Well It's Love, Make It Hurt

Gerard’s POV

It’s Monday, we’re on the bus again. Steph and Mikey are sitting together on the seats in front of me. I was sitting next to the window, with an empty seat next to me. Steph is, strangely enough, ridding the bus now. Apparently her parents decided not to drive her to school anymore.

Saturday, dad came home at about lunch time. Frank and Steph left about 20 minutes after that. And after lunch, mom asked Mikey to go with her to the grocery shop, so I was left alone with dad.

It didn’t go nicely as I wanted it to go. I had planned on going straight to my bedroom and lock myself in, so I wouldn’t see him. Unfortunately, He called me before I got to my room, and since I didn’t want him knocking down my door and being even madder at me, I went to where he was. He didn’t like the fact that Frank had been in the house.

Anyway, today I had a couple of black bruises around my stomach. Yesterday it hurt quite a bit to breathe, but today it was better. As usual, everything was able to be covered. And no one knew about it.

The bus came to a halt and I half-smiled. This is where Frank took the bus. I saw him get into the bus, and walk towards us.

“Hey guys!” he said, as he sat in the seat next to me.

“Hi!” Stephanie replied first.

“Hey, dude.” said Mikey

“Hi, Frank.” I said, looking at him. He held my stare for a while, before he poked my ribs, making me yelp in pain.

He looked confused at me.

“What’s wrong, dude?” he asked.

Oh, shit I thought.

“Nothing.” I said quickly, hiding the discomfort.

He eyed me suspiciously, so I decided to stare back at the window. The bus finally stopped in front of the school, and I think I’ve never been so glad, because I could still feel Frank’s eyes piercing the back of my head.

I waited for the bus to empty before grabbing my bag, as did Frank, Mikey and Steph. Since we started hanging out with Frank I waited for the bus to empty, mainly because it meant more time around Frank. Yeah, pathetic. Anyway, we walked out of the bus and into the school. Once inside I told them quickly I’d see them during break and went to my locker.

Damn, he noticed I thought to myself. I hoped he’d forget quickly enough, and leave the matter aside. I walked into my first period class, once again the first in the classroom.

Frank’s POV

Mikey, Steph and I are walking to our lockers, which were quite close actually, and then Steph said she’d see us later, walking to her own class.

Mikey and I walk to our history class. Mikey was rambling about something, and I just pretended to listen, submitting a few “oh” and “yeah” in the right times. I was wondering what was wrong with Gerard.

I knew he was lying when he said nothing was wrong.

Break couldn’t come fast enough. I wanted to talk to Gerard, and ask him what the hell was wrong. When the bell announced it was finally break, I got up off my chair and practically ran out the classroom, to my locker, and finally to the tree where we always sat.

As I approached the tree, I saw only Gerard sitting under it, staring into nothing. I walked over and sat next to him. He looked at me shocked, like I had just materialized out of thin air, then turned back to staring at whatever.

“What’s up?” I asked him casually.

“Uh… nothing” he answered, looking forward like he was really interested by something.

There was this weird awkward silence for a while. It felt like hours, but it was probably just a minute or so. I decided it was time to ask him the question that had been bothering me all day long.

“What happened in the bus?” I quietly asked. “What’s wrong?”

“What are you talking about?” he said, still not looking at me. I looked, well sorta stared, at him until he gave me an answer.

“It’s nothing, okay? Don’t worry about it.” he said, looking at me and smiling lightly.

I sighed, defeated. Maybe it actually was nothing. I kept trying to convince myself, while making small talk with him. Something told me it wasn’t, but I decided to put it from my mind.

I looked up and saw Alicia and Mikey walking over to the tree.