I Believe We're The Enemy

Ray’s P.O.V.

For days, my hands are bloody around the clock, and my face stays just as red as I continue on my wild guitar rampage. I come out to eat every once in a while, and Rose, who hasn’t completely given up on my sanity, tends to my wounds with gentle hands. Her caring nature allows me to have someone to talk to, since Frank won’t even look at me, and Mikey is as irritable as ever. Most of the time, however, I just sit in my room and play the guitar. Sometimes I sing, and every once in a while I play lefty, because my right hand can no longer handle the abuse. Luckily, I have enough picks to replace the ones that get lost and eaten by the legendary Pick Monster, an unseen torturer that Frank adamantly claims to exist. I go through my entire repertoire of songs one by one, improvising long solos on each one and skipping only the tunes that are too painful to play, whether it’s for my fingers or my heart. Once, I hear quiet weeping coming from outside my door, late at night when I’m only playing because I can’t sleep, and I quickly realize that Ginny must be sitting near my room and listening to me. I stand and make my way over to the door.

The moment the doorway opens, I see Ginny, curled up against the wall closest to my door. Her shimmering and maybe beautiful bronze hair is swept across her features in a curtain, and her head is bent, so I can’t see her face. However, I clear my throat softly, and she turns to look up at me, her green eyes shining with a mixture of tears and almost hope.

She mouths my name once, and our eyes meet for the first time in almost a week. Five days. I didn’t even know I was counting. My mouth opens, preparing to tell her to leave, but before I can, some glimmer in her gaze stops me. Voices battle in my head. For a minute, I almost invite her into my room, to watch me play the guitar and maybe even sleep there, but then my common sense gets the better of me, and I close the door softly without sending her away.

I hate the feeling of sleeping alone, so I don’t. Hours pass as I play softly for the one-person audience that stays, not crying but just existing, which is enough for me to feel her presence. I sing a bit more, but only hen I know that the words mean nothing to either of us. As angry as I am, I still miss her, and knowing that she’s out there listening to me soothes me to an extent. When the first stirrings of sunlight are visible through my open window, I hear her stand outside, and I brace myself to see her face again, but she doesn’t come in. I still hear her voice.

“I love you,” she says, softly but clearly. “I’m still sorry.” With that, her footsteps retreat to the front room, where she must be laying down to make it look like she was sleeping. I know she was talking to me, and I believe her, just a little bit, but at the same time, I’m still too afraid to emerge from my cave and approach her and whisper forgiveness into her ears and remember, after five days of fading imprints, what her tender lips feel like. Just the thought of this makes me feel as if I’m being torn apart.

For the first time in days, I come out of my room and stay out, sitting on the sofa next to Rose and letting her calm me in her own special way. She expresses her concern for the stress-ridden Mikey, who’s still sleeping. I can’t help but suffer through the pangs of jealousy that I feel at their closeness; I miss having somebody there to kiss away all my pain. Rose senses my longing and fear and drags me into the kitchen, where we can talk without the silent Ginny hearing.

“Ray, you’re lonely,” Rose declares as she runs cool water over my blood-streaked hands yet again. I bite back the lump in my throat as well as the urge to flinch away from her gentle touch.

“I know.”

She sighs. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’ve got my guitar. And you. I’ll be okay.”

“Ray...”

“What?”

She clears her throat gently. “If Gerard doesn’t wake up, can you promise me that you’ll at least talk to Ginny? She needs her big brother, and with out him, she’ll be too broken to function. If you still won’t even look at her, she’ll probably end up dying one way or another, and I know that would destroy you.”

“I...” At first I want to deny it, but I know that if I didn’t still have some degree of hope left in Ginny, I would already have cast her far away, out of any hope of reclaiming her as my own. Of course, she picks this time to walk into the kitchen, her quiet feet padding across the dusty room to retrieve a can of Power Pup from the cabinet.

“You’re eating,” Rose says happily.

Ginny snorts. “Don’t expect this to become regular. I’m just too hungry not to eat right now.” Her normally soft voice is even quieter than it used to be, as if she’s afraid that I’ll be angered by the sound. For a few split seconds, our eyes meet, and I nearly find myself crossing the invisible barrier and drowning in the hurt and guilt hidden behind her gaze. Some little voice whispers I don’t want to hurt her but then terror, betrayal, and my own selfish guilt take over, and I turn away, blocking out the rest of her conversation with Rose.

By the time we return to the front room, everyone else is already awake. Rose leaves me to give Mikey a tiny good-morning kiss, and I sit down on the sofa by myself, avoiding everyone else’s eyes (particularly the glare that Frank continues to send in my direction). I know that they’re all staring at my hands, which are raw and covered in guitar-inflicted gashes. Not to mention the red lines on my face from crying so often. I feel like a fucking baby, always sobbing and always doing something wrong. Why the hell does everyone take Ginny’s side every single time anything happens? This whole mess is her fault anyway. Even Rose spends more time comforting Ginny than checking up on me. No one seems to realize how badly this situation is affecting my sanity, because, of course, I’m supposed to be the strong one here.

“Ray?”

Rose’s voice snaps me out of my angry musings. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” I snap, glaring into her defensive and very hazel eyes. “No, Rose, I’m not. You all assume that I’m so tough that I can handle everything, but I can’t. I’m just as messed up as she is.” I gesture vaguely at Ginny. “Except while she has all of you on her side, trying to make her okay, I’m by myself. Why the hell are you assuming that I’m so strong?”

By now, everyone is staring at me, and it takes all the self-control I contain to hold back yet another wave of tears. “You’re so stubborn, Ray,” Rose finally replies.

“Stubborn?” I hiss. “Try angry. Betrayed. Fucking lonely. Fucking goddamn afraid!” The room is silent as I sit back down on the sofa and start to cry, too broken to even try to hide my tears.

Rose leans her head on my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me. “I’m sorry. I know you’re upset. It’s going to be okay.” I want to get up and walk away, cast off the lies that she’s piping into my ears like cupcake icing, but I know that she’s only trying to help, so I rest my head on hers and let her damaged love at least attempt to heal me.

Across the room, Ginny’s mouth opens, as if she’s about to say something, but then she changes her mind and buried her face in Frank’s shoulder. Emotion flows so thickly around the room that I swear I can feel it in the air, and silence reigns, cloaking any semblance of sense that ever existed in our minds. For hours, all we do is sit, watching the sun float across its lazy sky pathway with untamable ease. I miss rain--the kind you could actually go outside and dance in, not just the stuff we get out here in the Zones, where one drop will make your skin sizzle like a frying pancake. I’ve had my fair share of this rain, and it’s nasty. I remember the time Ginny found the acid scars on my back, inflicted in a particularly bad storm, but then I have to block out the memory before it affects me too badly.

And so the days pass. Pain is all we feel, except for Rose and Mikey, who use each other’s bodies and voices to block out their own emotions. Life seems to fade away as we sit in a dysfunctional state, waiting not even for Gerard to wake up, but just for things to change. Every once in a while, Ginny pleads for my forgiveness, but I always turn her away much more harshly than I ever expect. Something in my mind puts up a barrier every time she approaches me, and suddenly I feel as if I’m going to cry, simply because I can’t forget that she doesn’t want me anymore. Also, secretly, I start to think that her relationship with Frank is growing in a way that’s beginning to push me out. On the inside, all I am is broken; I miss love, and with life going the way it is now, I’m not going to find any in the near future.