Forever & Always.

The homecoming party in the Way house reminded me a bit of Gerard’s eighteenth. It was just as crazy. There were so many people that I either didn’t know or just didn’t recognise after all this time.
A few minutes ago I had run into Gerard. He was drunk already and I guess I was disappointed in him. I’d always thought that he was better than that, that he didn’t need alcohol or drugs to make him feel good. I never thought that he’d fall prey to the stereotypical rock star image. He’d changed.
He hadn’t looked or acted very pleased to see me either. In fact, it was quite obvious that I repulsed him. The way he looked at me, as if I were merely a speck of mud on the bottom of his shoe, made me feel absolutely worthless. I tried to tell myself that it was the drink and drugs talking, that underneath it all he was still my Gerard. But, deep down, I knew that this new Gerard was the only one I was ever going to see. Time had changed him and now he was a bitter, self-destructive shell of the man he could’ve become.
I stood by the couch, beside Bob, Mikey, Ray and Frank. They were laughing and making jokes while I tried to keep track of Gerard in the milling crowds. He had disappeared down into his room not long after our encounter, an unhappy look distorting the features of his face. Moments before that I had caught him glaring at Ray and me when I was returning the Iron Maiden hoody I had borrowed from the curly-haired guitarist all those years ago. At the time I had thought nothing of it, just assuming that Gerard was in a pissy mood, but now I wondered if the glare had something to do with the dark look on his face when he escaped to his room. I spotted the familiar raven haired man by the food table and I could tell by the glazed look in his hazel eyes that he had taken something.
He spotted Mikey standing near me and began to approach our group, staggering and stumbling across the crowded wooden floor. It was hard to watch his drunken behaviour and it was obvious by the pained expression on Mikey’s face that it killed him to see his older brother acting like this.

“Hey guyssss,” Gerard slurred out a cheerful greeting as soon as he got within shouting distance.

Ray sighed loudly as Gerard teetered where he stood and the guitarist reached out and grabbed him before he could fall.

“You okay bro?” Mikey asked, grabbing his brother’s other arm so he wouldn’t waver. His eyes, although showing sparks of anger, were also full of concern.

Gerard nodded, his black hair sticking to his face, “Yeah…everything’s peerrrrfect Mikey-Wikey.”

He made no attempt to brush the hair off his face, so out of instinct I went to do it for him. His face scrunched up into a glare once he realised who I was and I flinched back at the sever look.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” His voice was barely above a growl and it scared me. Gerard had never spoken to me like that. He had always treated me with such care and respect.

“I-I’m sorry,” I mumbled, casting my eyes downward. My throat burned and constricted but I fought the urge to cry. There was no way I was going to show Gerard Way that he was breaking my heart, again .

I couldn’t tear my eyes from his pathetic form even as I watched him down more shots and his movements become sloppier. My chest felt tight and my eyesight blurred with tears that I refused to let fall. I hadn’t expected mine and Gerard’s relationship to be easy after all these years, but I had at least hoped that we could be civil to each other. Obviously that was too difficult for the alcoholic Gerard. My hand reached up automatically to fiddle with the simple silver chain that never left my throat.

After a while I couldn’t take it anymore and turned to say my goodbyes to a sorrowful looking Frank. There was only so much more of this he could take. His youthful face was beginning to show signs of the stress he was under. There were lines around his mouth and eyes that shouldn’t be there and his mouth seemed to be stuck in a permanent line. If Gerard didn’t sort himself out and get his life back on track soon Frank was going to crack, and by the looks of the rest of the band, they would all fall apart too. They weren’t supposed to be acting as parents to the guy who had once been their group’s leader.

“Bye Frankie,” I mumbled and pulled him so close that his faux hawk tickled my nose. “See you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Mhmm,” He murmured loudly against my chest before I let him go, kissing him once on the cheek before waving to the others and leaving the party. I couldn’t stand to be there another minute. Not with Gerard acting like that.



The purple dress I wore to the party lay crumpled on the ground by my bed, my shoes lying beside it, while I sat in a pair of Pac-man pyjama bottoms and a grey baggy Metallica t-shirt that was full of moth holes. My face had been cleaned of as much make-up as face-wipes could remove, and I felt a bit like a slob as I sat cross-legged on top of my green and purple bed-spread.
The fingers on my right hand moved to the back of my neck and fumbled with the clasp of the delicate silver chain that I rarely removed. I eventually got it to open and the locket fell to the bed, its silver colour making it stand out from the vibrant colours of the bed sheets. A smile ghosted across my face as I opened the small locket and saw the familiar photos within. There was Gerard the way I remembered him, that carefree grin on his face and his eyes lighting up with happiness. That’s what I had expected to be greeted by when I met him again, not that lifeless shell that he had become.
Opposite the picture of Gerard was one of Fergal. He too was smiling and his hair was an amazing shade of orange from when he tried to go from black to blonde. It was my favourite photo of him and whenever I looked at it I couldn’t help but grin at his ridiculous hair.

“Hey Smelly,” I whispered to his grinning image. “I hope all is well with you, wherever you are now.”

Religion was never my thing; the Catholic Church was too hypocritical. But, despite my disbelief in all things religious, I still held out hope that my best friend was in his own perfect heaven. After all he had been through he deserved that at the very least.

“Things have been a bit crazy lately. Being back in New Jersey is surreal. I never thought I’d come back, y’know?” I giggled a little when I realised I had paused to wait for a reply that I would never get. Even after years of talking to someone who was dead I still sometimes forgot that he was unable to reply. “Gee has become an absolute ass. He’s not the sweet boy I fell in love with. In a way I’m hoping that it’s all down to the drugs, because all least then I can help the guys fight it,” I sighed and ran my fingers across the photo of my ex-boyfriend, the tip of my index finger lingering on his lips. “Because I’m afraid that this aggressive side of him may actually be part of his everyday personality that I just never saw when we were younger. What do I do if he’s just like Aiden? I don’t think I can handle that.”

It surprised me that Gerard’s behaviour had affected me so deeply. I mean, I was engaged. I was in love with Aiden. We were getting married next summer. I had moved on from my life here in New Jersey. Left behind the broken-hearted teenage girl whose entire world had come crashing down yet again when she realised the boy she had promised to marry forgot all about her as soon as he left the state. I had moved on, hadn’t I ? My heart thudded painfully in chest as if to prove my thoughts wrong.

I smiled sadly down at the picture of Fergal, staring him straight in the eye, as if I were really talking to him about such a serious matter as this, “I think my heart still belongs to him,” I whispered softly, afraid that if I said it too loud everyone would hear and know. “I don’t want it to, but it does.”

This was going to make things so much harder. I had to learn to hate Gerard, which would be easier than I would have expected before I met him again. He hated me already, so it would be easy to learn to hate him back, right? In the mean time I’d have to use the time away from Aiden to clear my mind. I was no longer sure if I was doing the right thing by marrying him. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

“G’night Ferg, night Gee,” I mumbled to the pictures before closing the locket and curling up in bed knowing that it was going to be a sleepless night of thinking.