...He Said, and Pulled the Trigger
Nothing.
Surprise stabs like the prick of a pin beneath my ribs, filling me with a frightening feeling that I’m afraid to recognize as pity, apology, realization, or worst of all sympathy, and I squirm slightly, barely able to believe that throughout all the drunken evenings, all of those hot-lights-cold-beer nights, he has never heard the truth about himself; his silk-and-porcelain skin, those piercing shattered-gemstone eyes, not losing their haunting radiance even when they were glazed and bloodshot, his dark chocolate hair and cherry lollipop lips, from the serpentine tongues of any of his faceless lovers. But a thought occurs to me suddenly, that voice lying buried in a hollow in my skull is shrieking the truth; he’s lying, and anger surges abruptly into my icicle veins, caustic and powerful, possessing me like a drug or something deeper. His eyes reflect my face like a cracked mirror has replaced the bone of his skull, only my image is twisted, made darker and more sinister; a monster. Burning with overwhelming hatred, sick with lust and rage and the desire to break him, I lurch a step closer to his shaking frame, snarling “You lie.”
He laughs, a skeleton smirk on his pale face, the sound rattling in his fragile chest like a last gasp for breath, as if the grip of death itself is already holding his rotting heartstrings taut, and I smile bitterly as his strawberry-stained lips tremble like captive, broken butterflies. “F-fuck you,” he whimpers, the defiance in his thin voice as bruised and blackened as his soul and his bones beneath his skin. “F-fuck you, if you touch m-me-”
It’s my turn to laugh, but the sound dies in my throat as he keeps going, eyes wild and reckless now. “W-why don’t you just f-fuck yourself, Gerard?!” He’s yelling, sneering, spitting nails through hot acid tears. “How can you f-fucking stand there and call me a whore?! Yeah, I know what you used to do at night when everyone was getting some except for you-”
The anger built up inside me suddenly exploded like a bomb going off, scorching every nerve with searing hatred and loathing, and I grab wildly for Frankie’s thin shoulders, the barrel of the gun fitting perfectly to one side of his forehead like two fragments of a puzzle as a pathetic whimper escapes his wind-chapped lips. “N-no, Gerard, I-”
If he’s going to give me whines and tortured sorrys, it’s far too late now; I’m so fucking close to getting what I’ve wanted forever, and he can’t stall for time any longer. My entire body is on fire with feeling, every inch of my skin is burning with desire as I press up against him, pushing his shoulders so hard that he loses his balance, back bending over the concrete guardrail surrounding the edge of the parking structure level. I keep pushing; he chokes on a breath, eyes terrified and hopeless. Past him, I can see the cold grey ground seven stories below us, blurring almost nauseatingly in my unstable vision as though the ghosts of our past have risen out of the pavement. His head is far enough back that I know he sees it too, because a violent shudder runs through his thin frame. “Ger-” He gasps out my name and sobs for breath, struggling to pull himself up to the safety of solid ground. My weight is too much for him, and he lets his weak body slump back like the tatters of some blood-soaked rag doll, a sheen of bitter tears covering his smooth porcelain-and-bone cheeks.
“Tell me you’re fucking sorry,” I growl throatily, breaking my own promise not to listen to his meaningless apologies in my need to hear him admit how wrong he’s been; the truth of what he’s done to me.
He whimpers, fingers gripping my forearm tightly as though he’s afraid I’ll let him fall, but he won’t answer; doesn’t even look me in the eyes, and I feel anger simmering in my blood. “Say it!” I yell, my voice joined by those of the angels and demons in battle between us so that it sounds like a wailing chorus, shaking him hard by the shoulders as though the force will scatter the words from his bruised lips like flowers or papercut kisses.
“I don’t have to say sorry to you,” he coughs brokenly, not enough air in his lungs, but the defiance in his eyes cutting like two iron stakes through my heart. “L-let me go, you f-fucking pervert!”
Something snaps inside of me when he says it, and I pull him roughly upwards, jamming the gun into his mouth with all of the force of my anger as I catch his pale throat between my chest and forearm, leaving him gasping for breath that isn’t there. He whimpers, eyes flashing searing terror and submission, but as I force his head downwards, he lashes out wildly, one of his fists catching me in the face, and suddenly I’m on the ground, there’s a tug and Frankie is hitting me, trying to get the gun out of my hand. I fight, but he twists back and my wrist snaps with a sickening splintering noise, bone breaking, and white-hot pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt shoots up my arm, stunning me. I gasp for air like a fish writhing helplessly on the damp sand, and before I can react, my head is sandwiched between Frankie’s knees and the cold barrel of the gun is pressed up against my skull and I know I’ve lost my own game.
