I Can Transform You

POV: Frank

***

“Where the hell were you last night?” I demanded, upon seeing Gerard in the hallway at school the following morning. My voice echoed all the way down the corridor to where Gerard was standing with his head in his locker.

He didn’t come home from the party at all last night. I stayed awake like an anxious mother waiting for him, but he didn’t turn up. I was actually worried.

Gerard appeared from inside his locker, peering round it to look at me as I approached.

He usually looks pretty hot, but he looked like death this morning. His complexion was even paler than usual, there were bags under his bloodshot eyes, and his hair looked as if it had not seen a comb for a week.

“Do you mind not talking so loud,” he groaned, rubbing his head.

God, he is so hungover.

“Why didn’t you come home?” I demanded at the same inconsiderately loud volume, glaring at him.

“I just stayed the night at Matty’s,” he retorted grouchily, looking at me with tired eyes.

I arched an eyebrow. The idea of Gerard having a sleepover at Matty’s house was still hard for me to get my head around, since I knew how much Matty hated him.

“Well, you could have fucking rang to tell me you weren’t coming home,” I snapped. I failed to realise I was starting to sound obsessive and jealous. Not to mention pathetic.

“Fuck off, you’re not my father,” he grumbled, making me suddenly realise I sounded possessive too.

I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could respond, a group of girls I know from the Cheerleading squad sauntered past us.

The first thing I noticed was that Lydia was not with them. They are her friends that she usually hangs out with, but today, she was nowhere to be seen. I hadn’t seen or heard from her since lunch time yesterday and I was getting worried about her.

The second thing I noticed was that all of them were indiscreetly eyeing up Gerard. He seemed oblivious to their attention, but I was fully aware of it. They were smirking and whispering to eachother and I heard his name on their lips. I stared at them suspiciously.

What are they saying about him? And why are they looking at him when I’m stood next to him?! I’m not used to Gerard being the centre of attention before me…

I swear I heard one of them giggle and say “I’ll never look at him in the same way again now”. I frowned to myself.

They didn’t stop to chat, like they would usually do with me; they just kept walking, glancing over their shoulders at Gerard as they walked away. They didn’t seem to notice me at all.

“What was that all about?” I questioned Gerard in confusion.

He looked at me blankly.

“What?”

“How can you have missed that?!” I frowned, gesturing in the direction that the girls had just walked off in.

“Missed what?” He continued to stare at me with a glazed over look in his eye.

“Oh, forget it. You’re about as observant as a fucking pencil,” I snapped irritably, but I was silently questioning whether I had just imagined those girls were talking about Gerard. I am a pretty paranoid person, after all.

Gerard pouted slightly, looking offended that I had compared him to a pencil. I rolled my eyes at him.

All of a sudden, the bell rang down the corridor, indicating that first period had begun. Gerard took out his books and closed his locker, getting ready to head to his lesson.

“What do you have now?” I asked.

“Chemistry,” he sighed.

I shuddered at the thought of Chemistry. I hadn’t attended that class for months. I loathed it.

“Joy. I’ll meet you behind the bike sheds at break, okay?” My tone was commanding more than questioning. I wasn’t giving him any other option.

“Okay,” he agreed, because what else could he do?

“See you later.”

My lesson was Music. The one lesson I didn’t mind too much. The teacher was so laidback people barely even noticed he was there, and he barely noticed we were there. I sat at the back with Matty, so we were practically invisible to him.

I hadn’t spoken to Matty since last night when we had an argument over Gerard drinking too many shots. I knew he probably wouldn’t be in the best of moods with me, and honestly, I didn’t care. I wasn’t in the best of moods with him either. He’d been annoying me recently.

As soon as I entered the Music classroom, Matty greeted me in the same sort of way that I had greeted Gerard five minutes ago.

“Where the hell did you disappear to last night?” He questioned nosily, eyebrows raised at me.

I exhaled loudly as I dropped down onto my seat beside him.

“I went home… wasn’t feeling too good.”

And by that, I mean I had a breakdown.

“Oh man. You missed out on some funny shit. Gerard was completely off his face!” Matty sneered. He didn’t even seem annoyed with me for leaving the party or for the argument we had; just amused by what he was saying.

“He passed out in my bathtub at one point! Then, he came downstairs in just his boxers and started dancing randomly in the kitchen…”

Oh dear God.

“What the fuck? What was he on?” I demanded, frowning deeply.

“Fucking everything!”

