Status: This story is on hiatus and is close to being deleted.
Phony
Chapter 2
Gerard
What the hell am I doing?
As I'm driving down the highway, bobbing my head along to an unknown song on the radio, this thought enters my mind. Or, rather, jumps up and down and dances in my subconscious, begging for attention and unwilling to be ignored.
Turning off on an exit I hardly recognize, the question still haunts my brain. Why the fuck am I going to see a therapist? Nobody's forcing me to, I could just turn around right now and not even attempt to set foot through those too-welcoming doors. It's not as if I need some old man telling me that I have some 'issues' that should be looked into, and that I would need to set up another appointment for further discussion.
Switching off the radio and subconsciously pulling into a parking lot where I can focus solely on my thoughts, I drift back into the past.
My stomach churns with guilt as I lay my mind's eye upon a charred building which used to be my house. Firefighters cleaning up some debris and bystanders stopping and staring at the burnt mess. Three roasted bodies are carried out of the house in bags as my throat threatens to allow the vomit, which had been begging for an exit, to be exposed. Tears cloud my vision as it finally registers in my head that the bodies in those bags once belonged to my family. My mother, a kind and loving person. My father, a devoted musician and stay-at-home dad. And my brother, slightly quirky but incredibly charming and easygoing.
No, I did not set fire to my own house. What purpose would it serve me if I committed arson, killing my entire family - who, let's face it, were the only ones that truly loved me - in the process? None. And besides, I was in school at that particular time. How could I have come home to burn my house to the ground like that?
Well, the prosecution team certainly felt that I had somehow snuck out of class to let my home go up in flames. They tried their damndest - did some pretty desperate things in that courtroom which I truly wish to forget - but their case just wasn't strong enough. I was one lucky motherfucker. I didn't wanna go to jail for something I didn't do.
But, of course, my life was turned upside-down anyways. Instead of living in juvenile delinquency, I end up with the most difficult parents I could have imagined. I already knew my life was going to be hell. So when I arrived at my new 'home', I was surprised to find a seemingly newlywed couple smiling from ear to ear. Why didn't they have a child of their own? They looked perfectly capable of doing so. Maybe I was just temporary, so that they could get used to having someone around the house before she actually got pregnant.
Like I had predicted, I found myself landing squarely on a sharpened spike crafted by Satan himself.
I was stuck in an overly tidy house with crosses and excerpts from the Bible everywhere. My room was unnaturally clean and white, with baseball posters of legendary Yankees' players placed periodically around the room. I fucking hate baseball.
Over the weeks of the couple of years that I spent there, my life was miserable. My 'parents' did not abuse me in the way that someone would normally think of abuse. No, they did not hit me or mentally put me down with rude or inappropriate comments. They tried to rule my life. Tried to take me to Yankees' games when I had told them about a million fucking times that I hated baseball, and just sports in general. They made me memorize most of the Bible - which is a load of shit to have stuck in your brain, I'll tell you that - and go to church every Sunday at 8:00 in the fucking AM. Thought most of the time, I just blocked them out.
I had gotten heavily into art; normally drawing for hours on end and reading comics books would take up most of my time. I read regular books, too - don't you worry. I did okay in school, but mostly occupied my time there by drifting off into my own world.
Now, don't get me wrong. I never hated my parents as people, but rather I hated the fact that they forced things onto me.
When they decided that I was going to boarding school, I was ecstatic. Me, getting away from all of the suffering I was going through, trying to become something I'm not, getting away form this hellhole and living virtually on my own? Fuck yes! I was already jumping for joy.
But when I saw my boarding school for the first time, those happy feelings vanished. What the hell? It was another pious place for me to live. Them shoving their stupid-ass religion down my throat, making me choke with frustration.
As we strode up to my room - 432W - I shooed my 'mother' away, telling her that I could take care of things on my own.
"Sweetie, are you sure you'll be okay?" She asked me, brushing some hair out of my face as we were standing outside of my new bedroom.
"Yeah," I reply, shaking my head slightly so that my hair falls back into its original position. She frowns. "I'm not a baby, Cheryl."
She winced, still perturbed at the fact that I've been her 'son' for two years but I refuse to call her 'mom'.
"Alright, well, be good, respect your authorities, and don't forget to call!" She called as she drifted down the hallway.
I shook my head as I turned my key in the lock, opening the door. Inside was just as blandly white as my bedroom. Hauling my bag over the threshold, I scan the room. It seemed as if there were two mini hotel rooms stuck together, with the wall between them shattered. Two identical beds, two identical dressers, two identical closets, and two identical windows. How charming.
Smirking, I pull some photocopies of my favorite pieces of classical and contemporary artwork out and place them on the wall. There, Salvadore Dali's 'The Persistence of Memory' looks real nice next to Claude Monet's 'Waterlilies'.
