t leave you. I will never leave you. I promise.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. But I’m gonna go and get something to get you cleaned up. You’re covered in blood. Okay?” Gerard asked softly.

“Okay” Frank said. Gerard placed a soft kiss on Frank’s head and got up to get some supplies.

When he got back, Frank was right where he had left him, but he had stopped sobbing. Now he just laid there, dead quiet.

“Frank? C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up” Gerard said and smiled.

Carefully, Gerard wiped the blood off Frank’s face and cleaned all the cuts. They didn’t bleed anymore.

“Now, that’s better” Gerard said when he finished.

“Thanks, Gee” Frank said and managed to smile at Gerard.

“Now there’s that smile I’ve been missing” Gerard said and made Frank laugh a little.

“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” Gerard asked quietly.

“Yeah. Let’s go and make some coffee and I’ll tell you”