So, basically, after I left the party last night, no one was around to keep Gerard under control and he single-handedly destroyed the reputation I was trying to build him… Fucking brilliant.

I groaned and shook my head, embarrassed for Gerard.

“Speaking of that retard, have you found out anything about him yet?” Matty added, still wearing a smirk on his face.

“Huh?”
It took me a minute to realise what he was talking about.

“His secrets? You know… The whole reason we’re hanging around with him in the first place… To build him up and watch him fall…?” Matty spoke slowly, frowning at me.

Oh right. The ‘plan’.

“Oh, that,” I realised, averting my eyes to the table. “Uh… no, I haven’t.”

I only know that he has been suicidal before and tried to kill himself because his mother abandoned him…

“He hasn’t told you anything?”
I felt like Matty could tell I wasn’t telling him the truth, because his x-ray eyes were burning into me.

But still, I insisted I knew nothing.

There was no way I would tell Matty what I read in Gerard’s diary. It’s too personal and I’m not that harsh. I was never on board with this plan in the first place.

“You’re gonna have to step up your game here. Do whatever you can to get stuff out of him!” Matty instructed officiously.

Like what? Holding him upside-down by the ankles and shaking him?!

I sighed, deciding it was time to address this ridiculous plan properly.

“Matty, don’t you think this whole thing is kinda stupid? I mean, what’s the actual point?” I enquired, wanting him to realise there is really no point to it.

But of course I was forgetting that Matty is too ignorant to realise.

“No, I think it’s genius. This will be the ultimate humiliation!” He retorted proudly, staring at me like I was the one that had lost my mind. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“Well, I never thought it was a good idea… So, technically, my thoughts have stayed the same,” I shrugged.

Matty’s eyes narrowed at me. I could see him getting frustrated.

“So, why did you agree to make him popular?” He demanded sharply.

Because I saw how depressed he was with his old life and I wanted to help him... Because I like him.

I ignored the voice in my head, because it was saying the truth that I would never admit to Matty. I didn’t even like to admit it to myself.

But avoiding the truth meant I had to think of a cover-up reason and my mind was unhelpfully blank.

“I dunno… I just wanted to see what he’s like,” I replied eventually.

Once again, I averted my eyes away from Matty’s, this time looking casually around the classroom. I could feel his scrutinising eyes piercing into me, but I tried to seem more interested in our peers. Some of them were talking loudly across the room to eachother and immaturely throwing paper airplanes.

No one seemed to notice the heavy conversation Matty and I were having.

“Oh. And you like what you see, eh?” Matty scoffed, bringing my attention back to him.

The look on his face was a mixture of amusement and disbelief, but I knew he was feeling frustrated with me more than anything.

Yes, I do like what I see. A lot.

“He’s not a bad kid, Matty,” I told him boldly, shrugging again. “You should give him a real chance.”

Matty looked at me like I had officially gone insane.

“Not a bad kid?” He repeated, cocking an eyebrow. Then, he shook his head and sighed, before saying in a regretful voice “Frank, are you aware that he fucked your ex-girlfriend at my party last night?”

This caught me way off-guard. I stared at Matty for a few endless seconds with a rigid expression, my eyebrows furrowed slightly and my lips pursed, as I processed this new information.

But I couldn’t my head round it.

“He slept with Laura?” I tried to verify, feeling confused more than anything else in that moment.

“Yeah. I found them getting it on in my parents’ bedroom… of all places…” Matty shuddered.

So, Gerard went behind my back and slept with my ex-girlfriend after I told him not to…?

Slowly, it began to sink in that Gerard had betrayed me and confusion was suddenly replaced with anger.

“Wha- I told him to stay away from her!” I exclaimed incredulously. “What the fuck is he playing at?”

"I knew you wouldn't be happy," Matty muttered.

Of course I'm not fucking happy! Gerard thinks he can just ignore me and do the opposite of what I tell him, does he? He deserves a punch in the face for this. Nobody betrays me and gets away with it!

“I’m gonna punch him next time I see him!” I concluded rashly, rage and jealousy contaminating my mind.

“No, don’t do that,” Matty shook his head adamantly. “Don’t even tell him you know... Just get revenge. Stick to the plan… Make him pay for going behind your back like that.”

Yeah... Maybe I will. You know what? Maybe the plan isn’t such a bad one after all.

If Gerard’s just going to throw everything back in my face, then I’m not going to fucking help him anymore. He’s gonna get what’s coming to him...

“Oh, he will pay for this.”