“W-why would d-do this to me?!” Frankie hisses venomously, voice choked with tears and hatred. I can feel his body shaking; the gun is pressed painfully hard against my temple to keep his hands from betraying his fear, knees squeezing my head tightly like a metal vice as I try to get loose, the pressure so intense that I imagine my skull exploding.
“I want you,” I whisper, nauseous as I open my eyes, trying not to pass out from the pain stemming from my fractured wrist. “Beautiful, I want you.” My voice has a whine to it. Why can’t he see it’s so much better for both of us; nothing more than he deserves?
But he’s disgusted; it shows in his face, anger darkening his eyes like a slurry of sludge poured into them. “S-shut up.”
“Frankie… Frankie, put the gun down…”
“You’re fucking pathetic,” he spits, the loathing in his face so blinding that I have to shut my eyes again.
I realize that he’s never going to admit it; he’s never going to apologize for the hell that he’s dragged me into, and it burns me like acid, leaking from the shell of my blackened heart. “Frank Anthony Iero,” the vipers that make up my tongue hiss in unison, “You selfish fucking whore.”
He flinches, whimpers, sobs all at once; I feel tears on my face that aren’t mine, and then he pulls the trigger and time slows down; I hear the click of metal meeting metal… All of a sudden, a loud crack tears through my head like an explosion of skin and blood and bone and my body convulses wildly. My eyes pool instantly with red, the same sticky crimson splattering across my face and Frankie’s jeans, soaking the ground beneath me. Just before the pain sets in, I have time to realize death isn’t as instantaneous as they say it is, and then I know I’m going under; every inch of me is on fire, spinning, my soul or something hurtling into distant space, and Frankie is screaming hysterically; the sound echoes in my head like lightning and thunder and I don’t know what oh god oh god screams burrow into my shattered skull like maggots like needles like demons and then… silence. Everything goes strangely still, and I suddenly feel the barest whisper of sensation as Frankie’s lips meet mine at last.
Perfection.
But even here at the end I ruin everything beautiful, and all of sudden the moment shatters like everything else; my hollow black-hole vision suddenly morphing into a view from several stories above; Frankie sitting on the cracked grey pavement in a pool of tempera red paint, screaming “fuck” over and over at the unforgiving crystalline sky, crying out to ice-sculpted angels who will never listen. It only lasts for a split-second; one split-second where I realize that I have turned him into a monster by the end; turned him into me— And then a sound like a waterfall, a tidal wave of blood, razors, and watercolors; crushing me, twisting me, and then…
NOTHING.
He laughs, a skeleton smirk on his pale face, the sound rattling in his fragile chest like a last gasp for breath, as if the grip of death itself is already holding his rotting heartstrings taut, and I smile bitterly as his strawberry-stained lips tremble like captive, broken butterflies. “F-fuck you,” he whimpers, the defiance in his thin voice as bruised and blackened as his soul and his bones beneath his skin. “F-fuck you, if you touch m-me-”
It’s my turn to laugh, but the sound dies in my throat as he keeps going, eyes wild and reckless now. “W-why don’t you just f-fuck yourself, Gerard?!” He’s yelling, sneering, spitting nails through hot acid tears. “How can you f-fucking stand there and call me a whore?! Yeah, I know what you used to do at night when everyone was getting some except for you-”
The anger built up inside me suddenly exploded like a bomb going off, scorching every nerve with searing hatred and loathing, and I grab wildly for Frankie’s thin shoulders, the barrel of the gun fitting perfectly to one side of his forehead like two fragments of a puzzle as a pathetic whimper escapes his wind-chapped lips. “N-no, Gerard, I-”
If he’s going to give me whines and tortured sorrys, it’s far too late now; I’m so fucking close to getting what I’ve wanted forever, and he can’t stall for time any longer. My entire body is on fire with feeling, every inch of my skin is burning with desire as I press up against him, pushing his shoulders so hard that he loses his balance, back bending over the concrete guardrail surrounding the edge of the parking structure level. I keep pushing; he chokes on a breath, eyes terrified and hopeless. Past him, I can see the cold grey ground seven stories below us, blurring almost nauseatingly in my unstable vision as though the ghosts of our past have risen out of the pavement. His head is far enough back that I know he sees it too, because a violent shudder runs through his thin frame. “Ger-” He gasps out my name and sobs for breath, struggling to pull himself up to the safety of solid ground. My weight is too much for him, and he lets his weak body slump back like the tatters of some blood-soaked rag doll, a sheen of bitter tears covering his smooth porcelain-and-bone cheeks.
