You're Beautiful to Me

I winced when Frank slammed the door hard behind Mollers and me.
Frank had stormed back downstairs fifteen minutes after he’d stormed up them. He seemed furious that I was laughing and Molly was rehydrating with a Coke, as if it was terribly awful that we dared eat after tricking him. He’d pulled us both up off the couch, and told us that we were grounded. Once I corrected him with the fact that I was not his daughter, he huffed and said at least Mollers was grounded. He threatened to call Don and Donna, but I knew once he cooled off he would realize they wouldn’t punish me, based on the fact that I’d just come back into their lives. That probably infuriated him even more. Therefore, his solution to blow that steam off was to ground Mollers even longer.
Mollers groaned and let herself flop onto her bed. “Jesus, I’m tired.”
“Are you mad at me?”
She lifted up her head to give me a questioning look. “What for?”
“That I got your grounded. And then grounded longer.”
She shrugged. “Eh, not really. It wasn’t your fault we were busted. Plus, you covered for me in the first place.”
“True. I’m still sorry, though.”
Suddenly the pile of clothes next to Molly started to move, and Jayce’s head poked out the top. He’d had to be locked up in Molly’s room while we were here, based on the fact that he and Frank’s dog, Sweet Pea, made too much noise when they were around each other. Frank and Jamia were paranoid it would freak the twins out and the dogs would make a mess. I knew Jayce was too well behaved to do that, but I was a good guest and followed their requests.
Mollers reached out and scratched Jayce behind the ears. He panted happily. “Hey boy,” Molly said. “Miss us?” Jayce barked.
I sat down on the other side of the clothes pile. “You know what’s sort of ridiculous?” I said as I petted Jayce’s back.
“What’s that?”
I grinned. “It’s not exactly punishment if two best friends are locked in a room together.” Molly laughed.
“So how was the show?”
“Totally fun,” she said. “It was great to see Casanova again.”
I gave her a mischievous look. “I think that part is more applicable to after the show.”
Her face crumpled with embarrassment and that smile only girls can have when they think back to time alone with their boyfriends. “Yeah, kind of.”
I raised an eyebrow to make the point that she couldn’t hide anything from me. “Well, I won’t pry any further.”
Mollers looked at me, surprised. “You won’t pry any further?”
“Is that so shocking?”
“Uh, yeah, it’s you. It’s not that I mind talking about it but… you press for entertainment.” She flipped her finger over the end of my nose.
I stood and walked to the other side of the room. I examined the bulletin board we’d hung on the wall, where we’d pinned up a map and pictures of the place we wanted to visit in each city. For sheer amusement I’d gone out and found a belt, at some thrift store because I was poor like that, made of fake bullets and pinned it around the edge, then just started calling it the “bullet-in” board. Har har.
“Well, it’s your love life,” I said to Molly. “So I don’t really want to invade on that.”
Molly just stared at me quiet. “You’re not going to be forever alone, you know.”
“Pff, that’s not why.”
Now Molly raised an eyebrow. “You know I can see right through any of your bullshit, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not bullshitting you. Besides, being single is better.”
“Oh really.”
“Yeah! I can guiltlessly admire guy’s attractiveness without feeling like it’s against someone else. I can browse. There are indeed plenty of fish in the sea, and a lot of them are assholes, but they can be attractive assholes. I don’t want to date them but I do want to stare.”
“Clayah, I know you,” Molly said, sitting up. “You’ve got too much love contained in you to spend a life by yourself.”
I turned around and sat back on the bed, throwing an arm around Mollers. “But that’s why I have you, silly.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, and I think it’s wrong.”
“Well you’re only issue is that your too damn picky.”
“I am not!”
Mollers looked at Jayce. “Is Clayah too picky?” Jayce barked. I ruffled his ears.
“Fine, maybe I am picky. So what?”
“So I have yet to see any guy that lives up to all your expectations. If there’s one out there, I think it’s about time you find him.”
“Well, there isn’t.”
She looked at me seriously. “Is it just because of Ryan?” she said in a low voice.
I looked at my feet. Actually, she was right. I found that caring about people had too much risk in it. Hence my trust issues. It’s not like I’d been dating Ryan but I knew if the car crash and his drinking had never happened I probably would have. I stared at my bad hand. My left hand. I held it up so Mollers could see.
“Do you think,” I said slowly, “That I would ever dare draw attention to this hand with a wedding ring?”
