I Believe We're The Enemy

Frank’s P.O.V.

As always, I brace myself before walking back into the hotel, but to my luck, Ray and Ginny are actually on opposite sides of the room, going about their own business. I consider sitting down next to Ginny and being as lovey-dovey as I can get away with in front of Ray, but when I see Mikey’s face, I change my mind and walk over to lean on the sofa behind him.

“What’s wrong, Mikey?” I ask gently. He jumps, startled, and turns to look at me. His eyes are glassy with unshed tears.

“Frankie... Can I trust you not to tell anyone else about this?” he whispers, making sure that Ginny can’t hear.

“Sure. You wanna go outside so you don’t have to whisper?” He nods, and I take his hand and lead him down the stairs and onto the soft sand. I sit down in the shade of a giant saguaro cactus and pat the ground next to me, inviting Mikey to take a seat. Heaving a shaky sigh, he curls up next to me and leans his head on my shoulder, letting his blond hair fall across my chest in a greasy shower.

“So, what’s going on?” I keep my voice as gentle as possible as I wrap an arm around his shoulders, feeling his tears start to pool on my jacket.

“Frank, what does love feel like?” he asks sadly.

I immediately think of Ginny. “You want to be with them, even if the entire world is hell-bent on keeping you apart.” Then Gerard pops into my mind, and I smile. “Or they make you feel like the entire world is sunny, and everything is going to be alright, and like someone actually cares about you and they’re never going to let you go.”

Mikey sighs and gives a tiny sniffle. “Wrong question. What does it feel like when you like someone?”

My grin fades away. “You can’t stop thinking about them, and they usually make you blush. A lot. Sometimes they make you giddy, and sometimes you feel like crap just because they put you down. Or they like someone else more than you.”

Mikey shrinks away from me, his fragile body seeming to grow smaller. “Shit.”

Realization hits me like a train, and I poke him playfully in the side. “You like Glory Girl!” I squeal, suddenly excited. “You like her! You want to hug her and kiss her and marry her and-”

“Frank, stop,” he hisses, his face flushing raspberry pink. “This isn’t a good thing. She hates me. She thinks I’m a fucking perverted stalker and I don’t give a damn about her. She-”

“Do you care about her?” My eyes are wide as I watch Mikey intensely.

“Of course I do! I love when she’s happy, and I love when she smiles, and fuck, if the dracs came here now I’d probably let them torture me to death as long as I knew it would get her out of here safely. She’s had a shitty life, and I wish I could just erase that and give her a better one, preferably one with me.” He looks as if just thinking about her problems breaks his heart.

I open my mouth to say that he obviously loves her, but then I think better of it, remembering that not everyone takes the truth very well. Instead, I pull him toward me, rubbing his arm gently to comfort him as he cries. The curtains in one of the hotel’s second-floor windows swish back and forth violently, and Glory Girl’s head peeks out, observing the scene before her distastefully. Her eyes review Mikey’s slender form with hatred, but as she sees my arms around him, my lips whispering soft words of comfort into his pale ears, she starts to look confused. It probably didn’t occur to her that she hurt his feelings, since some part of her still apparently thinks we’re man-whores. Finally, she rolls her eyes and ducks back into the room, leaving Mikey and I alone again.

“Mikes, do you want me to talk to her?” I ask, looking down at him lovingly. He buries his face in my shirt.

“No. That would make it seem like it was on purpose... I didn’t mean to touch her, and I don’t like her like that... I think...” I cup his chin in my hand gently and point his face toward my own so that I can see him clearly.

“Love really scares you, doesn’t it?”

He nods. “You guys are always so stupid when it comes to each other. You’re all blind. I hate watching you and Ray fight over Ginny even though you know she’s chosen him” (I wince) “and I hate to think that could be happening to me. Even if I really do love her, there’s not that much that I can do about it, because she would think that I didn’t really mean it.”

And idea forms in my mind. “Talk to her.”

“What?”

“Apologize. Hug her, but be gentle and act like you’re a friend, not a potential love interest. The only reason she loves Ray so much is because he’s taken, so nothing he does could be interpreted as making a move on her.”

Mikey sits up and stretches sleepily. “I’ll try, I guess... Thanks, Frankie. You’re amazing.” I kiss his forehead the way an older brother would, and he smiles, relaxing slowly.

Five minutes later, we ascend the stairs to our room, Mikey following me with his head lowered. Glory Girl is perched on her sofa, eating yet another can of Power Pup, and next to her ray and Ginny are chattering quietly. As usual, they’re all over each other. Gerard is sitting on Mikey’s sofa, and his face lights up as we walk in.

