Tiptoe Through the True Bits

Sometimes when I can’t sleep at night, I’ll wriggle out of my bedroom window and shimmy across the ledge onto the roof of the porch below, and I sit there and I look up at the stars.

It’s terribly clichéd, I know, but every now and then it’s nice to be clichéd. Every now and then, usually when I’m listening to some loud music through my headphones, I’ll pretend that I’m in a movie, and the music that is playing is part of the soundtrack to the movie of my life. Don’t pretend you don’t do it, too, because I know you do. I think we all do, from time to time.

I tend to do it when I’m on the bus or the train, to pass the hours. I’ll stare out of the window and tap my fingers on my knee to the beat of the song, and sometimes I’ll briefly close my eyes and take a deep breath and then let it all out before anybody around me looks over and thinks I’m a total freak.

But this night, I was not on a bus with my iPod; I was sitting on the porch roof, with nothing but silence filling my senses as I gazed across the neighbourhood. It was well past 3am, and so there was not a soul in sight. For a moment I pretended there had been a zombie apocalypse, and that I was the only one left. Don’t lie and tell me you never imagine that, either. Please.

I took a deep, slow inhale and held it in my lungs for a moment before letting it all out through my mouth. It was a warm night, and the air was quite dense and almost sticky. I let myself fall back so that I was completely horizontal on the roof, and looked above me at the stars. Not for the first time, I wished I knew some of those constellations, but then again I always find it far more interesting to create your own.

Like right now, I could see a spaniel, and a tennis racquet, and a scooter. And if I looked close enough, I was sure that I could make out just about anything in those stars. The possibilities were as endless as the universe itself.



I arrived at Starbucks a couple of minutes early, found an unoccupied table, and sat myself down heavily.

I don’t really recall ever being late for anything. Just the thought of being late makes my breathing spasm a little bit. Timekeeping is extremely important to me, because if you don’t know the time, how can you live your life? Why arrange to meet somebody at half past one and then not bother showing up until twenty-five to? Why not just be more precautious and give yourself plenty of time to get there? You're just wasting whole minutes of your life, and the minutes turn to hours and the hours turn to days and soon you're barely really even living anymore, you're just passing undetermined amounts of time as you wait for death. The very thought of it makes me nauseas.

I sat playing with my own hands for a while before he came up to me. I didn’t even notice he was there until his shadow loomed over my body and I looked up.

“Hey,” he greeted with a grin, taking the free seat on the opposite side of the small, round table.

I smiled widely back at him and he seemed a little taken aback by my enthusiasm.

In all fairness, I think there is a good chance that Dr. Gould was on to something with this prescribed friendship. I longed for human contact. I longed for company; a friend who would make me feel like I wasn’t a freak. And Gerard seemed to be as good a candidate as anybody.

“Um, do you want me to get you a coffee?” he asked, jerking his thumb behind him at the order station.

I nodded, and handed him a couple of dollars from my purse.

“Just regular coffee?” He took the money from me, and I nodded again.

To be honest, I was never too fussed about coffee. It’s okay; I can drink it every now and then in social situations, but I was never a caffeine addict, or anything. No, my addiction is Snickers bars. At any one time, I normally have a multi-pack lying around my bedroom. And this addiction may go some way to explaining my less-than-toned physique.

I was never one of the lucky ones who could eat whatever they wanted and stay stick-thin. But I was also not the kind of person to concern myself with what went straight to my thighs. I have curves; I have wide hips and an ample bosom and a little flabby belly. But I never considered myself fat. It is self-deprecating and, despite what Dr. Gould may think of my self-esteem, I have never been too critical of what I see in the mirror. I know I have nice facial features and nice hair, and an hourglass figure that many women would kill for. I never complained about my physical appearance and I never crash-dieted or denied myself a dessert because I don’t feel I need to, and whatever anybody else thinks of me is their own problem. I am just comfortable in my own skin.

I guess it comes from having parents who constantly told me that I was beautiful and that as long as I knew that, other people would see it. It all comes down to confidence, right? I never lacked in that, and after the fire I began to care about my appearance even less. It all seemed so conceited and pointless. So I began to boycott make-up, which I had used to cover all the freckles and blemishes on my teenage face, and I began to stick to strictly jeans and T-shirts and sneakers, and I left my hair straighteners untouched, because what was the point? What do looks really mean, at the end of things?

Gerard came back a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of coffee, and a handful of milk and sugar.

“I wasn’t sure how you took it, so I brought everything,” he smiled, fanning out a multitude of sachets to me.

There was white sugar, brown sugar, Sweet-n-Low, Canderel, semi-skimmed milk, skimmed milk, full-fat milk, single cream, double cream, Coffemate... I was overwhelmed by choice. Eventually I gingerly picked up four sachets of brown sugar, shook the residue to the bottom of the packet, and tore all four heads off at once, pouring galleons of sweetness into my beverage. I saw Gerard raise an eyebrow and I grinned sheepishly. I’ve always had a sweet tooth.