Mollers bit her lip, realizing my point. “But…”
“And,” I went on, “You know I hate telling that story. I never would’ve been able to tell you and Mikey if Gerard hadn’t helped me out. I cried when I told him, too. And you know I hate doing that. But guys pry—even more so than I can—and I would have to explain it at some point.”
“Maybe, but—“
“Not to mention eventually explaining Gerard and Mikey and being a Way. Then he’d either have a hissy fit that I didn’t tell him right away or he’d just keep pretending to like me to get closer to them.”
“Not all guys are like that, Clayah.”
“Jack isn’t, but others are.”
“But not all.”
“And how am I supposed to know what kind of guy they are, huh?”
She sighed. “By getting to know them, genius. You can’t know what kind of person someone is without first getting close to them. And your problem is you’re too terrified to do that because of one guy, one night.”
“That’s not fair, Molly.”
“Maybe not. But Clayah, you know that night needed to happen.”
“… Not following you.”
She turned to face me, sitting cross legged on her bed. “If it hadn’t been for the accident, you never would’ve thrown yourself so hard and so truly into music. Your songs are brutally honest and are exactly what music should be about. You followed in your brother’s footsteps with that. Why? Because you got INTO My Chem after the accident. Because of that experience you were blessed with the ability to write songs that can impact kid’s lives. I’ve seen you visit with fans; kids have cried when they met you. You’ve saved lives. If that night had never happened, you wouldn’t have known that new kind of pain. I can’t even imagine how many kids would probably be dead or insane without Rush And Ruin.”
I was stuck staring at Mollers with a shocked face. She’d blasted away my entire love/relationship argument with that and told me all the things I absolutely never wanted to hear anyone say. And I knew she was right. My life had been pretty hollow before the crash, but because of it I could admit that. Yeah, kids had cried when they met me, said thank you, told me that my music meant a lot to them. I took that and bottled it in my heart as opposed to my ego because I didn’t want to be one of those kinds of people. But I’d kept the words are far away from my mind as possible so I wouldn’t have to think about why that was true.
And Molly had just blown me away.
Furthermore, she finished with, “You know I’m right, too.”

I slept over at the Iero’s that night. I’d spent says there before after Molly came home from school and before Don and Donna came home from work. I spent mornings and early afternoons with Gerard and Mikey. I’d never actually slept over at the Iero’s before, and even though it was a school night for Molly, Gerard and Mikey had come up to her room when they were planning to leave.
“Frank’s still kind of… pissy,” Mikey said. “I don’t think you guys really would want to come out and bug him ‘till morning.”
“But won’t he get more pissed if I stay?” I pointed out.
“I don’t really think he’ll care,” Mollers said. “He’s just going to crash in twenty minutes anyway. And he wakes up late—you can go before he wakes up and he’ll never know.”
Just then we heard Frank trotting up the steps. Gerard poked his head out the door. “You hitting the sack, man?” Frank mumbled some response. “Yeah, we’re going, Clayah and Molly are just saying their goodbyes and packing up Clayah’s stuff and Jayce.” More mumbling. “Yeah, just go to bed, everyone can let themselves out.” Mikey and Molly and I were all grinning between each other, highly amused at the lies coming out through Gerard’s teeth. We heard Frank walk to the end of the hall and close the door behind him.
Gerard came back into the room. “You’re all good. We can come pick you up tomorrow morning When Mollers heads out to school.”
“Yeah, Frank never gets up to drive me since I take my bike, so we’ll be safe.”
We all just stuck with that plan. I said goodnight to my brothers and they left. Mollers lent me some sweats for me to sleep in, and we settled Jayce at the end of the bed in his pile of dirty clothes and pleaded with him not to bark for the rest of the night.
It was about three when he started whimpering. All the lights were out in the rest of the house, and we could hear Frank’s congested snoring down the hall.
“Sweet Pea’s probably in there with Jamia and Frank,” Molly said. “If you’re really quiet you can just sneak downstairs and head out to the backyard.”
“They won’t wake up will they?”
Mollers snorted. “If Jamia’s still awake she won’t be able to hear a damn thing over those snores.”
I lifted Jayce up into my arms and he gave me that doggie thankful look when he seemed to get the gist of what I was doing. I ever so gently opened the door. It was rather pointless since the hinges squeaked, and everything is always louder when you sneak around at night. I closed it behind me and stood with my back against the door for a minute so my eyes could adjust to the dark. Jayce whimpered and I clamped my hand over his mouth and whispered for him to shush.
