Let Me Be The One To Save You

We sat together on my unmade bed in the room that still felt foreign to me even after living in it the past few months. Gerard held my hand in his as we talked about how he afforded to come see me. He had persuaded his parents to let him use some of his college fund. After I had scolded him for this we settled into a comfortable silence, one where words were not need to express how happy we were. It is always in those sort of moments that I am happiest. The moments, in which everything just seems perfect, like for once, everything is just sliding into place.

“Ciara, did Frankie ever tell you about the story of our friend?” His voice was soft as if unwilling to disturb the moment we were having.

It took me a moment to realise he was talking about the friend who Frankie had mentioned to me before. The friend whom they had lost to suicide. The one who Gerard was so unwilling to talk about.

“No he never did.”

He smiled faintly and nodded his head, his raven black hair flying all over his face. He pushed the locks back with both his hands in that way that only guys do, “I didn’t think so.”

I stared at him curiously as he bit his lip and his eyes darted furtively around the room. He removed his hand from mine and brought his together, they were clenched so tight they looked almost sore. His mouth opened and closed a few times without him saying anything, like he didn’t know quite how to say whatever was on his mind.

“His name was Matt.”

Gerard’s voice was so quiet that even with the silence we were sitting in, I could scarcely hear his soft voice. He looked at me with pleading eyes and I unclenched his hands. I lay his head in my lap and ran my fingers through his silky hair as he began to silently cry.

“He… he was my best friend Ciara. We were like you and Fergal. Gee and Mattie, two peas in a pod. I miss him.”

I knew there was nothing I could say to make it hurt any less so I just sat there combing his tangled locks with my fingers.

“I thought everything was good y’know?” He mumbled more to himself than to me as he continued telling me about Matt. “We had been hanging out that day and he’d never seemed happier. I called over for him the next morning. His parents were away on business so I just let myself in with the key they gave me when I was thirteen. I couldn’t find him anywhere, I found him in his parents’ bathroom. God Ciara, it was horrific. His arms were destroyed with huge gashes and even if he had lived he would have been scarred forever. Lying on the floor was the bottle that held the sleeping pills his Mom used to take when she had migraines and it was empty. I remember standing, just standing staring at my best friend as he lay in a pool of his own blood and puke. I was in such shock that I didn’t know what to do.”

Gerard’s body convulsed in a wave of sobs and I held his head still whispering in his ear, telling him how brave he was for telling me. I treated him like a child because, in that moment when his tear stained eyes met mine, that’s exactly what he looked like. He looked like a child whose innocence had been stolen when he found his friend dead.

“Ciara… when he left everything became so fucking hard! I didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. Fuck, I didn’t shower for two weeks at one point. I was a mess.”

I nodded and pulled his head off my lap to give him a tight hug, one where I tried to squeeze away all his pain, all his worries, “I know what it’s like Gee. I was the exact same.”

“Since he’s been gone it feels like it’s raining all the time… well it did, but then you came along,” He looked up and gave me a weak smile that barely touched his tortured eyes. “Everything was so shit before you turned up, though I guess you wouldn’t understand that.”

The thing was though; I did understand what he meant by that, because I felt the exact same way. Before I met Gerard my life had been spiralling downwards to the point that I had been tempted to join my best friend in the after life. When you lose a friend at such a young age it feels as if your entire world has been crushed. It’s like God (or whoever is up there) wants to see you suffer, wants to laugh at your pain. Every day becomes dark, dismal, hopeless. You don’t see the point in trying because without those you love by your side, what’s the point? Before I moved to Jersey and met Gerard I had thought life was pointless, that there was no use trying anymore because Fergal was no longer by my side. Gerard had brought me out of that dark abyss and shown me the light once more, he’d shown me hope.

“I do understand. I felt the exact same way before I met you.”

“Ciara, you mean everything to me,” He laughed at his own cheesy line. “I mean, you helped me. Essentially, you saved me from myself. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”

I smiled so hard my cheeks ached and I hugged him once more, “There’s no need to thank me, you’ve saved me too.”

We sat in silence once more and I distracted myself by tracing the odd intricate design on Gerard’s t-shirt. We were both smiling so much that we probably looked like a pair of crack heads flying high. Then, he leaned in and kissed me. It wasn’t like any first kiss you read about in books or see in movies, there was no tongue, no lust. It was such a simple, innocent kiss filled with love that I was taken slightly aback. But before I had the chance to return the kiss he pulled back, not his entire face, just his lips, but I still didn’t like that much. We stayed like that; his forehead touching mine, smiling, breathing quietly, and it was perfect.

“Jersey’s not the same without you Ciara,” He whispered softly and his breath tickled my lips. “Please come home.”

Home. I liked the sound of that, and when I thought about Jersey was the only place I had ever really felt ‘at home’ . In Jersey I had a loving aunt and friends, I felt like I belonged. And, if Gee wanted me to ’come home’ then that made it all the more enticing.

“I want to Gee, I really do,” I mumbled. “But I’ll have to ask my Mum.”

He nodded a little and smiled before capturing my lips in another innocent kiss. In that moment I felt invincible. On top of the world. Beautiful.