You Taught Me Love

Steve's P.O.V.

It was cold in the cell, and the freezing air made it's way easily through the thin sheets that covered my body. My hands under my head, I was staring at the gray ceiling as I thought about him again. Gerard...

He's all that ever crosses my mind in here.

He hasn't answered... But who am I kidding? There's no way he ever wants to see me again. I fucked up. I even fucked up my second chance, my last chance.

I sighed and turned on the mattress, wrapping my arms around my shoulders to stop them shaking from the chill. I wanted to write. About everything. But I only had one paper -the back of Gerard's letter- and I desperately needed that for later, for my last words to him.
When I was a boy, my parents refused to buy me a diary, so I used to make mental notes of everything, imagine stories in my mind and write an invisible diary... In bed I would close my eyes, pull the blankets over my head and whisper to myself the secrets I wanted to tell.

So tonight, I did the same.

Hey Diary. It's been a long time, hasn't it? I know, I'm way too old for this, but it's my last chance to tell anyone. I hope I don't fuck this one up too. I have to warn you, it won't be pretty. I hate this story so much, but it's the only thing I have. My most prized possession, the best part of my life, and also the worst. I hate the way it starts, and I loathe the ending even more. Enjoy. This is the story I need to tell you...

When I had told my father I was gay, he had almost laughed at me. It was a couple of weeks after I had met Gerard, and I wanted us to be serious, to be able to properly present him to my father, so I decided to finally come out to my old man. I knew Gerard wasn't like the others, and I wanted us to work out, I wanted us to last and be happy together.
But that night when I talked to my dad, it had changed things, in a very bad way. Honestly, I wish I had never said those three words to him, then maybe I wouldn't have made the biggest mistake of my life...

“I am gay.”

“Nonsense,” he had told me, breathing out the white smoke from his cigarette.

“Men excite me. I fucked some guys and enjoyed it a whole fucking lot. I like men, dad. I'm sorry...”

“Oh, lad. That's fine, it doesn't mean you're gay. You're not gay.”
He had fucked some guys too, but believe me when I say he's straight as a ruler.

“You don't understand. I have a boyfriend, an amazing boyfriend named Gerard and I... I think I'm falling in love with him.”
That's when the back of his hand had hit my face, hard, with more strength I would ever had thought my aging father had in his body.

“Now you listen to me, you shit!” he had screamed, throwing his cigarette on the carpet. “You can fuck a man. You can kiss a goddamn man if that's what you want, but for God's sake! You can't fucking love a man. Men are to drink with, to fight and to get what you want from. Not to love. You don't love Gerard, trust me. You can't. Don't love, son. Love makes you weak. Makes ya a pansy.”
He had sat down on his couch and rubbed his nose, looking me in the eyes as he said: “Love will fucking hurt you, remember that... Love will fuck you up...”

He had made me feel pathetic, ridiculous. The worst is, I had actually listened. And I had believed him, 'cause I was an idiot, and 'cause he was all I had left.

My mother and my sister had died in a car accident, and since then my dad and I had never been the same. I had dropped out of university and found crappy jobs wherever they were offered, and I stopped believing in a lot of things, God included. My father lost faith too. He lost faith in life... He became an alcoholic, and did some stupid shit, and spent some time in jail for the stupid shit he knew he shouldn't have done.
But for me, he was still the perfect dad, who told me stories in bed when I was young, gave me a pat on the back and a hi-five when I scored a goal at soccer practice, and was always there for me when I needed him. I had to believe he was still that guy, it was all I had to hang on to.

So I promised him I would never love Gerard, promised him I wouldn't let myself fall, and I promised him I would make him proud.

I didn't want to live a romance with Gerard anymore, because I knew if I did, I would lose my father forever, and I simply couldn't cope with that. I had convinced myself that he was right, that the idea of loving Gerard was absurd and wrong, and that I had to be a real man.

I didn't want to love Gerard. I didn't want to fall in love with him.

But how could I not? How could I not fall in love with those sweet hazel eyes? With the way they shined emerald and gold in the sunlight? How could I not fall in love with his raven hair, which always seemed to be made of the finest silk? How could I not fall in love with his porcelain, milky skin? With the way it felt so smooth under my fingers, or the way it almost glistened under the moonlight? How could I not fall in love with his gorgeous smile? With the way his pink lips moved when he talked, when he kissed me, when he whispered, when he breathed? How could I not fall in love with his low, melodious voice? How could I not fall in love with his pure, earthy scent? How could I not fall in love with his honey taste? How could I not fall in love with the way he touched me, the way he held my hand, the way he looked at me? How could I not fall in love with the way his cheeks turned coral when I smiled at him?
How could I not fall in love with Gerard?

There was no way I couldn't fall in love with him, and that's why things went the way they did. Truth is, I had already fallen hard for him, and there was no getting out.

Each time I looked at him, I felt just how much I loved him, and it hurt bad, it really did. But the worst was when he looked at me, because I could feel just how much he shared that love, and I could see that we could have had a wonderful life together.
He was so beautiful, so nice, so stupidly in love with me, it pissed me off that I couldn't find anything wrong, anything bad about him, anything to hate him for.
And it pissed me off even more that he couldn't find anything to hate me for, because he was fucking blind, and of course he only saw the good in people like me.

One day, I just couldn't take it anymore. I was angry at myself for being so weak, so weak for him, and I was angry at him for making me fall... I cracked, and I hit him. What I saw in his eyes that night made my heart break, and made me cry so hard, but also relieved me of a huge weight. Because in those perfect eyes, there was finally something that wasn't love.

