Misery Loves Me

I never thought it would feel so good to be considered hot, but it does. It feels like your worth something, it feels like you’re accepted, it just feel so unbelievable good. I blush and smile when Gerard tells me it, and look down so my bangs are covering my face, and hopefully my blush. Mikey lets out a girlish giggle and squeak before making me spin around another time, giving Gerard one last look, and pushing me back into the cubicle.

“See!? I told you it looks great!” I nod at Mikey, still with a little-barely-there smile on my face. Mikey’s already looking through the jeans to find another one which will make me “even hotter”, I quote his words.

“Take off those pants, Frank! Doesn’t matter how hot you look in it!.” As soon as Mikey said that, I hear giggles from outside the cubicle, really cute giggles might I add, and I immediately recognize them as Gerard’s. “Ooh, damn you Gerard! You know I didn’t mean it like that!” Mikey says while turning pink. “It’s just that I’ve got a new pair of pants here, which may look even hotter on him, and I’m not letting him show it to you if you don’t stop giggling now!” The giggling stops as abrupt as it started. “HA, I thought so!” Mikey says before motioning me to hurry up a bit. I do as he says and try on a new pair of pants. These are black, and maybe even more skinny than the white ones. I struggle again with getting them on.

“I hope you don’t need my help each time you try to get these on, I don’t think I’ll be able to be at your house every morning, I love sleeping too much.” He says while laughing at my attempts to pull them on and holding me upright. “But when you’re at home, you can just lay down on your bed, it’s easier that way. Plus, you can’t really fall, except when you roll from your bed. You got them on?” I nod as I zip the fly up. “OKAY! Gerard, get ready for another magical pair of pants?” I look up at him questionably, magical pair of pants? What the fuck? He shrugs and pushes the curtain out of the way. “GIVE IT UP FOR IERO!” Mikey exclaims dramatically, Gerard starts clapping as I walk out of the cubicle towards him. He’s still clapping as I spin around in front of him, and only stops when Mikey says “thank you, thank you.”

“I must say Frank, Mikey choose the right pants, these are amazing as well! They really suit you.” He compliments me while grinning up at me. I grin back at him in thanks, making his grin even wider.

“Yeah, yeah, enough of the sweet words and grinning. Come Frank, there are still more pants waiting for you to try them on!

It feels like I’m trying on pants for years, but when we’re done, it feels like it was no time at all. We choose 4 pair of pants for me, for which they will pay with their mother’s credit card. They wanted me to buy 6 or 7, but I declined, I couldn’t let them spent all than money on me! I don’t even know why I get these pants from them, but I’m thankful for it. I just really don’t need more.

When Gerard’s putting back the pants I’m not buying, Mikey takes me to the t-shirt department.

“So, let’s get you a couple of shirts! What do you like? You want plain, with print? Loose, Tight? Band, non-band? I think we should both take some long-sleeved and short-sleeved. Which color would you like? Some black/Gray/white? Or something really colorful?” I just stare at him before turning my gaze at the thousands of t-shirts before me. How can I possibly chose something from here!? There are so many shirts I don’t even know where to start!

“Okay, I’ll help you some more. I think you’ll like some of the spiral shirts, let’s get to that section.” He grabs my arm, pulling me to a couple of racks with shirts with beautiful prints on them. I immediately walk over to one with a wolf print. It’s a dark t-shirt with a wolf underneath some trees, and on the back there are wolves howling to the moon. Only there isn’t a moon in the sky, instead there’s a pair of wolf eyes. When I’ve admired the shirt enough, I hang it over my arm and begin looking at the others. They’re all beautiful, and Mikey already has four of five shirts hanging over his shoulder.

“Okay, we got enough from here. You also want some fun printed t-shirts? With funny images or text on it I mean.” I nod, and Mikey grabs my arm again.

“Here we are! And I think I can see Gerard over there, wait here, I’ll get him.” And then Mikey runs toward a black mop of hair. I see him startle Gerard by jumping on his back. As he jumps off Gerard turns around, trying to look angry, but failing hard because he’s laughing at the same time. Mikey points to me and Gerard waves and smiles as he sees me. They make their way over to me, laughing at something Gerard’s got in his hands.

