Seeking Solace

I make up my excuses the next day about my injuries. Fell down the stairs again. The teachers make jokes about my almost constant injuries.

“I could’ve sworn your face was a shade of black and blue, Frank,” my history teacher jokes. The class chuckles. I fake laughter that almost brings me to tears. He turns back to the class and I go back to doodling aimlessly on the edge of my notebook.

Luke leaves me alone. I skip going to the cafeteria.

Where else would I go if I didn’t have lunch in the cafeteria with my fake-ass friends?

I almost expect that hallway to not be there, like I imagined it all in a dream. It seems too good to be one of my dreams though. Maybe. Most of my dreams are really trippy, and I’ve only tried acid like, once. Somehow that one tiny dose made me hate it. They all think there’s something wrong with me. I have to say that I agree.

But I find the hallway again, and again the door is open, and there’s the boy and his friend – this time he’s got a plaid shirt with gray skinny jeans that he pulls off better than most girls could- and I walk in, and he grins at me, and I find Gee hunched over his sketch book again.

Even though we had that whole meeting yesterday and he saved my ass the night before, I still feel awkward, intrusive almost, to be walking up to him again. I’m halfway to him when I wonder if it would be a better idea to just leave him and go back to my life. Which will eventually lead to my death, but anyway.

Maybe I want to keep my state of living too much – even if it’s living in a world that makes me tear off all my skin- because I reach out and tap his shoulder gently, just twice.

He jumps, and I jump too, a reflex action to his shock. He whips his head around, looking for the person who touched him, his eyes wide with shock. And then he recognizes me and he blinks a few times and relaxes. And then one corner of his mouth twists into a smile.

“You came back,” he says, and his voice is genuinely happy, and I wonder why, because it’s not like I’m special or anything. I didn’t do anything except leave blood on his shirt last night.

Before I can say anything else, he shuts his sketch book and slides off the stool. Grabbing his bag off the floor, he smiles at me again. “Let’s go.”

I stand there dumbly, completely lost. “Go…where?”

He grins. “Outside, dumb-ass. Come on.” He starts walking past me. I follow. The boy waves at us as we leave.

“Why?” I splutter, trying to piece together where the fuck he’s going with this.

“Have you never eaten lunch outside?”

It’s my turn to blink, this time at the back of his head, because I’m trailing behind. I run a little to catch up. “You can do that?”

He rolls his eyes. “ ‘Course not. How long have you been going to this school?”

“Since freshman year.”

He looks at me with an expression of mock horror, which makes me laugh.
I haven’t laughed in weeks.

I’m afraid that we might bump into Luke and his crew on the way outside, but we don’t.

So we find a tree out of view of the cafeteria, on this strangely nice day near the end of October, and sit down under it. I remember – or rather, my stomach does, by being obnoxiously loud- that I haven’t eaten all day. He tries to stifle a laugh, and I mentally curse at my stomach, and he splits his lunch with me, because he’s this really weird nice guy who happily defies school rules.

He’s too strange for my labels just yet.

We’re eating in silence for about three minutes, before he starts up a conversation.

“Um. What’s you name by the way?” he asks meekly.

I laugh, which is a bad idea, considering I’m just taking another bite of cheese sandwich. He offers me a bottle of water which I gratefully take, and he pats my back while I splutter like a used car.

“Frank,” I eventually choke out. “Some…some people call me Frankie though.” I my face scrunches up at that. Only my mother really calls me Frankie, and even though I do love her…

He holds out his hand and I stare at it dumbly before I realize I’m supposed to shake it. “Gerard,” he says.

And that’s our (really late) introduction.

We smile at each other – or rather he smiles, and I fail at an awkward attempt at a smile- and go back to silence for a while. It’s still so strange, being this quiet with someone, but I like it. I like too much.

It’s going to hurt me so much already when I have to leave him for good.
“How come I’ve never seen you around?” I ask.

“Started in September,” he says around an apple, “Love it already.” His sarcasm pulls another smile out of me.

He pauses for a minute, swallowing, and then; “Frank?”

What’s this feeling that I get when he says my name? I can’t place it, and it unsettles me. “Yeah?”

He turns his whole body to face me, and I have to meet his eyes this time. His face is so serious, it makes the sandwich stir uncomfortably in my stomach.

“I get attached to things a lot,” he says, his voice just loud enough so I can hear, and he leans towards me as he speaks, “People, I mean. I get attached to people.” I notice that his hands are twisted around the apple in his lap, his torn fingers worrying holes into the green skin. He swallows again. “Frank…I…I’m not the best person to talk to.”

