You Can Run Away With Me Anytime You Want

The next morning I woke up and Frank wasn't next to me.

He had gone.

My hand grazed over the empty space in the bed, and a shiver ran down my spine.

Where was he?

"Gerard! Get up, now, seriously. Mom's gone insane"

Mikey was stood in my doorway, panic striking his face.

My stomach flipped, and my palms sweated.

I pulled my discarded jeans on, threw on Frank's t-shirt and ran down stairs, Mikey following me.

"Ah, Gerard! Little ol' Gerard, my gay old son! Come on down, lets have a good chat! Ha!" Mom snorted.

Her words were slurred and shaky.

She was beyond drunk, completely and utterly inebrihated. Mikey must have been oblivious to it before, but now that the golden liquid sloshed inside the wine glass, it was clear what was happening.

Mom was having an episode.
Just like I had.

"Mom, mom, p-put the wine down, OK? Then we'll talk" I said, standing in front of her and following her rapid slobs of movement.

"No, lets talk now! Come on honey!" Mom smiled, her eyelids half shut.

I leant down and opened up the double door cupboard below the sink, where I knew she hid her stash, because it was where I hid mine.

3 bottles of cheap wine, half a bottle of vodka, two empty wine bottles and a bottle of tequila with a sliver of transparent liquid left at the bottom.

"Mom!" I shouted, but making sure I didn't sound mad.

And truthfully, I wasn't. I was relieved.

Relieved that she wasn't pretending to be OK any more, relieved that she was finally able to face up to the fact that she was upset.

She wasn't as upset as she was right after Dad left, but it had got to her today, and there's nothing wrong with that. We have bad days, I couldn't fault her. I had no right to, I had just experienced it.

It isn't good to pretend you're OK. The longer you do it, the longer you make yourself less OK.

Sometimes, when we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves we're fine, we are, we're just having an episode, but if you keep feeding yourself this lie about being fine and not dealing with the thing that's making you upset, that's when you actually do have a problem, when you're really not OK.

"What?!" Mom spat back.

"How come you've started drinking again?" I asked.

It was just a question, not a rant, not a mad sentence, I just wanted a straight answer, which was unlikely since she was so drunk she couldn't stand up without leaning on a chair.

"How come you're sleeping with Frank?"

"What?" Mikey whispered behind me.

I spun around to face him. "I'm not sleeping with Frank" I reassured him.

"Oh yeah? Then how come all your clothes were on the floor when I went in there this morning?" Mom said smugly, and somehow her words were crystal clear now.

I was more concerned about making sure Mikey knew me and Frank weren't sleeping together before I dealt with the bitch my mother had become.

"We were just fooling around, I swear, Mikey, we didn't have sex" I told him.

I wasn't sure why it was so important for him to know I wasn't ahving sex with Frank, but somehow it was.

I didn't want Mikey thinking that I'd kept something from him, that I was excluding him from my life when he involved me in his so much. I didn't want him to think that just because I had Frank now didn't mean I didn't still need him, and that I wanted him there, that he was less important, because he had become more important, because now we could bounce off each other about relationship shit.

"I believe you" He said, a smile on his cute little face.

"I don't" Mom sniped. "If you were just 'fooling around' how come I heard noises?" She asked, hand on her hip.

Before I shot back with a snide remark, a bubbling thought burst in my head.

"How come you came into my bedroom this morning?" I asked.

Mom's face soured. "I was checking on you"

"What, like you do every morning?" I said sarcastically.

"Shut up, Gerard" Mom slurred, and some wine splattered out of the glass and onto the floor. "I came in because I- um, I-"

"Because you're nosy and rude! You had no right to barge into my room!" I screamed at her.

"Its my house!"

But I wasn't paying attention, because another vicious bubble pinged in my mind.

"Did you kick Frank out?" I snarled, my eyes narrowing. I stole the glass out of her hand and slammed it on the table.

I walked over to her and stood nose to nose with her, and I saw her pupils shrink.

"Y-Yes" She said, trying to be strong but she broke at the end.

"Right" I said calmy.

I turned around, gave Mikey a 'This isn't about you, I still love you' look as I passed him and walked out the door.