“Hey Frank, look what I found!” Gerard says while showing me the thing he and Mikey were laughing about. It’s a shirt that read ‘huge metal fan’ with an image of a fan, the kind that blows air, beneath it. I grin, I think I want one of those kind of shirts too! As we wander around, we find a shirt with two rainbows on it, reading ‘OMG so intense…’, one that says ‘your FACE and my ASS could be TWINS!’, one that reads ‘Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Oscar Foxtrot Foxtrot’, one with a weird hamster, one with blood spatters and the text ‘don’t worry, it’s not my blood’ on it, one with the text ‘my mission: rescue the world, my weapon:’ and an image of a controller beneath it, and a lot more. The three of us each have a couple of shirts to try on, so we get into a cubicle each and change. When we got our first shirt on, we come out of the cubicle and show each other the shirts.

“Gerard, I love that shirt! It really suits you in all meanings!” Mikey tells Gerard, who’s wearing a kinda tight bright pink shirt which reads ‘black was sold out’, giggling. “And I like your shirt too Frank! I don’t think you should take a bigger one like I first thought, this one fits perfectly!” I grin at him, I can’t get my head around how nice he is to me. I mean, he helps me, compliments me, makes laugh, and he just generally treats me as a best friend. I really don’t get why he hasn’t more friends, he’s like a social butterfly to me! Then I suddenly wonder: does he spent so much time on me that he doesn’t have time for other friends? I quickly grab my notebook to ask it.

“Don’t you spent too much time on me?”

“What do you mean?” Mikey asks confused, after reading my little message.

“I don’t wanna claim all your time. You don’t have to be with me all the time if there are other things that you’d want to do”

“What are you thinking Frank?” Gerard says, having read it too. “We do what we want to do when we’re with you. Have you seen how happy Mikey is because we went shopping? And when you wouldn’t be with us, all we’d do, would probably be the same as when you’re with us. Only do we have more fun with you around, because we like you, you’re our friend.”

”But you never have time for other friends.”

“That’s because of the simple fact that we don’t really have more friends. But we don’t need them as long as we have each other.” Mikey says while pointing at me and Gerard. Don’t they even wanna make other friends? I know I don’t want to, but that’s because I don’t want other people to have to put up with me.

“OK, but please don’t feel obligated to spend time with me.”

“We don’t, Frank, we do this because we like it, remember?” I nod, and before I know it Mikey has pulled me into a hug. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, you’re great, accept that fact.” I nod again and Mikey lets me go. “You want to try those other shirts on too? Or do you want to choose without trying them on?”

“I dunno, maybe try on a few, and then choose? If you’re okay with that?”

“Off course I am! I love shopping, remember? Trying clothes on is a big part of it.” Mikey squeals before skipping, yeah skipping, back into the cubicle. Gerard rolls his eyes fondly at his brothers behavior, flashes me a grin, and steps into his cubicle too.

After a while we’ve all decided which shirts we want to buy, and we head to the counter to pay. Then I suddenly see something that makes me stop in my tracks and grab Gerard’s sleeve. It’s a fucking awesome Smashing Pumpkins hoodie! I tug on Gerard’s sleeve to make him follow me to my dear hoodie, my eyes fixed on it like it will disappear if I don’t keep looking at it.

“Frank, what’s wrong?” Gerard asks, sounding confused and a bit worried. I just point at the hoodie and look at him with wide eyes and a slight smile. He should get it that I want it, right? I don’t want them to spend money on me, really, but, I WANT THAT DAMN HOODIE. Gerard laughs and tells Mikey to come over.

“Mikes, Frank here wants that hoodie really badly. You think we should buy it for him?” If they don’t want to buy it for me, then I’ll just put back some shirts and buy the hoodie instead, if that’s okay with them. I’m currently torn between not wanting to spend their money, and really, really wanting the hoodie. I shouldn’t be so selfish to even consider buying the hoodie from someone else’s money, but I can’t help but do.

“Well, I think he already got a lot today, didn’t he?” Mikey says. I look down, pouting a bit. I knew it, now I’ve asked too much, haven’t I? But when I look through my bangs, I see them grinning at me. I look up hopefully, I haven’t?

“Well, I think we can get you this one too. It’d definitely look good on you. You just have to promise to wear it with pride.” Gerard tells me, still smiling. I nod, grinning again, and give Gerard a bone-crushing hug, which he returns immediately. This is my lucky day. And I can’t remember ever feeling this happy as I’m now, tightly wrapped in Gerard arms, with a grin on my face.