Therapy for the Lost

The next day, Lily was proved right. Though Sarah was sure that Dr. Corin used to be Gerard’s therapist, and that the Dr. had asked him to be nice to her. She could think of no other reason why the hell they would ask her over. But he did. He had conned Lily into giving him her number, and Mikey called her around noon. Sarah was still sleeping; she had been up late, fretting as usual. She worried too much. “Um, hello?”
“Sarah?” it was the soft male voice from last night, and Sarah cringed. That voice had haunted her dreams. Last night had been excellent; he was just like she had imagined in person, only nicer.
“I am, yes?” She blurted out tiredly.
“You awake? We’re goin’ to Frankie’s house to practice you want to come? I’m sure you and Jamia will get along great. She’s always bored when we practice, and her and Lily don’t really talk much.”
“Um,” she promptly rolled out of bed and hit the floor.
“Lily says she’ll beat you if you refuse anything I ask you.”
“What? That sounds so bad!” Sarah cried, awake now and sitting up. Her mess of hair fell in her face.
“I know, I told her I was going to ask you to sleep over tonight, just because you couldn’t say no.”
Sarah felt her breath catch in her chest. “Wow, um, that would have sucked.” She was almost stuttering.
Mikey laughed. “Why?”
“Because, uh…” she was starting to feel really stupid. “Cause it would. Not used to hanging around strange guys, you know.”
“Puh, well, you should be okay at our house then.”
“Mikey, don’t be-“ she shut up before she incriminated herself even more.
“Huh?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. So yea, I’ll come to Frankie’s house with you.” She agreed merely to change the subject.
“Great. Which apartment is yours?”
“Um, I’ll meet you outside.”
There was a pause before he said okay, and she hurried to get dressed. She met him and his brother outside, and froze up yet again as she realized that Lily was not coming. She didn’t ask about it, however, she just followed behind the two of them as they walked together and talked about the new song they were working on. For the most part they didn’t try to make Sarah take part in the conversation, but then they arrived at Frank’s house, and all hell broke loose. Lily was right that none of them cared about any of that, but Mikey did have to open his fat mouth right towards the beginning.
“This is Sarah, she role plays online, so Gerard decided she has to learn D&D. End of story. Oh, and Lily swore her to basically do whatever I ask, so if she argues, threaten her,” Mikey said with a very devious grin.
Sarah went beet red and kicked him in the shin. Not very hard, but then, it was only a warning shot. When he turned around to look at her, she gave him a falsely cheery smile and walked past him to shake Frankie’s hand.
“Wonderful, she’s not one of those irritating ‘I-have-to-hug-everyone’ chicks. We’ll get along great.”
“Yea, I’m not like most chicks at all, so we might get along better than you think.”
Ray smiled at her, “Good, cause I’m sick of chicks asking me to touch my fro.”
“Awe I can’t touch it? But tugging hair’s the best part! No, really, I merely want to laugh at it, sorry. But, you know, whatever makes you happy. You still rock out sweet as hell,” she replied, shrugging and pulling her sleeves down to put her thumbs in the holes. She’d been so used to being alone for the last few weeks, she almost forgot. She caught Frankie looking at her, and her stomach gave a nervous jolt. Ignoring all of it, she flopped down on the couch and listened as the guys went over some things.
“You want something to drink? We have Diet Coke and some Gatorade,” Frankie asked a few minutes later.
Sarah made a face. “I’ll take my chances with the death in a can,” she said taking the Diet Coke.
“Death in a can?”
“Um, yea. You need to drink the Diet with Splenda. The other crap gives you cancer.”
“And you know this cause…”
“I’m a Registered Medical Assistant.”
That pretty much shut him up. “Well, anyway,”
“Thank you,” she replied.
“Here, give these to the guys,” he said, grinning and handing her four more cans.
“What am I, the coke wench?”
This was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it as soon as it was out of her mouth, but she managed to recover nicely, and Bob did help it along a bit. “Cause I used to work at a bar, and you know, I served beer, the beer wench…”
“Did people actually call you that?” Bob asked.
“I had this guy from Europe once, and he must have never been in America before. It was a nightmare he kept snapping his fingers at me and all sorts of crap. And yes, he kept calling me the beer wench.”
Frankie and Ray laughed. “Are you serious? I would have knocked him on his ass,” Ray said.
“We had an argument before he left. I almost got fired. I just told him, you know. I was like, ‘Sir, could you please stop doing that, I would be happy to bring you another Hieniken, but please don’t snap your fingers at me.’”
“What did he do?”
“Screamed at me in German.”
“Really?”