I stare at him, bewildered for minute, as I try to work out what he means. As I watch him, I realize that I’ve made eye contact for longer than I ever have. I can never meet people’s eyes. It feels too intimate, too close. I feel like I can never be close to anyone. I can’t hear what the other person is thinking, so when I meet their eyes, I feel like they’re judging me. Picking out all my imperfections and seeing how ugly and useless I am.

But I see how he pleads with his eyes, how he wants me to stay even though he’s giving me the choice to leave right now, and I can’t say no. I just can’t.

“We’re all fucked up, Gerard,” I say softly, still stunned by the fact that I can meet his eyes so easily now, “It’s not like I’m perfect either.”

He bites his lip. “That doesn’t…that doesn’t creep you out? Or..”

I shake my head. I don’t really know anyway.

There’s more silence.

“I’m not supposed to be here, by the way.” I think I owe it to him to tell him, “There’re people who’d beat my face in for it.”

His eyes widen and I realize too late that I should never have said that. “Your face-” he starts.

“Gerard-“

He starts to stand up, his eyes still troubled. “Then I shouldn’t give them a reason to-“

“Gerard!” I grab his arm before he’s too far away to pull back. We both stare at my hand on his arm for a second before I continue, my voice shaking with nerves. “I…I don’t care, okay? I don’t care. I’ll work it out.” I look up at his face, and his eyes are still troubled, so worried. “I’ll be fine,” I say, letting my fingers slip off his arm, “Don’t worry about me.”

His lips twist into a grimace- he’s probably worried already- but he doesn’t leave. He slowly sits down again, his hand close to mine.

I want so badly to take it. But I can’t.

Things are awkward for a while between us. It’s not the best situation we could be in but…I’d rather have met him and get a punch in the face for it, than to never have met him at all. Things are happening so quickly though, I still don’t know what to think of it all.

I don’t know how I feel about turning into some sappy, disgusting poet. At this rate, I’ll be writing love songs or something…

It’s just when the silence is getting unbearable that I notice his sketch pad sitting in the space between us. I reach for it hesitantly, asking with my hand if I can take it. He pushes it closer towards me, and I pick it up, feeling the rough cardboard backing on my fingers, my thumbs brushing against the soft cover. I feel like I’m intruding, but I’m curious to see what he’s drawn. He doesn’t seem to mind me looking at it.

The first page is amazing. So is the second. Heck, I can’t find any favorites for a good while. The book is over half filled with doodles, sketches, small pieces with dashes of color…I see characters develop through pages of work, rough panels, poses drawn so realistically I’m amazed how he can put them on paper so well.

I’m almost to the last page of drawings, when suddenly the book shuts on my fingers. I look up, startled, and my first thought is that Luke – or one of his admirers- has found us.

But it’s only Gerard’s hand, his fingers trembling against the cover of the book. He avoids my eyes, biting his lip, his hair covering his eyes. ““I don’t….I don’t want you to see that yet,” he mumbles.

I slip my fingers out of the book and carefully hand it back. He takes it gratefully and places it on his lap, still biting his lip. “I don’t usually let people see,” he mumbles.

“It’s…it’s amazing,” I say, twisting my fingers together and trying not to tear at them. I’m so bad at giving compliments.

He glances up at me from under his hair, still biting his lip, and smiles slightly. And then his finger is at his mouth, and he’s tearing the skin off his fingers. I wonder if he even realizes he’s doing it. I wonder if he thinks it’s wrong.

I wonder if he would tell me to stop if our roles were reversed.

“Gerard?” I ask, watching him expertly tear off a sheet of skin from his index finger.

“Hmm?” he says absently, his eyes on his hunched knees.

“Why…why do you do that?”

He stops and looks at me, and it’s obvious he doesn’t know why. He pauses with his fingers against his lips as he tries to come up with an answer, but he can’t.

I take his hand away from his mouth and I compare mine to his.

I could almost mistake his hand for mine.

The torn skin, ragged pages that overlap and curl back to expose raw, vulnerable flesh. The pages stretch up to the knuckles of the books of our hands, telling stories of past stress, worry, boredom.

We are both so destroyed.

I’m suddenly so brave then, that I even pull back the sleeve of my shirt to show the scars that are still obvious on my skin. His damaged fingers gently trace the scars. He says nothing.

I know that he understands.

I know that we will never be understood by anyone but ourselves.

And strangely, I think I might just be okay with that.