And that, Diary -wait, how had I called you again? Jack? Yeah, something like that- and that, Jack, is when I realized that to do this, to be able to push him away, I had to make him hate me. I had to give us a reason not to work out, a reason we couldn't be happy together.

So I did. I hurt him, so fucking bad, and I started drinking, and I started doing drugs, and I became the bastard he will always remember. The alcohol and the drugs were mostly to forget, to ease the pain, but it helped giving him plenty of reasons to hate me.
Each blow had been painful to me at the beginning; each time I saw his blood, it felt like broken glass was being nailed into my heart. I wasn't just the pain of seeing him suffer, but also the burn, the agony of inflicting him that damage. But that ache was healthy, compared to what came after. What came when I got used to it. When it became natural, when I hardly flinched each time I smacked him. When I started enjoying it. Because somehow, it felt good. I could let out my anger, and for once, I knew that I wasn't the weak one. Finally I wasn't the fucking weak one, and maybe I was making my dad proud.
I had become a monster, and the torture of seeing Gerard agonizing changed into an empty bitter-sweet feeling that always ended up turning to a profound disgust toward myself.

Don't think I had come to peace with the bastard I was. I hated myself, I did. But hate was better than feeling weak.

I hated myself for this, and I thought: couldn't he, too? For goodness' sake, couldn't he hate me too? It would have made things so much easier.

But he didn't, he kept putting the blame on him, taking the punches and the kicks, letting me abuse him, and it pained me more than anything else. He still kissed me, and took care of me, laced his fingers through mine and brought me to bed when I was drunk. He told me no matter how much he knew I hated him, no matter what I did, he would never stop feeling the way he did for me.
He never knew what I truly felt for him.
Each time I let that damned four-letter word slip out of my mouth, I had to take it back..I had to rip it back, cut it back, burn it back, kick it back, fuck it back, whatever it took to make him believe it was a lie. I couldn't let him know how much I meant it. I couldn't let myself admit I was still weak. I couldn't make it any worse, for any of us.

But do you know the fucking worst part?
I sold him out to friends to get some dope -hoping if he wasn't all mine I could let go-, beat him up, humiliated him, raped him, insulted him, degraded him... I did everything to make him leave me, but when he finally tried, I realized how much I needed him, how much I wanted him, and how much I still fucking loved him. And I made him stay.

I FUCKING MADE HIM STAY.

Now guess what? I'll never have him back.
All because of my bastard of a father, all because I ate the shit he fed me.

Gerard and I could have been happy, I could have let myself love him the way he deserved, but instead... I ruined us, and I ruined him. All because of a lie.
When I finally woke the fuck up and realized that, it was way too late.

Love could have been beautiful.

Love hurts, yes. You have no idea how bad.
But it's gorgeous, and it's name could have been Gerard...

So, did you like it? No, of course you didn't.
I was such an idiot, wasn't I? I guess I paid for it.
I would give the world to see him again, just one more time. Look in his eyes, kiss his lips and tell him everything, everything that needs to be said. But I can't. Like I said, I fucked up. And there's no going back.
So goodbye, Diary. Or Jack, or whatever. And let me leave you on a little advice...Be careful what you wish for, 'cause when it comes true, you'll want nothing more than to end the nightmare.

I wiped the tears from my eyes and my face and clenched my fists as hard as I could, before making them collide hard with the rough wall on my right, scraping my knuckles and feeling some warm blood trickle down my icy fingers. Don't fucking cry, Steve...
I reached under my pillow for the picture, to take one last look at the man I loved, the man I could have shared my life with, Gerard. I laughed, cried despite myself, and held the beautiful image against my heart, then slipped it in the envelope as I nodded sadly to myself.

There's no point in going on without him.

* * * * * * *

Hailey's P.O.V.

Shit. I picked up the letter from the colorless ground and read the small note that had been left on the white envelope.

Hailey, please give this to Gerard.

Even though I really didn't want to do this, I knew I had to.

I walked down the dark corridor silently -respecting the prisoners' sleeping hours...- and made my way to a completely different part of the prison: the front desk. I had to take the day off.
Before talking to my boss, I changed out of my uniform and slipped the paper in my bag, rubbing my temples as I thought of how I would have to break this to Gerard.
As I turned a corner, I could hear Alex and Joe talking about me. Oh, great, just what I needed now.

“She's such a wimp too, I don't know what a female is doing in our department. Just telling ya, it's not a place for people like her,” Alex told him, behind his coffee mug. Joe started replying, defending me, but it was too late. I had heard enough, and -probably because of what I had just saw in the cell- it was the wrong moment to mess with me, so my hand had grabbed the bludgeon from the wall and had swung it to the back of my boss' head.

“OW!” he screamed, turning to see my furious expression. “'The hell is your problem?!”

“I've had it! You're a fucking jerk! You can kiss my ass, and I'll be damned if I stay in here listening to you being a piss-head for one more minute! I quit, I'm outta here. Oh, and go to Hell, I'm not a fucking wimp!”
I threw the metal bar at him and walked to the door, turning at the last second to show him my favorite finger, and turning again as I remembered an important little detail...

“Hm, by the way, if I were you, I would get rid of the corpse before the prisoners wake up. You don't want to make a drama.”

And, on that, I left the building stomping, and walked over to my car, flipping my cellphone on to call Mikey.

Gosh, this isn't gonna be easy...