“Tell me you’re fucking sorry,” I growl throatily, breaking my own promise not to listen to his meaningless apologies in my need to hear him admit how wrong he’s been; the truth of what he’s done to me.
He whimpers, fingers gripping my forearm tightly as though he’s afraid I’ll let him fall, but he won’t answer; doesn’t even look me in the eyes, and I feel anger simmering in my blood. “Say it!” I yell, my voice joined by those of the angels and demons in battle between us so that it sounds like a wailing chorus, shaking him hard by the shoulders as though the force will scatter the words from his bruised lips like flowers or papercut kisses.
“I don’t have to say sorry to you,” he coughs brokenly, not enough air in his lungs, but the defiance in his eyes cutting like two iron stakes through my heart. “L-let me go, you f-fucking pervert!”
Something snaps inside of me when he says it, and I pull him roughly upwards, jamming the gun into his mouth with all of the force of my anger as I catch his pale throat between my chest and forearm, leaving him gasping for breath that isn’t there. He whimpers, eyes flashing searing terror and submission, but as I force his head downwards, he lashes out wildly, one of his fists catching me in the face, and suddenly I’m on the ground, there’s a tug and Frankie is hitting me, trying to get the gun out of my hand. I fight, but he twists back and my wrist snaps with a sickening splintering noise, bone breaking, and white-hot pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt shoots up my arm, stunning me. I gasp for air like a fish writhing helplessly on the damp sand, and before I can react, my head is sandwiched between Frankie’s knees and the cold barrel of the gun is pressed up against my skull and I know I’ve lost my own game.
“W-why would d-do this to me?!” Frankie hisses venomously, voice choked with tears and hatred. I can feel his body shaking; the gun is pressed painfully hard against my temple to keep his hands from betraying his fear, knees squeezing my head tightly like a metal vice as I try to get loose, the pressure so intense that I imagine my skull exploding.
“I want you,” I whisper, nauseous as I open my eyes, trying not to pass out from the pain stemming from my fractured wrist. “Beautiful, I want you.” My voice has a whine to it. Why can’t he see it’s so much better for both of us; nothing more than he deserves?
But he’s disgusted; it shows in his face, anger darkening his eyes like a slurry of sludge poured into them. “S-shut up.”
“Frankie… Frankie, put the gun down…”
“You’re fucking pathetic,” he spits, the loathing in his face so blinding that I have to shut my eyes again.
I realize that he’s never going to admit it; he’s never going to apologize for the hell that he’s dragged me into, and it burns me like acid, leaking from the shell of my blackened heart. “Frank Anthony Iero,” the vipers that make up my tongue hiss in unison, “You selfish fucking whore.”
He flinches, whimpers, sobs all at once; I feel tears on my face that aren’t mine, and then he pulls the trigger and time slows down; I hear the click of metal meeting metal… All of a sudden, a loud crack tears through my head like an explosion of skin and blood and bone and my body convulses wildly. My eyes pool instantly with red, the same sticky crimson splattering across my face and Frankie’s jeans, soaking the ground beneath me. Just before the pain sets in, I have time to realize death isn’t as instantaneous as they say it is, and then I know I’m going under; every inch of me is on fire, spinning, my soul or something hurtling into distant space, and Frankie is screaming hysterically; the sound echoes in my head like lightning and thunder and I don’t know what oh god oh god screams burrow into my shattered skull like maggots like needles like demons and then… silence. Everything goes strangely still, and I suddenly feel the barest whisper of sensation as Frankie’s lips meet mine at last.
Perfection.
But even here at the end I ruin everything beautiful, and all of sudden the moment shatters like everything else; my hollow black-hole vision suddenly morphing into a view from several stories above; Frankie sitting on the cracked grey pavement in a pool of tempera red paint, screaming “fuck” over and over at the unforgiving crystalline sky, crying out to ice-sculpted angels who will never listen. It only lasts for a split-second; one split-second where I realize that I have turned him into a monster by the end; turned him into me— And then a sound like a waterfall, a tidal wave of blood, razors, and watercolors; crushing me, twisting me, and then…
NOTHING.