“You know your teeth will fall out,” he chuckled as he stirred a couple of pots of milk and one sugar into his own drink.

I shrugged, still smiling, and took a small sip of my coffee. It was sweet, that’s for sure, but it was also absolutely scalding hot, and I mentally cursed myself for being so quick to drink it.

One of my friends – an ex-friend by now – had worked at a coffee shop and told me that it was a requirement for them to serve all drinks, unless otherwise requested by the customer, at 150 degrees. I had scoffed at this claim. How ridiculous! Surely nobody can drink anything that hot. But she had insisted that it was true, and that some customers actually took their drinks back and complained if they did not believe it was hot enough.

Those kinds of people make me sick. I could picture them now; in fact I was sure that I was sharing a room with plenty of them. The kinds of people who wear suits every day and insist that their problems are bigger than everybody else’s; that their issues are more important and the normal rules of society don’t apply to them. The kind of people who talk obnoxiously loud into their cellphones in a coffee house. The kind of people who just expect everybody else to move out of their way. The kind of people who insist that their coffee be so damn hot that they can’t even drink it for at least ten minutes after it being poured.

I despised them.

“So, you got any other plans today?” Gerard asked, still stirring his own coffee. Clearly he had learnt from my mistake that it was still far too hot to drink.

I let my lips curve into a smile and a silent laugh escaped me as I shook my head.

Very rarely do I have plans. That is what becomes of having no friends and a family that you really don’t like. In my spare time, I did my school work, because I knew that if I did so, I could get into a good college, far away from New fucking Jersey.

I have been a Jersey girl my whole life. But not your typical Jersey girl. Even before the fire, I was always a little odd. My father used to tell me that it was endearing, and he was glad that his daughter was different to everybody else’s. I guess it was my mother’s influence. She spent the majority of her time in overalls, even when she wasn’t painting, and she always had a faraway gleam in her eye, even whilst conducting the most mundane of household tasks. She was a dreamer, and I guess I was a dreamer, too.

I allowed my mind to wander wherever the mood may take me. Often, when I was sitting in a biology class, I would actually be sitting on a dark stage, with a guitar and a spotlight and people quietly listening to my music. Until Mr Graves would slam something hard down onto my desk to bring me back to reality, and the rest of my peers would laugh at me.

I had my friends back then, but I was never popular. I always hung with a loser crowd.

Until recently, when I just became one solitary loser.

Fuck those bastards. I didn’t them. I didn’t need anybody. I was fine on my own.

Or at least, I thought I was. Right up to the moment that my eyes collided with his.

“Elise?” Gerard waved a hand in front of my face and I blinked up at him, smiling apologetically. I did tell you I was a dreamer.

He let out a small laugh. “I asked if you want to hang out today,” he said, biting his lip a little.

I broke into a smile and blushed a little, nodding furiously. Gerard sighed in relief and we sipped some more at our coffees, exchanging a lingering glance every now and then. I hoped that Gerard didn’t think I was a freak like everybody else seemed to. I found myself really caring about what he thought of me, and this was a little scary.

Ever since I was a kid, I haven’t been afraid to be myself around anybody. My parents brought me up to believe that the only people worth caring about were the ones who loved you no matter what. And even now, in my silence, I carry on through my life without thinking twice about what most people might be saying about me behind my back. They’re not worth the trouble. They’re pathetic.

But Gerard was different. He was sweet, and funny, and he seemed to want to be my friend even though I refused to speak. He made the effort to be nice to me, and tried to make me feel comfortable.

I guess I knew straight away that Gerard was not like most people.

Gerard was different.

Gerard was special.

The more he spoke, the more I wanted to know about Gerard Way. He fascinated me to the point that I didn’t even need to listen to what he was saying. I loved just hearing his voice, watching his mouth as he articulated each word, breathing in the oh-so-faint scent of cigarette smoke that lingered onto his clothing and hair.

Every now and then I would smile and nod throughout his monologue, genuinely interested in him. He was a spectacular creature.

“I’m really sorry, am I talking too much?” he eventually asked with a nervous smile.

I shook my head to reassure him that I honestly didn’t mind, and he laughed, staring down at our empty coffee cups. “I guess we should go, huh?”

I nodded and we both got to our feet.

The weather outside was mild. The kind of weather where whatever you’re wearing, you’ll be pretty comfortable. After the humidity of last night I had expected a blast of sunshine today, but it was not to be. I blindly followed behind Gerard’s footsteps, having no idea where we were going or what we would be doing once we got there.

It was refreshing not to be constantly worrying myself with time and plans and just being for a while. Nobody else really ever brought that out in me except my mother. She was a free spirit; she didn’t care. She would always laugh at me when I asked her where we were going and she would say, “Elise, just relax and enjoy the ride.”

I was finally beginning to understand what she was talking about.