Opposites Always Attract.

When my alarm clock sounded the next morning I just crept my hand out from under the covers and slammed it before pulling my duvet over my head. I laid peacefully for around ten minutes before my relaxation was disrupted. My warm covers were ripped from my body revealing my scowling yet concerned mother hovering over me.

“Get up, come on you’ve got school” she dropped my duvet to the floor much to my disappointment. I curled up in an attempt to keep warm and groaned.

“Up. Now!” she said again, throwing my curtains open so a harsh light flooded into my room making my eyes hurt. I groaned again, making it clear I didn’t plan on moving any time soon.

“You have five minutes to get up. Or else Pikachu goes in the garbage” she calmly threatened walking out of the room with my yellow friend. She didn’t scare me. I knew she wouldn’t have it in her to throw my beloved toy in the bin, so I stayed where I was. My forehead creased and my knee’s up to my chest.

As you can already probably tell, I didn’t plan on going to school. Why? I don’t know. I had no reason to want to wallow in my own self pity but I just couldn’t muscle up the energy to even drag myself out of bed let alone to school.

I guess I just needed a moment to myself. Just to think things over. I was constantly busy nowadays. Worrying about other people as well as myself. Having to juggle school and work and the boyfriend and the best friend. While I’m sure people had it worse off than me, I wasn’t use to all of this drama. I was use to just floating. Letting Chloe decide things for me, basing my opinions on hers and not bothering with my homework because I knew teachers were either too scared to stand up to me or frankly didn’t give a damn about my education.

I’d tried to change. I’d done every scrap of homework I had been given – even the ones I didn’t understand. I’d worked my arse off every day of the week so far at that tiny comic store. I’d tried to talk to Gerard and Tara and tried to ignore my parent’s arguments. And I guess last night it all fell on top of me.

I just need one day. One day of relaxation.

Eventually I sat upright, pushing my messy hair out of my half closed eyes and yawning. My mum came in again, this time with her shoes on and her bag on her shoulder.

“Elliott, what’s wrong, seriously?” she asked, noticing I hadn’t attempted to get up.
“I’m just exhausted” I told her, my voice hoarse and painful.

She sighed and perched at the end of my bed “You know your father and I love you, right? Whatever you do or whoever you are. You’re our daughter. We love you no matter what.” She smiled and stroked the back of my head.

“Yeah, I know, mum. I’m just overloaded with stuff at the moment I guess”
“Is everything okay? I know you heard your father and I last night but – but it won’t happen again. I-“
“It’s been happening for the last three days, mum. I’m not stupid.”

She sighed and looked away from my eyes ashamed. She opened her mouth to talk, but closed it again. Taking a deep breath she attempted again “Listen, Elliott. Just because Louis and I are arguing it doesn’t mean anything. We’re just worried about you, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I know.”
“Y-you are okay, right? There’s nothing you need to tell me? Nothing you wanna talk about?”
“No,” I lied “I’m fine. I just need to think about a few things”
“What things?”
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself” I smiled, standing up and walking with her into the hall.

She shot me another worried look before exiting the house for work. As soon as the door was shut I dropped my smile and huffed. Again, I was being stupid. Having a day off of school so I could ‘think’. I shuffled back to my bedroom and picked my duvet off of the floor and crawled back into bed.

-

I’d been stuffing my mouth full of cereal when the doorbell rang. Confused as to who would be looking for our house in the middle of the day I padded into the hall way in a pair of fluffy socks.

I knew instantly who was at my door just from the blurred outline from the small distorted window of the door.

I raised my eyebrows at him once I’d flung it open.

“Oh, so you’re alive?” Gerard smiled, stepping to the side revealing a grim looking Frankie.
“Well, clearly,” I stated, moving to the side so they could enter “what are you doing here?”

“Well, we were wondering where you were. It’s not like you to skip school. Mikey got paranoid and thought you’d been kidnapped or some shit so we came to check on you”

“Well, you can tell Mikey I’m fine” I lead them to the living room where I flopped back into my previous position on one of the couches. My feet spread out across the seats and the cereal bowl resting on my stomach while I miserably continued shovelling ‘Fruit Loops’ down my throat.

Both boys sat on the other sofa, casually looking around at the mess of the house. Countless mugs and cups littering all flat surfaces. DVD’s and CD’s flung carelessly on top of the coffee table and a large pile of ironing gradually growing in the corner of the room, seemingly forgotten by my mother. In conclusion – the house looked like a bomb had hit it.

