Opposites Always Attract.

I stared at the blue line in front of me, my green eyes widening in horror and realisation.

“Oh no.” I muttered, shutting my eyes and taking a deep breath.
“What?” Gerard asked from across the room. He came over to me and plonked down onto the floor so that we were sat side by side “What’s wrong. What does that mean?”

Opening my eyes I saw he was pointing at the dreading blue line, frowning in confusion.

“It means I’ve done it wrong, Gerard!” I yelled, dropping the pencil I was holding and growling to myself “It was meant to be green. Not blue. That part was meant to be blue, not this part. I’ve fucked it up, Gerard. I’ve messed up my drawing.”

Gerard laughed at my frustration. Taking the paper away from me and holding it up to view it properly “You can’t even tell, Elliott. It’s a tiny line, just go over it.”

I looked at him evilly “Go over it? This is a work of art, Gerard! Not a colouring book.” I huffed and crossed my arms while he continued to grin at my behaviour.

“It’s a fuckin’ school project. I don’t think Mr Escobar will mark us down because you did one tiny thing wrong.”
“But now this page is going to look shit!”
“No it won’t. Here.” He snatched the green pencil from my fingers and carefully began colouring around and over my mistake. If I was honest you could no longer tell the blue had once been there, but I was still fuming at myself.

“See?” Gerard said, handing me back the paper. I just grumbled a ‘thank you’ and began working again.

I’d been at Gerard’s all night. Not once had I looked at my phone. I was too afraid that Chloe or someone else had contacted me asking what the fuck was up with my actions today. Instead I’d spent the evening with Gerard, cuddled on the sofa and messing around in his room. Right now we were catching up on our art project, which I was almost sad to see was nearly finished. And then realising how little time I had left before I finished school.

I ran a distressed hand through my hair and sighed.

“What’s up?” Gerard asked me.
“I just realised how little time we have left.”
“Of what?”
“School. And being a teenager. I’m going to be 18 soon, how scary is that? I don’t want to become an adult.” I mumbled childishly, twisting a pencil in between my fingers.
“Oh, come on, Elliott. Don’t tell me you’d rather be stuck in Belleville for the rest of your life?” Gerard grinned playfully, carefully sketching with a dark pencil.

“Well it’s not like I have anything else to do. I don’t even know what I want to do with my life. At least you know, even Tara knows what she wants to be when she leaves school.”
“Oh yeah, what?”
“Porn star.” I said, almost obviously. Again, Gerard laughed.

“That girl’s nuts,” He said, shaking his head “But come on, you must have some idea?”
I shrugged “Nope,” I popped the ‘p’ “I don’t really have any extraordinary talents or desires. I’ll probably just become a bum. Or move back to England and live with my mental cousin.” I smiled to myself, remembering my distant family.

“You’d really move back to England?” Gerard asked, a hint of worry in his voice.
“Nahh,” I smiled “Couldn’t stand the shit weather. Although you can drink when you’re 18...Legally anyway,” I laughed, but then sighed “I’m just jealous I guess. I mean there’s nothing that I really can do. I mean you’re an amazing artist, Frank’s a brilliant musician, Tara’s got the attractiveness...I’m seriously going to end up in a dead end job.” I tried not to show how upset I was by this idea.

“Hey, you have talent! You have shit loads of talent.”
“Oh yeah, like what?”
“Y-you can draw well. And you can – You can dance. A-and, you’re pretty?”
I smiled weakly “Cheers, Gerard. But I don’t think being pretty’s really going to help me in the work place.”
“Well, what do you wanna do? What’s your dream job?”
“Ghost buster.” I shrugged.
“Come on, seriously.”
“I dunno. I like writing I guess.”
“There you go. You could write the next Twilight.” Gerard smiled, pushing me playfully.
“Yeah, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to write a shit book about a freckin’ fairy.” I giggled, my eyes lightening up.
“Hey, I was being serious you know.” Gerard grinned, fighting off the pillow I was attacking him with. I stopped and tackled him, hovering over his body with my legs either side of him, a wide grin on my face.

