Born and Broken Every Single Time.

I had gone home last night fairly late. Mikey seemed to attach himself to me for the night. We couldn’t watch the television for more that two minutes, literally, without Mikey talking and thanking me for sorting things. I was obviously happy that I’d helped out, even if it had to be compromised by me being there to make it happen, but repeatedly thanking me over a perfectly good television show was slowly grating at me.

I knew today was going to be a strange day. It seemed every day in my mind I was counting down the days until Gerard’s departure, ever since the day at school where the ‘ten day’ realisation hit me. Ten seemed such a small number at the time, but now we were at five. I could count that on one hand. Seemingly ten wasn’t such a small number anymore. I was going around to Mikey’s tonight, around dinner time, because today I had decided I’d get Gerard a leaving present.

I had wondered if he was joking about it all, seeing as he was mocking when we talked about it, but all the same I decided to get him one. I headed out about lunchtime knowing this was going to be a long day. It was fairly cold out, which was strange for this time of year, so I had my hoodie on, hood and zip up and my hands dug deeply in my pockets.

I headed to the comic book store. It seemed such an obvious place to go in search of something for him. I thought I had a dead cert when I walked in, but then the sudden realisation of actually picking one hit me. I had no idea what comics he had or didn’t. All I knew was that he had enough to fill a few boxes, which was a lot. I didn’t know who his favourites were either. I could have got him a figure, I thought that would probably be really good, but then I didn’t know which one I could get. Plus, considering how old he was, giving him an action figured seemed slightly childish.

“Do you need any help?” a girl asked. I looked around to see one of the staff standing by me awaiting an answer. I politely told her I was okay, I was just looking and she walked off in search of another customer. I walked out of the store and further up the street. I caught sight of the art store, creatively called “The Art Store” and figured that buying him art stuff would be too predictable and pointless. He had all he needed anyway.

I headed into the music store, scanning the isles for a CD I could buy him. I knew he had all the CD’s by his favourite bands, but I had the idea to buy him a Guns ‘n’ Roses album, purely because of Sweet Child O’ Mine. I once again shook the idea from my mind, deciding a CD wasn’t the most creative of ideas. That was until I came across one CD.

The Armageddon Soundtrack.

I grinned to myself as I picked up the disc, deciding to buy it before I could talk myself out of it. It wouldn’t be the serious part of the gift, I could get him a little something else, but this was too good to pass up. I could just picture the moment he opened it, he’d just grin and give me a pathetic and joking slap. It’d be worth it.

After walking out of the story, cheesy CD in tow, I headed into the card store next door. The term card store could be very deceiving; this place had everything. I decided in my mind what I was going to buy him – a photo frame. It sounded such a stupid thing on it’s own, but I had decided it could be a picture from tonight. We could get a picture of me, Gerard and Mikey. I was being so presumptuous, I’d have to suggest that to Gerard and see what he said. Just because I was giving him the photo frame didn’t mean I could dictate what photo he put in it.

It was a simple wire frame one, but the wire was fairly thick. It was silver, but had a think black wire on the outside and inside of the frame. I thought he’d like it. I headed up to the till, paying for that and a little black bag to put it in. Black; how typical. I headed down the street and sat on the first bench I found beside this old couple. They sat quietly chatting about the woman’s phone call to their grandchildren. I didn’t want to pry so forced myself to stop listening as I took the prices off my purchases and slipped them into the bag.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I dotted between stores to pass the time, nipping into Starbucks for some coffee just to pass some further time. At around five thirty I started walking to the Way’s house, arriving at about 6pm. I knocked on the door, being greeted by a grinning Mrs. Way. She told me the brothers were upstairs, so I thanked her as I headed upstairs. I looked in Mikey’s room to see no one there, so headed down the hall to Gerard’s room.

I opened the door to see the brothers sitting on the floor looking through the photo albums Mikey had had the night before, laughing at how geeky they both looked. As I opened the door, they both looked up and met me with a smile.

