That Kid

“Gerard wait up!” Frank called as he ran after Gerard who was trying to lit a smoke with shaking hands. Gerard stopped moving, feeling tears wet his eyes and he furiously wiped the non-existing tears away. Frank stopped at his side and breathed heavily in, his whole body freezing seeing as he was still only in the golf t-shirt and shorts.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Frank soothed and trying to wrap his arms around Gerard, but he pushed him off and tried to lit his cigarette again. When he failed miserably Frank grabbed the lighter out of his hand and lit it for him. Gerard sighed and looked at him from over the fire of the cancer-stick.

“You okay?” Frank asked, handing the lighter back. Gerard snatched it from his fingers and inhaled deeply before blowing the smoke out into Frank’s direction. Frank ignored it and waited for an answer, his arms and legs filling with goosebumps.
Gerard looked down in the ground and muttered, “Why did you say that?”

Frank frowned “Say what?”

“That we were together?”

Gerard looked up when Frank didn’t answer. “You shouldn’t have said that, you do realize how much you ruined, right?” Frank was surprised at how calm Gerard sounded, like it was no big deal. When Frank remained quiet Gerard kept going.

“I’ve never told you, but the reason that I didn’t just come out to my mother is because I didn’t know how she felt about homosexuality. I wanted to find out, I mean it wasn’t like my dad, he was totally cool abou-“

“Wait,” Frank said making Gerard stop and suck the smoke into mouth, “you told your dad?”

“Uhm, yearh…” Gerard said like it was obvious. Frank frowned, “why the fuck didn’t you tell me? And what about Mikey? He first got to know to-fucking-day man!”

Gerard removed the smoke from his lips and barred his teeth, “I must have forgot! And I didn’t fucking knew how Mikey would take it, assface!”

Frank rolled his eyes, “Whatever.”

“No, not ‘whatever’! I’m trying to fucking tell you something! Seriously, how stupid are you?” Gerard snapped making Frank click his tongue to relax the muscle’s need to snap back. “Go on then.” He said slightly bitter. Why the hell hadn’t he told Frank? They were supposed to help each other in this matter!

Gerard took a deep breath, “I was fucking scared dude, I wanted to make it the right time if I found out that she wouldn’t just approve, y’know? I waited so I wouldn’t have to face the reaction that your stupid ass cost.”

“Well now it’s done so suck it up!” Frank said, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling of guilt building in his stomach.

Gerard frowned “Why did you even do it?”

“Why didn’t you deny that we were together?” Frank said back without thinking. Gerard smirked slightly, like he was amused by Frank. “It didn’t matter at the moment. I didn’t want you to ever tell such a lie, but Ma’s reaction made me mad. She shouldn’t care if we were together.”

Frank nodded. He did a small victory dance in his head for not having Gerard ask him why he did what he did again. It stopped when Gerard flicked his smoke to the ground though.

“But why did you do it?” Gerard wasn’t looking at him, but at the empty road.

Frank sighed, he guessed he could just as well say it. “I wanted to provoke you. I knew you felt uneasy with coming out and we had been in the same boat for while now, anyways. After finding Jamia like that I just didn’t care, and I needed to tell them that I wasn’t with her anymore, so why not just get it all over with at once, y’know? When you didn’t want to sleep with me, I honestly just wanted to take you down with me if it failed and I thought that the reason you maybe didn’t want to was because our sexuality was still secret or something like that.”

The words were said fast and when he was done Gerard was staring weirdly at him, “I’m not sure it that made any sense, but whatever, Iero.”

They fell into an awkward silence after that and didn’t look at each other. There went a few moments before Gerard said “You’re such a fuck-up, you know that right?”

Frank looked up at him and saw that he was looking back. “Which one of the times did you lie to me?” he asked making Frank tilt his head confused.

“When you told me that you truthfully loved Jamia or right before you attacked me?”

Frank frowned and looked away. <i>“You were right when you said it was only puppy love, I just didn't say anything because I didn't want to admit it.”</i>

Gerard didn’t think he would get an answer so he turned to walk away, when Frank’s voice stopped him. “It wasn’t exactly true when I said that I loved her. Not at the time at least. Later I did.”

Gerard turned back to him and saw that he was staring back at the ground, “Then why did you want to sleep with me if you actually love her?”

Frank looked up sheepishly “Rebound guy.” It sounded almost as a question.

Gerard nodded and looked over the road, “Total fuck-up, Iero.”