Autumn's Monologue.

I had managed to fall asleep and when I woke it was dark outside, the streetlamp was filtering in through my window blinds. I felt slightly cold—realizing Frank wasn’t next to me.

“It’s about time your lazy ass woke up.”

I grinned over at the sound of my best friend’s familiar voice. I watched as he slowly made his way from my over-sized armchair to my bed. I sat up, allowing him room to sit down too.

“I was kicked out for ‘bff-time’ as Frank called it.”

I smiled.

“They’re probably talking like school-girls about us.”

We both chuckled at that.

“How are you? Feeling better?”

He nodded.

“I’m happy for medication, I can’t stand the nausea that overwhelms me sometimes; it’s not like I actually puke, I just feel like it—I hate that feeling. So you and Frankie?”

He raised an eyebrow at me—I just returned with the same action and question.

“So you and my brother?”

We grinned before we laughed. We were happy and that’s what mattered to us. I could care less if he was with some hobo or the some rich grandma, if he was happy I was happy.

I know I was like a good year too late with that question but it was all fun. I was glad Ray was able to distinguish friend time and boyfriend time. Gee was too; we had our brother time and boyfriend time. At the time it was boyfriend time for him and Mikey-holes-up-in-his-room-because-he-doesn’t-have-anyone time—but still we managed rather nicely I think.

“So we’re done with high school—what now?”

We’ve had this talk a few times, about the futures we want. Ray’s an effing genius, he could be anything he wants to, me on the other hand, I’m not gifted with that much smarts, but I’ve got enough to be almost anything I want. Our dilemma is just finding the money to pay for the much needed second education our country requires.

We’re not all lucky enough to snag a movie role or be in some awesome band and make it big. Unlike people like that we’ve got to work hard for what we want in life. Not saying that some of those people don’t, but you know, it just seems that way.

“You still moving out?”

He nodded; he and Gee were going to get a place—they asked if I wanted to go but I declined. Frank’s taking their third room.

“I’ll be visiting a lot I’m sure of it. My brother and best friend and now my boyfriend all under the same roof—I’ll feel left out enough to visit a lot.”

I loved the fact that we could still have these kinds of conversations. Meaningless and yet so meaningful all at the same time; Ray was definitely going to remain one of my best friends, probably till one of us dies of old age.

“I’ll never send my kids to boarding school. I had to style my hair a certain way everyday so it looked really short, I couldn’t just let it go free—that pissed me off a lot. I’ve never seen so many fake people in my entire life. I thought our school had a bunch of plastics, boy was I wrong.”

He rolled his eyes.

“These kids are loaded; a Porsche is a crap car to these kids. Diamonds and pearls littered necks, fingers, wrist, ears, it was disgusting. The guys wore the top labels on Fridays when we could wear street clothes instead of our uniforms—another thing I hate.”

I just smiled—he could go on for a while if he wanted to, but I didn’t mind, we really haven’t talked about school much.

“Then you have me, this not so wealthy freak from Jersey on scholarship. I’d rather of had the torment we had here then the treatment I received there. Of course I lied and told ma that everything was fine—I was happy she requested I had a solitary room. I could only imagine how worse things would’ve been if I had to have a roommate.”

“Wow that sounds like it sucked. Sorry—if it helps, it wasn’t much better here.”

I lifted the cover a little, exposing my right side—I had a scar there.

“Someone thought it’d be funny to cram me into a locker, the latch on the inside caught my skin, I had to throw away that shirt and pants because of the blood. Fucker heard me scream and still shoved me in the locker. One that didn’t get frequented too—I’m glad I didn’t have a panic-attack on top of that.”

He sighed before leaning his head against my wall.

“I’m just glad we’re done with that chapter of our lives. I wouldn’t relive my high school days for nothing. Know what else is funny, I was top of my class—you’d think with the money these kids had available they’d actually want a decent education—nope, ten of them had been held back from the previous year, and two of those ten didn’t make it and then four others from my actual year didn’t make it. I love how people just take things for granted and waste their lives away on pathetic things.”

I was glad we came from the background we did—we were able to appreciate what we had and what we earned. I heard a knock on the door and saw my brother’s head peek around the door.

“I come bearing gifts!”

We smiled at him as he opened the door to reveal four bowls in his hands and Frank holding four plates. They came in, handing Ray and I a plate and bowl each—grilled cheese and tomato soup—yum.

“We figured since you’ve been sleeping all day you’d be hungry, and you my love need to eat something so I thought this was light enough to put something in your tummy.”

He leant down and pecked Ray’s forehead. Frankie ‘awed’ them and claimed the chair as Gerard got comfy on the floor. We spent the rest of the night talking about everything, anything and nothing. That’s what I loved about us, separated or together we were content—we were actually happy with where we were.