“Yes, and then I screamed back in English, and it went all downhill from there.” She handed Gerard a Coke and he went back to talking to Frank. She purposely did Mikey last, and he rewarded her by yanking her down to sit next to him. Though he had no idea that was how she thought of it.
“So, you realize now your stuck, because you only live, like three doors down from Gerard and I. Gerard can’t stand to be bored, so he’ll never leave you alone. And you better not play any video games, because then you’ll never have a sleeping moment.”
“Um…I guess I won’t tell him I own an Xbox and a Gamecube, then.”
“You play video games, too?” Bob asked.
Sarah sighed. “Yes, and I watch football, and drink beer, and I cook and do laundry. But I would never let anyone else eat what I cook. Oh, and I cuss like a sailor and am -“ she shut up. She was about to say something she really shouldn’t. She needed to work on her ability to be open with people with the things she really shouldn’t be.
“Am what?” Gerard asked.
“Nothing. I ran out of stuff to say,” she lied.
“Yea, right,” Frankie said, smirking. Well, she never was a good liar.
“No, really, I did.”
“I could make her tell us,” Mikey grinned, totally having fun with it.
“NO, you could not!” Sarah said, going purple and taking out her cell phone. “Because I am calling Lily right now to verbally abuse her.”
They laughed, and all of them found it hard to keep a straight face while she was talking.
“Lily, this is Sarah, and I swear I am going to KILL YOU when I see you again! Do you have any IDEA what you have done to me?”
“Yes, I do. I figured Gerard and Mikey would tease the hell out of you with what I said. Keeps it interesting, huh?”
“No, it does not, Lily! He’s using it for all the wrong reasons!”
“Who, Mikey? What do you care if he makes you sleep at his house? Not like you’ll be bitching, huh?”
“Yes, I would! Think about it! And that’s not the worst part, he hasn’t actually swore me to do that yet,” Mikey and Gerard were laughing really hard now, and Ray looked really curious. Frankie was giving Mikey a very knowing look. “You all are dirty whores! Stop looking at me like that! And Lily, I swear-“
“Okay, okay, I’ll tell him to stop.”
“Promise?”
“No, this is way too much fun. I can only imagine what the hell they’re thinking!”
“LILY CORIN!!” Sarah cried, but Lily hung up, laughing her head off.
“So, didn’t want us to find out you’re a raging nympho, huh?” Frank asked. “Cause I think that’s where you were going with that.”
“Who’s a raging nympho?” asked a girl as she opened the back patio door.
Sarah groaned and shook her head. “Lemme guess, Jamia?” she asked.
The girl nodded.
“Lovely, these guys were just terrorizing me…” she replied, feeling guilty for some reason.
“Oh, so you must be the nympho, because Frank never puts out unless it’s Gerard, and Mikey’s scared of girls.”
Sarah laughed. “Scared of girls, huh? Well, that’s a new one. I figured by now he’d be a raging man whore…”
Jamia laughed really hard. “Are you kidding? Anytime he gets within twenty feet of a fangirl, he backs out. Gerard usually has to make him sit still long enough to sign crap. And Bob and Ray? Well, Bob’s devoted and I think Ray’s a closet whore. But anyway,” she said. “You’re not really going to listen to them practice are you? Because then Frank will probably just hurt you; I can’t tell you how many times he’s hurt Ray.”
Sarah merely grinned and she and Jamia played Tony Hawk while the guys went into the studio they had in the back of Franks’ house. Sarah lost spectacularly, and Jamia promised she’d be a Tony Hawk pro before long.
“Well, add that to being a D&D junkie, and I think I’ll be busy every day of the week.”
“What, did Gerard swear you to it?”
“Uh, Mikey did, actually, but I only agreed to get out of the house.”
“Wow, he’s that repellent, huh?”
“Um, not exactly,” and she knew she was blushing. Jamia was nice enough to ignore it, however, when the guys came out of the back, she invited Sarah along to lunch. “Uh, well, maybe another-“
“You have to come.” Mikey said.
Sarah frowned. “You’re not seriously going to make me stay here all day are you?”
He grinned. “And if I do? Lily will just kick your ass. And no offense to her, but she is quite larger than you.”
Everyone laughed at this and Sarah agreed. “Fine, but I am not staying at your house.”
“Staying at his house? Mikey you’re moving up in the world.” Jamia grinned.
Mikey stuck his tongue out at her and Frank hit him. “Can’t mess with her, man. Tease Sarah some more why don’t you?”
“Okay…”
“How about no?” She asked.
“Low chances of that happening, sorry. This is really fun.”
“She didn’t say how long I had to, did she?”
Mikey shrugged, “Not really.”
Sarah sighed and led the way outside. “So, where are we going?”