Coffee and Cigarettes

"Happy Valentines Day," Frank said, taking a seat next to Gerard against the brick wall of the science building. He reached into his backpack and removed a cheesy valentines day card and a heart shaped lollipop.

Gerard chuckled. "Really? You got me a valentine?" He looked down at the small card. There was a cartoon of a pirate standing on a treasure chest, his hook for a hand raised high in the air. The card read I am hooked on you.

Frank laughed along with him. "Yeah. My younger cousin came over and I helped him decorate his valentines for school. There were a few left over so I thought I'd give you one."

"Thanks," Gerard replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes.

"I thought you were quitting," Frank said, closing his eyes.

"I said I'd smoke less. Never once did I say I'd quit."

Frank shook his head, a blithe smile forming on his lips. As much as he hated Gerard's nasty habit he couldn't picture him any other way. Every time he saw Gerard there was either a cigarette dangling from his lips or he was pulling one from his pocket. It was a constant. Gerard smoked as much as he was sarcastic.

"Hey," Gerard said, the words escaping the side of his mouth. The burnt edges of his cigarette shook onto his shirt as he spoke.

Frank cracked an eye open and inwardly laughed at the cigarette hanging from his friends lips. "What?"

"If I ask you something, will you be completely honest?"

Frank nodded, closing his eyes once more. He'd been up late studying and hadn't gone to sleep until two in the morning, only to wake up four hours later. "Sure. What is it?" He asked, stifling a yawn.

"Why don't you have more friends?"

Frank sat up a little straighter. "I don't know... That's kind of a loaded question." Gerard didn't respond, only waited for an answer. "I guess I just don't meet people easily."

"You met me pretty easy," Gerard pointed out.

"Well, you're an exception. People don't like you all that much either, you know. I mean, you're blatantly disrespectful, you smoke twenty-four hours a day, you curse like a sailor..."

Gerard laughed, nodding in agreement. "I know." He paused. "What's wrong with you though?"

Frank sighed, in search of an answer. "I don't know. Nobody gets me. I'm quiet and I don't say much of anything to anyone. I walk around, invisible, and people don't notice. I don't think it's a matter of like or dislike simply because you can't dislike someone you don't know."

Gerard put his cigarette on a patch of concrete. He unwrapped the heart shaped sucker and popped it into his mouth. "I think people have a hard time understanding you," he said. "It's not that they don't notice, because they do, it's the fact that they don't get it."

Frank cocked his head to the side, confused. "Remember chemistry?" Gerard asked.

Frank nodded. "Yeah, I had that bald guy, what's his face? Mr. Wooten or something."

"Yeah. I walked in there one day and I saw you, sitting in the back, and you were just... sitting there. You had a beaker on your desk and you just sat there, chair tilted backwards, staring into the beaker. You think people don't notice, Frank, but they do."

Frank stared at Gerard for a long while. He watched the lollipop shift from one side of his mouth to the other, transfixed. A few moments later, their eyes locked. "I don't get it."

Gerard shifted away from the brick wall and laid out in the grass. "People don't like you because they don't get you. They're scared."

For a moment, Frank figured Gerard was saying all this just to hurt his feelings. Gerard could be an asshole sometimes. He didn't care what people thought of him, or at least Frank saw it that way.

"Why are you telling me all this?" He asked, irritated. "It's kind of an asshole thing to do, you know."

Gerard shook his head. "Calm the fuck down, Frank. Just take a chill pill and give the over-dramatics a rest."

Frank narrowed his gaze and folded his arms. "Just because I don't talk to people and keep to myself doesn't mean I'm a fucking nut case. I look at a meniscus for a few minutes and all of the sudden I belong in a fucking psych ward?"

"I never said that," Gerard stated calmly, finished off his lollipop. "Not once did I say that."

"Then what are you saying? You just said people were scared of me; You said 'people don't like you because they don't get you,'" Frank said.

"Yeah," Gerard replied. "Where did you get psych ward out of that?"

"I don't know. It's just a little harsh, you know, to tell someone that his peers are afraid of him for no reason other than being different."

Gerard shrugged, lighting up another cigarette. Frank thought about pointing out that it was his second on in less than twenty minutes, but thought better of it. He didn't understand what Gerard was thinking or what sort of point he was trying to make. All he knew was that he was a little pissed off and he kind of regretted giving up that valentine.

"Here," Gerard said, removing a small envelope made of a piece of paper torn from a notebook. He handed it over to Frank. "Happy Valentines Day."

A smug smile spread across Gerard's lips as he exhaled a puff of smoke. Frank looked down at his friend, a quizzical expression gracing his features. "What's this?" He asked.

"Open it and find out, Einstein," Gerard laughed. "You think I'm just gonna tell you?"

Frank sighed and unwrapped a small Valentine with a picture of the little clown fish from Finding Nemo. On the back Gerard had scratched out the original saying with black Sharpie and, in his messy handwriting, had written In case you didn't know, I kinda get you.

Frank laughed. "Where did this come from?"

Gerard sat up, removing his cigarette from his lips. Exhaling, he held it between his index and middle fingers. "The other day you were going on and on about how hard it is to find people who get you. I know you think I wasn't listening because I just sat there and smoked and said 'uh-huh' in all the right places, but I was."

"So, to let me know you were listening, you sit here and call me crazy before giving me a Finding Nemo Valentine?" Frank asked, smiling.

Gerard shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. Like it?"

Frank grinned, nodding his head. "Yeah. I do. Thanks."

Gerard laid back down in the grass, taking another drag off his cigarette. He laughed. "Happy fucking Valentines Day, Frank."