“You’re amazing, Haile. Do you realise that?” Gerard asked randomly, kindly smirking at me as my smiling face became closer to his.

“Why, yes. Yes I do, Way.” I beamed, pecking him on the lips “And I think you’ll find you are of equal amazement.”
“Do me a favour?” He said, tracing the length of my nose with his finger.
“Hmm?”
“Don’t get angry if people find out.”
I thought for a second, knowing that Gerard meant not be angry about losing my popularity and friends. In a way, I wanted to not promise him, but after a second of thinking, I realised he was right. I shouldn’t be mad if people find out. In fact, I should be proud. Because Gerard was amazing. It was just foolish for hundreds of other people to not realise this.

“Okay, Geebear.” I said softly, smiling cutely so my eyes crinkled before dipping my head to kiss him.

-

I’d never been so scared in all my life. As I drove into the parking lot on Monday morning, my heart was pounding so hard I was afraid it was actually going to fight through my ribcage and explode onto my dashboard. I tried to tell myself to take deep breaths, but I just couldn’t. Panic was washing over me, and paranoia was kicking in. Every student I saw made my stomach churn. What if they all knew? Of course they couldn’t know the full story, even Chloe isn’t that smart to figure out I was with Gerard straight away. But word was surely around about me punching Annie in the face.

And I was right. As soon as I got out of my car, a boy I barely knew was by my side.

“You punched Annie Green in the face?” he asked bluntly, his eyebrow piercing glinting in the sun.

I stuttered “Uh, y-yes.”
He took my hand in his own and gave it a strong yet brief shake “Well done, legendary.” I stared at his back in confusion as he walked off.

It took every fibre of my being to muscle up the courage to even take one step away from my car. All the while my heart was pounding and my throat was dry.

If you hadn’t of guessed already, I hadn’t spoken to anyone other than Gerard since. My eyes shifted from side to side as I walked. All around me people were taking the time to point and mutter. Some glaring, other grinning, a few giggling. I tried to focus, telling myself that what I had done was not so bad. It was just a punch, why should it matter. But then I realised why it would.

Before I’d even reached the doors someone grabbed my long hair and pulled me backwards. Spinning around to see what the problem was, I saw the blazing eyes of Annie Green. A scabby cut on her lip told me the damage of what I had done, and the purple mark on her jaw line left a visible mark. On the inside I was laughing, hard. But on the outside, I was trembling.

“What the-“ I tried to say, but was cut off by a hard slap from Annie’s orange hand.
“You fucking cunt. What the fuck? Have you seen what you’ve done to my fucking face? What the fuck is your problem?” she went for a punch but I managed to duck my head and push her away.

“What are you even doing here?” I questioned, making a mental note to keep a distance away from her. People where beginning to crowd around, keen to see if it would break into a ‘catfight’.

“I came here to see why the fuck you fucked me up the other day,” I was aware that she was slowly edging towards me “What the fuck is your problem, huh?”

“I just don’t like people chatting shit about other people”
“What? About Way? He’s a fucking emo dick, you cunt.”
“He tried to kill himself.” I said bluntly, as if to make my statement obvious.
“Yeah, I know. And I wish he’d of stayed dead.” Her gleaming eyes held a hit of laughter, and also insanity.
“Fuck off, leave me alone, Annie.” I said, attempting to defuse the whole situation.
“L-leave you alone?” she laughed “No way, bitch. I’m gunna beat you to a fucking pulp.”
“Not if I can help it. Cunt.” The words fell from my lips before I could even process them, and before I knew it I was fighting my way through the crowd and running into the building in a mad attempt to get away from the slut.

I burst into the classroom with a red face, panting and exhausted.

