I Can Transform You

POV: Frank

After leaving the party, I headed straight home. I was grateful and disappointed at the same time that Gerard didn’t come after me. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I wanted to be alone or not.

When I’m alone, my thoughts are the only thing I have for company and they drive me fucking crazy. But then, if I was with Gerard I know he’d be asking what’s wrong with me and I don’t want to tell him. I’ll never tell anyone about my past.

Anyway, it made no difference whether I wanted to be alone or not, because I had no choice in the matter; I arrived back home to a completely empty house. I didn’t know where everyone was and I didn’t care.

I went straight upstairs to mine and Gerard’s bedroom and collapsed straight onto my pull-out sofa bed, face down in my pillow. It was then that I finally allowed myself to set my emotions free and cry my fucking eyes out, tortured by the memories of my past.

I don’t know how long I laid there, sobbing my heart out; I lost sense of time. But eventually, the tears dried up and I realised I’d cried as much as I could. I sat up on my bed and wiped my eyes, regaining composure.

I decided I needed a distraction; something to take my mind off of everything. My eyes searched Gerard’s room desperately, but nothing particularly stood out to me.

He had million comic books littered across the floor, but no porn magazines… Hundreds of video games, but none were anywhere near violent enough for my liking… And loads of random shit like Warhammer models that reminded me what a fucking nerd he is.

It was a reminder that we have absolutely nothing in common.

Just as I was about to give up hope of finding anything interesting, something hiding under all his crap beneath his bed caught my eye. It was a black hard-back book with the gold words ‘Diary’ engraved on the front. That definitely captured my interest.

Gerard owns a diary? Is he secretly a 13 year-old overly-emotional girl, like me?

I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. I walked over to Gerard’s bed and reached down to pick up the private book that probably had his deepest secrets written within it. I knew he’d kill me if he had any idea what I was doing, but I just didn’t care enough to put it down.

I opened the diary to the first page and my eyes drifted over the date at the top and I found that he wrote this four years ago, so he would have been thirteen or fourteen.

As soon as my eyes scanned over what he had written, the impact his words hit me like a tonne of bricks.

June 24th 2006 – Fuck this whole wide world

I’ve been told I need to start expressing my emotions instead of bottling them up inside. But it’s a waste of time trying to talk to other people about all this shit. No one cares. Who the fuck wants to know that the loser kid no one likes is depressed? That’s a given. No prizes for guessing that one.

There’s a prize for guessing why though, because I’m pretty sure no one could guess. They don’t know that my mother walked out on us… her family… and just disappeared without a single word. No apology, no goodbye, nothing.

I never thought she’d leave us… I can’t adjust to life without her, even though I know she’s gone and she’s never coming back. I hate her so much for breaking us apart like this, but I fucking miss her. The house is empty without her… We’re all empty.

I don’t get it. I don’t know what I did to deserve this rejection. It was all made so much worse by the fact that she tried to get in touch with Mikey because she wanted him to live with her and her new boyfriend… But there was no invite for me. It’s just me she doesn’t want. Nobody ever wants me.

Never again will I love or trust people not to hurt me. Because the ones that you think will always have your back are the ones that are close enough to turn around and stab you in it.

F.T.W.W.W

I had no idea about Gerard’s past, so reading his heartfelt account was a shock, and it had a weird effect on me. I actually felt like crying again because I felt such a high level of empathy towards him.

I was wrong; Gerard and I do have something in common… A fucked up past.

I know what it’s like to have a broken home. The only difference is death is what broke my parents apart. But still, my father is gone and he’s never coming back, like Gerard’s mum.

I know what it’s like to feel rejected. I definitely felt rejected by my mum back when my dad died… She went off the rails and became depressed. I was depressed too and it was made even worse by the fact that my mum never gave me any attention. I had no one to talk to. I just kept my feelings bottled up and took out my pain on innocent people around me. Like Gerard.