With the recent arguments and such all cleaning and general hygiene had been forgotten. Probably because my parents were trying to get on each other’s nerves by creating as much mess as possible. I noted the several tea stains on my mother’s photographs and my dad’s Generation-X CD obviously left on the floor ready for someone to tread on.

“So,” Gerard began, breaking the awkward silence as all eyes were on me “are you okay?”

“Never been better” I replied as milk dripped down my chin.
“You look it” Frank said, earning an elbow in the ribs from Gerard.
“You wanna talk about anything?” Gerard asked.
“Frank, what’s Pencey Prep?” I asked, looking over at him with curious eyes, obviously ignoring Gerard’s question.

“Oh, uh. I-it’s just a band I’m in”
“You’re in a band?”
“Yeah” he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“I didn’t know that”
“Yeah, it’s in uh – in early stages but yeah...i-it’s just a band”

I shrugged “Cool. Tara loves people in bands,” Frank blushed and looked ever so slightly humiliated “What?” I asked, although I kind of already knew the answer.

“Yeah uh – Tara and I. We’re um...kind of on a break or something”
“Oh yeah?”
“Y-yeah. She didn’t say?”
“I haven’t really spoken to her much”

Both boys looked at me. In each of their eyes I could see realisation slowly creeping.

“What, you mean not at all?”
“Once or twice,” I shrug again “she’s been busy. Have you seen much of her?”

I looked at Frank who instantly looked guilty “W-well. Pretty much every day for the past two weeks. E-except for the last few days. We kind of got into an argument”

“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I got fed up I guess. Didn’t wanna have to keep treading around broken glass, y’know? We shouldn’t have to keep things secret”

I glanced at Gerard who caught my stare. We both looked away from one another “Yeah, I know what you mean” I told him.

We all sat in silence for a while longer. The only sound being 10 Things I hate about You blaring from the television.

‘I hate the way you talk to me and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate it when you’re always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even more when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call. But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all’

I coughed awkwardly and used the remote control to turn over the channel to a nature documentary. Again I looked at Gerard who caught my eye. But this time we didn’t look away, we held the gaze. I bit my lip and raised my eyebrows gently. He continued to look at me, almost like he was thinking. And then he smiled.

My cheeks blushed and I looked away. Standing up I decided I might as well do something with my day rather than sit around in the house and eating sugar.

“Well, let’s not dawdle. Let’s do something!” I chirped, running up my stairs to get changed into something suitable.

“W-what are we doing?” Gerard called up the stairs in confusion.

I didn’t reply. Instead I flung off my clothes and quickly threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Using my fingers to comb my hair I scanned my room looking for something. Finally noticing the crumpled piece of paper I stuffed it into my pocket before running down the stairs.

“Where are we going?” Gerard asked again as I grabbed his hand and ran out of the house.
“Frank, where’s the nearest tattoo shop?” again, I ignored Gerard’s question.

Frank’s eyes widened “Downtown, why?”

“You’ll see!”

-

All three of us entered the store. Frank nodding and smiling at the guy behind the desk, clearly recognising each other. Gerard on the other hand was hovering near the door, not at all keen to come in.

“Gerard?” I asked, turning around to look at him, raising my eyebrows at his nervous expression.

“Y-you go on ahead. I’ll wait in the car”
“Come on, fairy” Frank giggled, taking his hand and pulling him in. Gerard’s shoulders hunched at the sound of buzzing.

I walked up to the counter and smiled at the man with many tattoos standing behind it.

“Hi” I grinned
“Hey, darlin’. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I was kinda hoping to get my first tattoo today,” I dived my hand into my pocket and pulled out the sheet of paper showing him the design I had printed.

I’d been thinking about it for years. I’d always wanted a tattoo. However I was too scared to get one, always changing my mind about what I wanted or where I wanted it.

“Cool, so what you thinking?” he accepted the paper and nodded his head at what he saw “Nice, nice. Good choice of words. James Dean, right?”

I nodded a yes with a slight blush on my face

“Where you thinking of getting it?”
“My hip?” I said, stepping away from the counter so I could show him exactly where I planned on getting it.

“Awesome. And what about your friends here?”

I turned and noticed Gerard perched awkwardly on a chair while Frankie scanned the photographs around the room with admiration.

