Celebrate The Irony

My stomach dropped to my feet, and I took a deep breath as I heard Gerard coming into the room. My palms began to sweat, my heart started beating ten times harder and I suddenly felt very restless.

“He doesn’t have to know does he?” I asked Mikey quietly as he gripped onto the sink, it probably being the only thing supporting his weight at the moment. He furrowed his eyebrows, a shocked come disgusted look on his face,

“Bob!” He hissed, “This,” he gestured to his stomach… womb… whatever it was, “Is his niece or nephew and he needs to know!”

Gerard pushed the bathroom door ajar, “What’s going on in here?” he smiled, handing me my usual coffee and Mikey his.

“Oh God,” Mikey heaved, throwing himself back over the toilet. His elder brother raised an eyebrow at me and I shut my eyes, taking another deep breath, before reopening them.
I wasn’t going to tell Gerard. I think Mikey thought I wanted this kid… He’d probably assumed it when I’d told him we’d go through with the pregnancy. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have even implied it, but I have this knack of doing things like that... Leading people on.

I’d never thought about how we were going to tell Gerard. Or, how Mikey was going to tell Gerard and I was going to sit there and pretend none of this was happening. “What’s going on?” The elder of the way brothers knitted his eyebrows in confusion.

Mikey looked to me, as though he actually expected me to tell his brother. Well, if he thought that he sure as hell had another thing coming. He was the one that’d got himself knocked up, so he was the one that could tell the over-protective brother.

“Gee, I’m… Look you won’t believe this, but it isn’t a joke. I’m pregnant… With a baby…”

There was a long pause, like Gerard was thinking this through, like flour going through a sieve looking for any other possible explanation, but I’m guessing he, well, never found any other explanation.

Gerard’s head snapped toward me, “Who got him pregnant?”

I shrugged, finding the tiled floor suddenly so very interesting.

“You’re fucking kidding me?” He suddenly went from ‘pansy’ to ‘fucking intimidating’.

“Oh come on Gerard, I wasn’t to know was I?”

That somehow seemed to be the worst thing I could’ve said, because before I could register it, Gerard was clutching the collar of my shirt tightly in his fists, my back slammed against the wall and his face too close for comfort.

“You got my little brother pregnant?!” He growled, “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“You should be asking that to Mikey, because as far as I remember I’m not the pregnant one.”

Gerard shoved me harder against the wall, a sharp pain racing up my back.

“You two fucking stop it,” Mikey groaned from his position on the floor, I looked down at him then back up to Gerard, who seemed to have not even heard him.
“Get the coffee out of the room, please, or I’m going to puke again,” Mikey hung his head further toward the toilet, taking very deep breaths.

I attempted to move to deal with Mikey’s request but Gerard had no intentions of letting me go,

“What the fuck are you going to do, huh?” he spat, “I swear to God, if you let Mikey down-“

I put my hands up stopping Gerard in his tracks, “Let him down? We’re not dating Gerard; I’m not a fucking faggot. I don’t want this fucking kid; I’m not going to be its Dad. I won’t be forced into this and as far as I’m concerned, that is Mikey’s child and I want nothing to do with it.”

If I thought Gerard couldn’t look any angrier, well, boy was I ever wrong. I closed my eyes, immediately regretting saying that. I could feel two pairs of eyes staring at me, and the vice like grip the elder had previously had on me loosened.

“No I didn’t mean-“

I was cut off by Gerard’s fist connecting with my face; my eye immediately shut and started watering. That man could throw a punch.

“What the fuck is going on?” Frank and Ray had arrived at the bathroom door, Frank peering round the door with Ray’s head above him, staring at the situation occurring.

“He called my brother a fag,” Gerard scowled, not looking away from me.

I sighed, letting my head fall back against the wall, eye still watering insanely. I bet that’d be a pretty colour in a little while. I really had got myself into a situation now, hadn’t I?

I’d had a typical Bob Bryar moment, where I’d opened my mouth too far and managed to push people away with one single sentence. One single word.

That one word with a vicious, nasty meaning behind it not meant to be used by men who get their best friends pregnant.

“No, no I didn’t mean it like that, I didn’t mean to say it; it just came out.”

I could feel every single pair of eyes boring into me, staring. Just staring… not a word was said.

My phone began to ring in my pocket, and I reached down, checking the caller ID as I did so. My face paled as I read the name.

Not now… Please…

“Who is it?” Gerard snapped.

“Alice.” I replied, and before I could answer it, Gerard had grabbed it off of me and done it instead.

“Hey Alice,” he smiled smugly at me, I felt a wave of nausea pass over me as I realised what damage he could do right now, “Bob? Oh no, Bob’s busy right now, but I’d be more than willing to chat to you for a little while…”

“Gerard, please…”

I looked to Mikey, Ray or Frank for help, but noticed they’d wormed their way out whilst Gerard and I had been busy quarrelling over the phone.

I rubbed my face with my hand, knowing for definite, that there was only one way this could end.

It wasn’t a happy ending either.

“Mikey? Oh, I think Mikey’s seen better days,” Gerard smiled, raising his eyebrows at me, “Yeah, check this out Alice, he’s pregnant! I know, I thought it was a joke too but apparently it’s not.”

Too far, I thought to myself, he was taking this too far. One word slipped out of my mouth and now he has to ruin the only good thing that’s ever happened to me? And I couldn’t stop it because if I did, there was going to be no way I could make this up to Mikey.

“Yeah, more interestingly, would you like to know who the father is? Yeah? You do?”

This was the point that my heart decided to beat about ten million times faster, making me feel like I was going to have a heart attack or something…

“The father’s Bob, Alice… Yeah, your Bob.”