I was still somewhat blind, so I reached my hands out to feel my way toward the stairs. I crept down, praying that none of them creaked. They didn’t, but I nearly slipped when my socks hit the wooden floors at the bottom.
I set Jayce down and gestured for him to follow me. I turned and walked past the living room, the dining room, and finally to the kitchen. I was sneaking through toward the family room and the patio door when I heard—
“Boo.”
I yelped as a reflex, then clapped a hand over my mouth as if that gesture would take it back. There was a beep as someone hit the light over the stove.
“Bert? What the hell are you doing here?”
Bert casually leaned against the kitchen counter with a glass of milk, not at all affected or apologetic for the fact that he nearly gave me a heart attack. “Quinn’s car broke down because of the cold. Wouldn’t turn over. Jamia just let us stay for the night. We’re all crashed in the living room.” He tipped his head forward and raised his eyebrows. “I think a better question is, what are you doing here?”
I shrugged, guilty. “Sleeping over in secret so we didn’t piss of Frank for coming out of the room.”
Bert nodded, agreeing. “Good idea. But you’re out of the room now.”
I pointed to my dog. “Jayce had nature’s calling.” In response to his name he whimpered again.
“Run along.” Bert slugged back the end of his milk and turned off the light. “I’m going back to bed. ‘Night Clayah.” He strode toward the living room, and I continued to the family room.
Jayce shot out the door and toward the nearest patch of grass with which he could mark his territory. I wrapped my arms tight around myself within Molly’s sweater. New Jersey was just too damn cold. Then again I figured Europe and all its rain wouldn’t be much different.
When Jayce was finished we headed back the way we came. I was tiptoeing back through the kitchen when I heard a thump. I jumped again.
“Do you know where any cookies are in these cabinets.”
“I thought you went back to bed. Jesus, that’s the second time you’ve scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry. I got halfway there and had a milk and cookie craving. Ah HA! Oreos.” I heard a plastic crumple and a packaging rip. Bert sat himself at the kitchen table.
I sat down next to him and grabbed his glass of milk, helping myself to an Oreo and dipping. “You owe me for nearly scaring me to death.”
“Fine, but no double dipping.”
We passed the glass back and forth a couple times before Bert tilted his head at me. “Something wrong?”
“No, why?”
“You’re unusually quiet for you.”
I shrugged. “I’m fine.”
“Missing touring?”
“Absolutely.”
“We leave Friday, dude, you can hold up ‘till then. Sure it’s nothing else?”
I shrugged again. Actually, my conversation with Mollers earlier was still haunting me. “I dunno. Honestly, seeing Jack and Molly earlier kind of… depressed me.”
“Why?”
I grabbed and dunked another Oreo. “Loneliness. It’s not like being a musician is exactly a great profession to help with relationships. You know that.”
Bert chuckled. “Levi seems to be doing fine.”
I laughed too. Since we’d gotten to Jersey, Levi was making up for lost time from touring. Every day he’d been staying in bed until three to sleep off the hangovers he had from the nights before. A couple times Monster had gone with him for the hell of it, but then usually went to Green Day’s hotel room so he could actually get some sleep over all the noise Levi and a new friend made.
“Levi’s Levi. And I’m fucking fourteen, dude, that’s not exactly the kind of life a fourteen year old lives.”
“And kudos to you for that,” Bert said through a mouthful of cookie. “But still, you shouldn’t feel lonely. You won’t be for long.”
I rolled my eyes. “You sound like Molly.”
“That’s a sign that it’s true, man. You’re an awesome girl, Clayah. You’re smart and funny and talented and beautiful. This tour wouldn’t be any fun without you.”
I blushed. Bert playing the wise man was very… not Bert. But at least it comforted me.
“I never have the opportunity to meet anyone my age anyway.”
“That may not be true for much longer.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, we’ve got all those teenage tech interns in Europe coming up.”
“Oh please, like that would happen.”
“It just might, you little cynic!” Bert ruffled my purple hair. “Fucking go for it if it does. You don’t have to be lonely.”
“And what if I choose it?”
“Then you’re fucking stupid.”
“Love you to Bert.” Bert left cookie crumb trace on my face when he kissed my cheek.
“’Sup?”
Bert and I jumped and turned to see Dan standing in the doorway, yawning and clad in boxers.
“Shit man, you scared me!” Bert said.
“Welcome to my world.” I took a huge bite of cookie and grinned.
“Ooo!” Dan stepped forward, ignoring Bert’s dirty look. “Oreos!”