“Oh, they’re just along for the ride. To hold my hand and all that”
“Sure you don’t need to hold his hand?” he motioned his head towards a pale Gerard – well, pale for him anyway “he looks more scared than you”

I laughed “he’ll be fine”

“Alright, sweetie. I’m just gunna draw this up and then we’ll get started, that cool?”
“Sounds good to me” I smiled, and watched as he walked away to design my permanent body art.

-

“Gerard. Hey, Gerard come and look at this! Look at it. Doesn’t it look amazing?” I asked from my position on the recline seat.

I’d been sat in the chair for almost an hour casually chatting to Frank and the tattoo artist while Gerard was huddled in the corner of the room.

“I hate needles” he hissed sending death glares towards the needle attached to my skin.
“Aww, come on, Geebear. It’s not even that bad” Frank laughed, earning a grunt of disapproval from the boy across the room.

“There,” the artist said wiping at my skin with a tissue “All done. Go ahead, take a look”

I sat up a little and looked down at my right hip. Through the redness and the excess ink I could see my perfect tattoo. Not too over the top, not to formal and flowery. Just simple words in an italic font.

’Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today’

“I love it” I said breathlessly, grinning stupidly at his work.
“Yeah?” I nodded enthusiastically “I’m glad. It’s a good quote,” he began covering the tattoo in a white dressing much to my dismay “You’re tough. Didn’t even flinch once, bit like Frank over there,” he indicated to Frank who was once again looking at tattoo designs “I reckon he’s gunna end up with a thousand tats if he’s not careful”

I laughed in agreement. Looking back over at him I could just see him in ten years time with multiple pictures covering his pale body.

“Can’t say the same for your boyfriend over there though,” he laughed “no offence but he’s a pussy” Gerard growled again.

-

As soon as we pulled up outside Gerard’s house after dropping Frank back home I turned to face him.

“Gerard?”
“Yeah?”
“...I’m sorry”
“For what?”
“Being a dick these last few days”
“You weren’t being a dick?”
“Yeah, I was”
“You were?”
“Gerard, I forget that – I understand that – I realise that you can’t be there for me all the time. I’m selfish, I know that. You have your own life and I can’t expect you to be perfect. I’m sorry for being harsh to you and making you stressed out and stuff. I guess since people found out I relied on you. But...you’re not always gunna be there, I understand that. I’m sorry for trying to make you perfect and I’m sorry for being annoyed with you because you weren’t always there. I mean we were always doing our own things, and now that I have nothing I’m always expecting you to drop whatever you’re doing and come running to me. But I realise now you can’t do that. You have your own life, and I have mine. I-I’m just thankful that I do have you. And just...I’m sorry for being so hard on you. For taking out all my anger on you when nothing was your fault”

“You don’t have to be sorry for that”
“Really?”
“Really”
“Gerard?”
“Hmm?”
“What do you think will happen with us? Y’know, when we leave school and stuff?”
“I dunno”
“Do you think we’ll stay together?”
“I-I dunno”
“Do you want to stay together?”
“...I dunno”
“See you around, Gerard”
“I love you, Elliott”
“I love you too, Gerard”
“You know that won’t change, right?”
“Sure”
“Come round tomorrow?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world”
“Bye, Elliott”
“Bye, Gerard”

I kissed him goodbye and waved him off.

During my drive home I thought about our very brief but extremely deep conversation. Time was running out – and fast. We had only a little time left before we had to leave school. And that means leaving everyone behind.

We’ll all move away from one another. Gerard will be an artist, Frank – I assume – will be a famous rock star with his current band if all goes well, Mikey will be the manager of Barnes and Noble, Tara will be a A+ porn star and I will be...something.

But that fact of the matter is...we won’t be together. We’ll all have moved on. I’ve heard only 2% of High school relationships will work out. As much as I would like Gerard and I to work out, I had to stop kidding myself.

He was right. We most probably won’t stay together. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy what little time I had left with him as well as with the other boys.

Once I got home I excused myself from my parents and ran to my room. Pulling out the paper from my bag I looked at my list, and crossed of a couple of items.

- Get a job
- Make Gerard see sense
- Get a tattoo
- Talk to Tara
- Pass maths
- Stop my parents arguing
- Tell Chloe were to stick it
- Move back to England?

And then I added just one more thing. One more item that I knew would be the last item to have to be added:

- Make it count