A few years later my mum finally remembered she had a son. She noticed me again. She noticed that I was one fucking messed up child and she couldn’t work out why. She never knew that I had been living in silence with the torturous images of my dad being brutally murdered right in front of me for so long.

I wanted to stop reading Gerard’s diary there, but I couldn’t stop myself from turning the page. I felt bad for what I was doing, but at the same time, it was having an effect on me I can’t explain… I suddenly didn’t feel so alone, like I was the only one with a fucked up past...

January 29th 2007 – Closer to the edge

I hate my school and every motherfucker in it. Especially Frank Iero. Today he threw a football at my head in the canteen. It didn’t hurt… The fact that everyone laughed at me did though. I try not to let them get to me, but there’s only so much of this I can take…

I couldn’t quite process the words I had just read due to the tremendous level of guilt that was flooding through me.

I honestly didn’t realise how much I was affecting Gerard. He was always so good at acting like he didn’t care… It wasn’t until that day that I found him slitting his wrists that I realised just how fragile he is. And by then, it was too late. I’d already broken him.

But I’m trying to make up for it now and put the pieces back together. I know I’m supposed to be sticking to the plan and only making Gerard think he’s popular, but I can’t do that. I can’t break him again.

I have my own secret plan to try and make him popular for real. If he hangs out with me and my friends long enough, I believe he’ll actually start to grow on them, like he has on me. Matty will be the hardest one to win over, but it could happen.

It’s beyond me why Gerard even wants to be one of our gang after everything we put him through. If I didn’t already know Gerard is too nice for his own good, I would be suspicious.

Despite the level of guilt in me, I still couldn’t bring myself to quit invading his privacy. I turned yet another page, overcome with curiosity.

August 12th 2007 – Nothing to lose

Need more friends with wings
All the angels I know put concrete in my veins
I’d always walk home alone
So I became lifeless, just like my telephone

There’s nothing to lose when no on knows your name
There’s nothing to gain, but the days don’t seem to change

Never played truth or dare
I’d have to check my mirror to see if I’m still here
My parents had no clue that I ate my lunches alone in the bathroom

There’s nothing to lose when no on knows your name
There’s nothing to gain, but the days don’t seem to change
There’s nothing to lose; my notebook will explain
There’s nothing to gain and I can’t fight the pain

Teacher’s said it’s just a phase
When I grow old my kids will probably do the same
Kids just love to tease…
Oh no, it put me under ground at seventeen

There’s nothing to gain and I just died today

The words reminded me of song lyrics, but I didn’t recognise the song. I found the words very harrowing. It was painfully obvious that Gerard wrote this to express his suicidal thoughts and it chilled me to my very core.

I’d contemplated suicide myself many times, though I’d never actually attempted it. The only people that have really made me stick around this long are Lydia and Matty. We have our arguments, sure, but when it comes down to it, I love them both and I know they love me too. I wouldn’t put them through losing me like that. They’re the two most important people in my life; they feel more like my family than my real family.

As my mind wandered, my eyes also wandered, drifting over the words on the next page.

August 23rd 2007 - This is how I disappear

I am staring down at these pills with only five thoughts going through my head, driving me to do this…

No one loves me. No one wants me. No one needs me. No one gives a shit.

Will anyone even notice I’m gone?

Reading those words made me feel sick, even though I knew that Gerard obviously didn’t kill himself… I could tell that when he wrote this, he was fully intending to take his own life. I couldn’t help but wonder if he tried to and wasn’t successful, or if he came to his senses and didn’t actually take an overdose.

How can he have seriously believed no one cared about him? What about his Dad? Or Mikey? Or those two friends of his that he used to hang round with? There must be someone… There’s always someone.

And of course people would have noticed he was gone. Does he really think he’s that invisible? How can he not realise that he has always been the complete opposite of invisible to me?

I would have been the first to notice his absence. I never took my eyes off him. I know I wasn’t giving him the kind of attention he so desperately craved, but I only treated the way I did out of fear because I was attracted to him.

If only he knew.

In fact, maybe it’s time that he did know…