Pint-Sized Romeo

FRANK IERO'S POV

That night, neither of us were sleeping so well... We were together though, and that was the important part. We'd had a horrible day, and I was so scared that I'd lost him that I was just basking in the feel of him next to me.

"Frankie?"

I felt, rather than saw, Gerard turn around in the darkness and looked at him, trying to see his face and figure out what he was feeling. "What's up, Gee?"

"I just.. can't sleep."

"Are you thinking about today?"

"Yeah." he said. "I just can't get the pictures out of my head. It's like a horror movie playing twenty four seven, but worse, because I know it was real."

"I can't imagine how horrible it would be for you." I said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I really don't want you to have to deal with it, too."

"Well, you know what I always tell the lyricists of the bands I manage?"

"What's that?"

"Write it out. Get it out of your head and on the paper and it'll all be easier to deal with."

"You think that'll work?"

"Yeah." I said. "I'm serious. Once you get it out of your head, and onto paper, you'll feel better."

"Thanks, Frankie. You go back to sleep. I'll see you in the morning. You need your sleep."

"All right." I said, kissing him quickly. "Here's my notebook, the one I used to use in high school. If you get bored, you can flip through the pages and see all the horrible poetry I used to write about you."

"Ooh, this is a privilege." He said. "All right. Have a good night's sleep. I'll see you in the morning." He kissed my forehead and moved to the desk in the corner of the room.

I only hope that this doesn't hurt him more than it helps him.

***

"Frankie? Frankie, wake up."

"Gee? Is something wrong?" I said, opening my eyes blearily.

"No, everything's right." he said. "I took your advice and I've been writing ever since. I've written a whole song, and it's not bad. Do you think you could get someone to play it? Someone to sing it?"

"Gee, what's going on?" I said. "You wrote a song?"

"I wrote a song." he said, beaming.

"I'm so proud of you. Let me see it!"

He pushed the notebook towards me and I saw a page full of scratch marks and pen all over the page, sketches in the corner and lyric ideas all over the page, but in the center was a clean sheet of lyrics. The raw emotion poured out on the page was different than anything I'd ever seen. Even my own attempts at lyric writing weren't close to this good and I'd worked on it for a while.

"Gee... these are beautiful."

"You really think so?" he asked, looking sheepish.

"Of course I do." I said, smiling. "And about trying to get a band together, I think we can definitely do it."

"You do? Who are you going to get to sing?"

"You."