What the hell am I doing?
As I'm driving down the highway, bobbing my head along to an unknown song on the radio, this thought enters my mind. Or, rather, jumps up and down and dances in my subconscious, begging for attention and unwilling to be ignored.
Turning off on an exit I hardly recognize, the question still haunts my brain. Why the fuck am I going to see a therapist? Nobody's forcing me to, I could just turn around right now and not even attempt to set foot through those too-welcoming doors. It's not as if I need some old man telling me that I have some 'issues' that should be looked into, and that I would need to set up another appointment for further discussion.
Switching off the radio and subconsciously pulling into a parking lot where I can focus solely on my thoughts, I drift back into the past.
My stomach churns with guilt as I lay my mind's eye upon a charred building which used to be my house. Firefighters cleaning up some debris and bystanders stopping and staring at the burnt mess. Three roasted bodies are carried out of the house in bags as my throat threatens to allow the vomit, which had been begging for an exit, to be exposed. Tears cloud my vision as it finally registers in my head that the bodies in those bags once belonged to my family. My mother, a kind and loving person. My father, a devoted musician and stay-at-home dad. And my brother, slightly quirky but incredibly charming and easygoing.
No, I did not set fire to my own house. What purpose would it serve me if I committed arson, killing my entire family - who, let's face it, were the only ones that truly loved me - in the process? None. And besides, I was in school at that particular time. How could I have come home to burn my house to the ground like that?
Well, the prosecution team certainly felt that I had somehow snuck out of class to let my home go up in flames. They tried their damndest - did some pretty desperate things in that courtroom which I truly wish to forget - but their case just wasn't strong enough. I was one lucky motherfucker. I didn't wanna go to jail for something I didn't do.
But, of course, my life was turned upside-down anyways. Instead of living in juvenile delinquency, I end up with the most difficult parents I could have imagined. I already knew my life was going to be hell. So when I arrived at my new 'home', I was surprised to find a seemingly newlywed couple smiling from ear to ear. Why didn't they have a child of their own? They looked perfectly capable of doing so. Maybe I was just temporary, so that they could get used to having someone around the house before she actually got pregnant.
Like I had predicted, I found myself landing squarely on a sharpened spike crafted by Satan himself.
I was stuck in an overly tidy house with crosses and excerpts from the Bible everywhere. My room was unnaturally clean and white, with baseball posters of legendary Yankees' players placed periodically around the room. I fucking hate baseball.
Over the weeks of the couple of years that I spent there, my life was miserable. My 'parents' did not abuse me in the way that someone would normally think of abuse. No, they did not hit me or mentally put me down with rude or inappropriate comments. They tried to rule my life. Tried to take me to Yankees' games when I had told them about a million fucking times that I hated baseball, and just sports in general. They made me memorize most of the Bible - which is a load of shit to have stuck in your brain, I'll tell you that - and go to church every Sunday at 8:00 in the fucking AM. Thought most of the time, I just blocked them out.
I had gotten heavily into art; normally drawing for hours on end and reading comics books would take up most of my time. I read regular books, too - don't you worry. I did okay in school, but mostly occupied my time there by drifting off into my own world.
Now, don't get me wrong. I never hated my parents as people, but rather I hated the fact that they forced things onto me.
When they decided that I was going to boarding school, I was ecstatic. Me, getting away from all of the suffering I was going through, trying to become something I'm not, getting away form this hellhole and living virtually on my own? Fuck yes! I was already jumping for joy.
But when I saw my boarding school for the first time, those happy feelings vanished. What the hell? It was another pious place for me to live. Them shoving their stupid-ass religion down my throat, making me choke with frustration.
As we strode up to my room - 432W - I shooed my 'mother' away, telling her that I could take care of things on my own.
"Sweetie, are you sure you'll be okay?" She asked me, brushing some hair out of my face as we were standing outside of my new bedroom.
"Yeah," I reply, shaking my head slightly so that my hair falls back into its original position. She frowns. "I'm not a baby, Cheryl."
She winced, still perturbed at the fact that I've been her 'son' for two years but I refuse to call her 'mom'.
"Alright, well, be good, respect your authorities, and don't forget to call!" She called as she drifted down the hallway.
I shook my head as I turned my key in the lock, opening the door. Inside was just as blandly white as my bedroom. Hauling my bag over the threshold, I scan the room. It seemed as if there were two mini hotel rooms stuck together, with the wall between them shattered. Two identical beds, two identical dressers, two identical closets, and two identical windows. How charming.
Smirking, I pull some photocopies of my favorite pieces of classical and contemporary artwork out and place them on the wall. There, Salvadore Dali's 'The Persistence of Memory' looks real nice next to Claude Monet's 'Waterlilies'.