“Frankie!” he exclaims. “Where have you been? You missed brunch.” I laugh and drop Mikey’s hand in order to race over to Gerard, curling up with my head in his lap. Mikey stays in the doorway, looking abandoned.

Finally, Glory Girl feels Mikey’s eyes on her and turns around to snap at him, her mouth opening halfway, but he stops her. “I’m sorry, Glory, Girl,” he says, his voice coming out stronger than expected. “I really am. I-”

“It’s okay,” she interjects softly. “I’m just not quite used to you guys yet.” Mikey nods, even though he doesn’t seem to understand, and Ray whispers something is Glory’s ear. She looks at him as if he’s insane.

“Go on,” Ray murmurs, pushing her gently off the couch. I notice that even though he touched a rather intimate spot on her hip, Glory didn’t even flinch. She obviously doesn’t have a reason for her sensitivity, apart from being utterly convinced that Gerard, Mikey, and I are actually self-obsessed enough to abuse her. As I watch, she walks up to Mikey and hugs him, burying her face in his skinny shoulder. I suddenly realize that she must like him too, but she’s even more clueless than he is. I can’t help but grin as Mikey wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, throwing caution to the winds.

After another hour of goofing around, we sit down on the couches again to eat lunch. Glory Girl ends up firmly sandwiched between Ray and Mikey, and after she finishes her own food she takes turns stealing bits of theirs. She’s more comfortable around Mikey now, but all signs of true affection or emotion have disappeared. Mikey seems disappointed, but I can tell that he’s still struggling to fathom what it means to like someone. Neither of them are anywhere near ready to be in a serious relationship, and Glory is still quite wary of everyone but Ray.

Meanwhile, I’ve discovered that forgetting about my feelings for Ginny isn’t as easy as it should be. Every once n a while, I find myself wishing feverishly that she were mine, and that I was the one holding her in my arms as she laugh that beautiful laugh. Then Ray notices me watching her again, and he gives me that apologetic glare, and I turn back to Gerard and wish that just looking at him would make me forget everything else. I love Gerard, but I don’t like him, and sometimes I wish that I did, just because it would take my mind off of Ginny.

“Frankie, can you move, please?” she asks gently, slipping under my arm and pushing me away from the small kitchen sink, where I’m washing the dishes. I step away to let her reach the cabinet above the sink, from which she pulls out a can opener, which isn’t quite as rusty as the one we brought with us. She swaps can openers with Glory Girl, instructing me to put the other one away. I can’t get enough of her glowing green eyes.

“Okay, baby,” I murmur, putting the can opener away and tossing a clean spoon over to Glory Girl, who still refuses to do anything but eat and sleep. Ginny stops abruptly and turns around to face me again.

“Stop calling me that!” she snaps, glaring at me furiously. “You and Gerard have been calling me by that stupid word ever since Ray first got captured and I’m sick of it. I’m not your baby, I’m not anyone’s baby, so just get over it and call me by my own fucking name for once!” We all stare at her openmouthed for a moment, and I finally nod, shell-shocked. She walks smoothly but furiously back to the couch and sits down next to Ray, letting him wrap an arm around her waist and pull her close. I turn back to the sink, biting my lip to hold back the unexpected tears stinging the corners of my eyes.

After I finish washing the dishes I run to the bathroom on the other side of the room, slamming the door behind me as gently as I can. Then I let the tears flow, watching in the mirror as they create hideous patters on my pale, shiny skin. My features look, mutated, miserable, ugly. Nobody loves me. Nobody ever has and nobody ever will.

I’m being a drama queen and I know it. No one would even care that I’m falling apart, not even Gerard,because I’m being an idiot and I don’t even deserve to be sad. The thought of what Gerard would say if he was here right now sends a sick jolt through my stomach, and I stumble over to the toilet with a few muttered curses as I realize that I’m going to throw up. I try to hold my hair out of the way as I retch, feeling shocks of pain bubble up in my stomach, but my long, greasy mane showers down across my face and I end up completely covered in vomit and tears. When I finally lean away from the toilet, I let out a wail of despair, knowing that I am truly the most pathetic person the world has ever seen. I crumple onto the ground, leaning my forehead on the edge of the bathtub, and let myself sob for absolutely no fucking reason whatsoever.

Behind me, the door opens and someone steps in, closing the door behind them softly. I pray that it isn’t Ginny. My head turns so that I can see the intruder through one eye, keeping the other half of my face pressed against the bathtub’s rim. It’s Gerard. I shut my eyes tightly, waiting with bated breath for him to tell me how pathetic I am.