“Miss Haile?” my teacher asked me in confusion.
“S-sorry, miss,” I said, dashing to my seat and making no eye contact with a particular blonde haired girl “ran into a bit of trouble.” I simply stated, grabbing a pen out of my bag before looking out of the window.

-

By lunch the whole school knew not only about me punching Annie, but also about the mishap this morning. But what was really interesting to people was the rumour that I had punched Annie because of Gerard. Of course it was the truth but I wasn’t fully prepared to answer to it. If anybody asked me in the hallway, I would simply ignore them and walk away.

As I entered the canteen, my head lowered and my feet quick, my heart once again started beating. I hadn’t spoken to them since that day. But now was the moment. Slowly I slid into the bench, my head still watching my feet. I could feel their eyes burning my skull. Carefully I looked up, and saw the three frowning faces of Angelica, Maggie and Chloe. Tara, I had noticed was sat beside me. Under the table she grabbed my hand as squeezed it tenderly and cautiously.

“Well?” was all Chloe said, her voice like razor blades.
“W-well what?” I asked, pretending to be clueless.
“Don’t ‘what’ me. Answer me. Why the fuck did you punch her, huh? And over Gerard fucking Way? What is all this about, Ellie?”

I took note of the way she used my name. She only called me Ellie when she was feeling particularly kind, or particularly patronising.

“I-I-“ I stuttered, my voice catching in my throat “I’m sorry. I just got pretty mad I g-guess.”
“Pretty mad?” Chloe raised an eyebrow “You punched her in the face! Why? Why’d you get mad. Answer me, slut.”
“Be-because I was upset.”
“Over what?” Maggie and Angelica had identical posture. Pursed lips, raised eyebrows and folded arms. Staring at me judgementally.

“G-Gerard tried to kill himself. I guess I just took it pretty personally.”
“You fucking what?” Maggie said “We don’t ‘take things personally’, Elliott. Not when it involves Gerard Way, okay? He’s a bitch. He’s a low life scum. I don’t know what the fuck you were thinking but-“
“Maggie,” Chloe interrupted, holding up her hand as if to pause her “I’m doing the talking, okay?” she leaned in closer “You made a fool out of us, Ellie. Do you realise that? You punched our friend in the face because you felt bad for Gerard Way. That is not right.”

“I think there’s something else to this,” Angelica said, her dark eyes narrowed as she looked at me. Chloe stared at her, encouraging her to go on “Elliott,” Angelica said, leaning in closer, a smirk planted firmly on her lips “Are you fucking him?”

My mouth opened wide in shock. Chloe and Maggie made disgusted noises, and were almost ready to laugh it off until they noticed my reaction.

“N-n-no! What the fuck, Angelica! Of course I’m fucking not. Are you fucking kidding me?” I said, my face growing red.
“Tell me the truth.” Angelica said, leaning back slightly, proud of her work.
“Fuck off. I am not fucking, Way.” I said, my voice panicked.
“You’re lying,” Chloe hissed threateningly “I swear to God if you’ve even touched that emo scum you are dead.”

Suddenly I switched. My brain snapped and I stood up. I hadn’t even realised, but half of the room had gone silent to watch us quietly argue, but now the whole room was soundless. All heads turned towards us.

“Yes, Chloe. I’m fucking Gerard Way. And you know what? I don’t give an actual shit what you think anymore. You are a worthless whorish cunt. And I don’t give a shit.” my voice ached from the amount that I had screamed. My voice echoing around the tense atmosphere.

In a quick second I flung my bag around my shoulder, turned on my heel and stormed out of canteen. My jaw locked and my eyes flaming. Every pair of eyes in the room followed my movement. Mouths hung open at the strict secret I had kept for so long, and whispers had already began.

As I bashed the door open and strutted out, the sound of a hundred voices broke the silence. But I didn’t stick around to listen. I pushed past students, everything in a blur. I couldn’t hear noises and I couldn’t see faces. All I could feel was the banging in my ears.

I’d done it now. All of my fears had come true. But you know what? I really don’t give a shit.