Get Tangled Up In Me

READ THE FUCKING NOTE AT THE BOTTOM! ily xoxo

You are an angel, Making all my dreams come true tonight

“Gerard don’t be stupid!” I hissed. “Nobody will be killing anybody.” I looked at him like he was crazy. He probably is, what he’s suggesting.

“How else are we going to solve this Raven? He’ll always come back, people like him always do.” He sighed and wrapped his arms around me. “I just want to put this behind us. How can we do that if you’re worried about him coming back for the rest of your life?” I shook my head into his chest.

“I will not let you kill a man for me. He is not worth that. Nothing is worth that, Gerard.” I stepped back and looked at him. “I would never be able to live myself if I knew that because of me you killed someone, no matter how horrible he is. We can get through this with resorting to that.” He pulled me over to my bed where we sat down and he kissed me gently.

“Let’s hope for his sake that’s true.” He growled before he climbed out of my window as if he were twelve again.

I sat back on my pillow and closed my eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to be mad at Dani. She was trying to help, I know that. But a small part of me burned with hate to think of how easily she had betrayed my secret from the person I guarded it from most.

I thought about calling her, to yell, sob, guilt. But it didn’t feel necessary. And I was getting pretty damn tired. And I had to pee.

When I closed my eyes, I could feel the tiredness working its way up and yawned loudly. I fell asleep with innocent thoughts filling my head of tomorrow and the joys of Christmas.

***

“RAVEN!” I heard a distant voice scream in my ear as I awoke abruptly feeling a large weight on me- literally.

Jared was sitting on my back jumping up and down trying to wake me up with pure joy in his eyes. I hadn’t seen him this excited since before Dad left for the war.

“Whaaaat?” I yawned rubbing the sleep from my eyes. He jumped up and grabbed my arm, trying to pull me out of bed.

“Get your ass up! Presents are here, for fucks sake!” He yelled. I couldn’t help but sleepily laugh as I slowly got out of bed, yawning again.

“Let me get some coffee first please.” I said following him downstairs. The tree beautiful as always, this year we went with a blue and silver color theme and it looked amazing against the green pine tree. Underneath presents were overflowing the bottom just begging to be opened.

My mom was in the kitchen trying to get her camera working while humming “The Carol of the Bells” her favorite Christmas song. My dad was pouring two cups of coffee and tiredly smiled at me. Jared took after my mom; he was a morning person. Unlike my dad and I.

“Come we have to hurry with the presents. We have to be at Don and Donna’s for breakfast in an hour.” Every year Frank’s family, Dani’s family, and my family all went to the Way’s for Christmas brunch and met back at my house after church for dinner.

I yawned my way back to the living room where I curled up on the floor, leaning against the couch. It was cold, so I was glad I put on my slippers and robe. Jared started to throw presents at me. I rolled my eyes and we all took our turns at opening them. My mom had to change her film like fifty times she took so many damn pictures.

***

“So what’d you get?” Mikey asked, poking my stomach repeatedly. I groaned and swatted his hand away.

“I don’t even remember I’m so fucking tired. Leave me aloneeee,” I whined. I was laying down on Gerard’s bed, my head in his lap and my feet in Mikey’s while we watched that stupid Christmas movie about the kid who says the f word and dad has that crazy leg lamp. I always forget the name even though we watch it every year.

Dani ran downstairs and jumped on top of me and I groaned again. I hated that girl sometimes. I suddenly remembered I was pissed at her and pushed her off the bed.

“Bitch,” I grumbled. She rubbed her ass while Mikey snickered behind his hand. Gerard looked down at Dani and I and frowned.

“Can you guys shut the fuck up?” He asked not very nicely. “This is like the best part.” I rolled my eyes and moved over a bit to give Dani room. I felt I had paid her back enough for now.

“I’m sorry,” She whispered to me. I nodded slightly and smiled. Then I jumped up excitedly causing her to fall over again and bring Mikey down with her.

“We have to call Char and tease her about how we get more presents!” I decided grabbing at Gerard’s phone. Char was Jewish and always invited to all our Christian stuff, but mostly politely declined our offers.

“Can you leave the poor girl alone ever?” Frank said coming down the stairs with Kay. She was lucky enough to be able to stay home today, usually her parents make her go with them to Pennsylvania to spend Christmas with her grandma. “And why are they on the floor?” He pointed to Dani and Mikey who were mumbling rude things about me to each other, but I decided to ignore them for now.

“Nope,” I said simply as I rang her, but the call went straight to voicemail. Her phone must have died. “Oh well, present time!” I decided throwing myself in Gerard’s lap. I was happy that Billy announced to me he was going away for the rest of break. It was nice to be able to be myself around my friends again.

“The movie isn’t over yet!” Mikey groaned. Dani rolled her eyes.

“Fuck the movie.” She announced turning it off.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” Mikey yelled.

“Because I felt like it, Way. What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll… I’ll… I’ll beat you up.” He said triumphantly. I couldn’t help but start laughing at that. Mikey couldn’t hurt a fly even if he wanted to.

“Present time!” I yelled again as Kay ran down the basement stairs with a pile of presents in her arms.

When we were done I had ended up with a comic book from Mikey, two cds from Frank, a band shirt from Kay, and a bag of skittles with a hat and journal from Dani. Gerard and I had saved our presents for last and we went outside to give them to each other. The others were to busy arguing over whether Spiderman was better than superman, when the obvious answer was that batman was better than them all. But I kept my mouth shut so I could have alone time with Gerard.

I hadn’t liked what I got Gerard very much, some really expensive drawing pencils I knew he wanted with a new sketch book, so I made it special by drawing a picture of him in the book this morning.

“It’s not much,” I admitted shyly. “I wasn’t really sure what to get you but-” I was cut off by him kissing me gently.

“It’s perfect,” He whispered. I smiled and looked down at my feet. He put a finger under my chin and lifted my head up so I was looking at him.

He handed me a small box, and the first thing that crossed my mind was jewelry. I bit my lip and smiled, glancing up at him while I was unwrapping it. I pulled off the paper and opened the box to see the most beautiful diamond necklace I’d ever seen. My expression softened as I opened my mouth to protest.

“It’s to much,” I whispered staring at it. He smiled proudly.

“No it’s not. It will look perfect around your neck.” He proved his point by taking the necklace in his hands as I turned around and lifted my hair up. The silver heart shaped pendent looked almost surreal against my pale skin, the obviously real diamonds profoundly obvious. I turned around and engulfed him in a hug, tears coming into my eyes.

We must have been a sight, our noses red from cold, black hair going everywhere. Even in my winter jacket and scarf, my skin grew warm with his touch. A snowflake landed on his cheek and I smiled and stood on my tippy toes to kiss him. It was a perfect white Christmas. And I washappy.