“Oh, Frankie,” he breathes. I think I hear sympathy in his voice, so I open my eyes again, gazing up at his beautiful face. Just from the look he’s giving me, I can tell that he cares about the vomit-coated, tear-stained, miserable boy huddling dejectedly on the floor before him. I open my arms to him, begging silently for one of those hugs that make everything alright.

He falls to his knees in front of me and pulls me into his arms, his strong hands resting warmly on the small of my back as I nuzzle my face into his warm throat. In his embrace I feel safe, comforted, but not loved. Even Gerard would never love a wreck like me.

“Frankie, you’re a mess,” he says softly, holding me at arm’s length for a long moment. I stare into the floor sadly and give a tiny hiccup, feeling guilty that Gerard is now splattered with Power Pup-scented vomit. He helps me to my shaky feet, hooking his arms under my shoulders to support me when I fall into him. I expect him to ask me what’s wrong, as if I would have an answer, but instead he commands me to get cleaned up. His steady hands turn on the bathtub, leaving it to fill, and then he comes back to me, helping me gently out of my clothes. He leaves me standing next to the tub in my boxers, and he’s about to leave when he notices me staring wistfully at the deepening water.

“Don’t drown yourself, Frank, please,” he whispers, taking my hands. I look up at him forlornly, feeling my broken heart throb with dissatisfaction.

“I hate this world, Gee.”

“And it hates you too,” he replies bluntly. “But I love you, Frankie, and I wouldn’t be able to stand this world without you.” I fight back a fresh wave of tears as he envelops me in another hug, his lips planting soft kisses among the roots of my filthy, matted hair.

After Gerard leaves I pull of my underwear and sink down into the bathwater, leaving only my nose above the water so that I can breathe. I can feel my sore, stick-thin limbs relaxing in the warmth of the soft liquid, but it does nothing to remove the caked vomit from my ghost-white skin. A few minutes later, I sit up and grab a washcloth that Gerard had placed on the edge of the tub, wetting it and lathering it with a creamy white soap. The water quickly turns an interesting shade of brown as I scrub the accumulated grime away from my body, watching it swirl around in aimless, carefree patterns. As soon as the dirt has washed off of my skin, I squeeze insane amounts of ancient hotel shampoo onto my head, working it carefully into my long, brownish-black hair.

Thirty minutes later, I step up the bathtub, squeezing the now-lukewarm water out of my wonderfully clean hair. I let the water drain away from the tub slowly, watching as it swirls down into the pipes, leaving only a wet film behind. My robotic hands pick up a towel and use it to dry off my body, and when I finish my skin looks softer than a baby’s. It’s not. Though I still feel like a hurricane of emotions, not a single tear threatens to roll from my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a bitter glance of the twisted scars on my shoulder in the mirror. They look hideous.

There’s a gentle knock on the door, and I wrap my towel around my waist before calling the person in. As expected, Gerard steps over the threshold, clean clothes in hand. “Put your arms up,” he whispers, and I oblige, letting him slip the new shirt over my head. It’s amazingly soft, and I thoroughly enjoy the feeling of the lime green fabric against my skin, which has been roughened by sand and sunburn. Gerard turns around while I take off the towel and don a new pair of boxers. Then he helps me into a pair of jeans that I know used to belong to Mikey, and I heave a sad sigh as he gently rolls up the cuffs of the pants so that I’m not tripping over them.

As he stands and starts to pull the tangles out of my hair with half of a broken comb, I hear him singing, his soft voice penetrating the glassy fog that blocks off my mentally injured ears from the world.

”I’m not in love ‘cause I’m a mess...”

“What are you singing?” I ask softly.

“‘Before the Lobotomy’, Green Day. You know that song.” I grin and join in as he sings onward:

”Like refugees
We’re lost like refugees
Like refugees
We’re lost like refugees

The brutality
Of reality
Is the freedom
That keeps me from

Dreaming
I was only dreaming
Of another place and time
Where my family’s from...”

I trail off, leaving Gerard to sing the rest of the song, as he guides me out of the bathroom and lifts me onto the bed. Kobra Kid and Glory Girl are already asleep, and Ray and his girlfriend must be in their own room. It’s later than I thought. Gerard’s fingers continue to run through my hair as he pulls me close, letting me rest my head on his chest and listen to his always-steady heartbeat. I never want to lose Gerard. Slowly but surely, his voice drifts off into oblivion, and I fall asleep in his arms like nothing more like a fragile, broken doll.