“We were waiting on you till we ordered pizza,” Gerard grinned.

“Oh, well, it’s your night, I don’t have to stay,” I pressed. The idea of me being here was because it would be awkward with just the two of them, as it happens they seemed to be getting on fine and I was the awkward one. Gerard and Mikey quickly dismissed my suggestion before Mikey excused himself, telling us he’d go order the pizzas. There’d be the typical meat pizza and vegetarian pizza, that’s how it always was.

As Mikey walked passed me, I sat beside Gerard on the ground. I held the bag out to him as I spoke, feeling a bit shy as I did so.

“I-I got your present,” I began, stammering slightly. “I thought I’d just give you it tonight.”

“Thanks,” he said with a childlike grin, grabbing the bag and throwing his arms around me in a tight hug. “I’ll wait till Mikey gets back before I open it. It’s not something my brother shouldn’t see, is it?”

“Well..” I joked, throwing a sly wink his way. “Nah, it’s nothing like that.”

“Damn,” he laughed, looking up as Mikey strolled back in. He told us the pizza was going to be about half an hour, and was bearing two packs of beer, which made me grin. We all pulled a can as Mikey noticed the bag, enquiring as to what it was.

“Ah, I can open my present,” Gerard grinned. He pulled the bag open and pulled out the photo frame first, raising an eyebrow at the fact there was no photo in it. Before he asked, I decided to answer.

“I thought maybe we could get a photo tonight for you to put in it,” I suggested. “But you don’t have to, I just thought-“

“It’s perfect,” he grinned as he put it down beside him. He looked in the bag, grinning as he noticed there was a CD. He pulled it out and grinned to himself as he saw it, ignoring Mikey’s questions of what it was. “You bitch.”

“WHAT IS IT?” Mikey asked, getting annoyed at being ignored.

“The Armageddon Soundtrack,” I grinned, explaining in Gerard’s absence of doing so. “You see, we watched Armageddon and your brother here-“

“CRIED,” Gerard interrupted. “That’s what he’s going to say, but he did too, and you would too if you watched it.”

“I was going to say enjoyed the film very much,” I said with a smirk. “But now you go and confess you cried, silly, silly person.”

“Bullshit,” he laughed. “Thank you all the same.”

He put the CD back in the bag with the photo frame before hugging me a thank you. He decided that it would be best to wait till the pizza’s arrived before we put any films on, so we decided it would be best to get a photo just now, before the beer eventually took effect. It was the typical “camera whoring” session, which resulted in so many cringey photos it was unreal. He pulled out his laptop, one of the few possessions that hadn’t yet been moved to his uncles. He hooked up the camera to it. He flicked through the images, deleting all the ones that someone had a complaint over before telling me and Mikey not to look. We agreed, much to our bemusement, as he printed one off. His laptop was wirelessly linked to the home PC’s printer, it was fancy like that, so he shut the laptop down before nipping downstairs to get the photo. Neither Mikey nor I knew which one he’d printed off, but we didn’t spend too much time dwelling on it. He returned to his room with the paper held close to his chest, you could tell he’d already cut it out downstairs. He pulled the photo frame from the bag and slipped the photo in, still hiding what one it was.

“Just keep talking,” Gerard grinned as he rummaged around in his drawers and pulled out the compass that he’d bought ages ago. It seemed to come in handy again, although we never really knew what he’d got it in the first place. He sat with his knees curled up slightly, resting the photo frame on them as he scraped something into the frame. The scraping shredded my ears, seriously. I shivered that awkward kind of shiver when you hear a noise that just doesn’t agree with you.

When he finally finished, he grinned as he handed me the photo frame so Mikey and I could see. He’d printed off a picture with him in the middle, me on his right and Mikey on his left. We were all pulling really strange faces, but it was probably the most awesome picture of the lot. We had some smiling, but it’s just not the same as being a complete and utter moron.

I looked the bottom right hand of the frame to see what he’d engraved into it, smiling just like Mikey as I read four simple words.

My two favourite guys.