Seeking Solace

...After a Short Lifetime Of Dying (Life Seems So Much Prettier In My Head)

I wake up the next morning feeling fine. More than fine actually. I've got left over adrenaline s.till running through my veins, and then more comes flooding in when I remember how awesome yesterday was, how I kicked that kid's ass and heard him scream for mercy just before I broke his arm

So I'm basically running on all this fake energy and euphoria until I just crash. Harder than I've ever crashed before.

It takes a while though. It takes a whole day of following Luke around like I always have, laughing at all the jokes I never used to laugh at, being the best little sidekick he'd always wanted, before I pay attention to that tiny little voice that tells me that something's missing. That I can't run on this forever. That there's a reason why it never worked in the first place.

My first drop in my high is around lunch when Luke's bragging about his life, I'm actually paying attention and he's running out of people to ridicule, when one of his 'friends' help him out.

“He looked like that kid that just transferred,” one of his drones chuckle, “The one with the black hair and the stupid drawing pad, you know that one?”

Please, do not let it be who I think it is.

“That guy? I've seen him hanging around with Iero a couple times,” someone else pipes up, and I want nothing more than to jump him and cut off his lips so that he never speaks again, “What the fuck was up with that?” he asks, turning to me.

And now Luke's watching me, his eyes like thunder, warning me that if I give the wrong answer, I'm dead, and I swallow silently and try to be indifferent. “Him? I...”

So I have two choices; I can either pretend I've never met him, like a backstabbing little prick, or stick up for him like I know he'd try to do for me, even if it meant losing his teeth.

“He's a fucking weirdo.”

Luke breaks into a grin, this disgusting sneer that makes my lie just that much harder to stomach. He laughs. “Fucking looks like it.” He pauses for a second, thinking (I had no idea he was capable of something like that) and then says, “D'you think you could make him him trust you?”

I felt like if I had to betray Gerard any more, I'd just vomit up everything under my skin. “Why?”

His grin takes on a whole new level of mischief, and he shrugs nonchalantly. “It'd be fun to see his face when he figures out you were screwin' him over, y'know? Kids like him a fun to mess around with.”

Fuck.

“I wouldn't try that-”

“He's out of town though,” someone else says- seriously, where the fuck do they get their info from?

“When he comes back then,” he shrugs, and then he sighs. “He'll be mine. Fuck, this town's getting' boring....”

The second drop, was what my mother said later at dinner before my dad got home.

“What exactly do you do at this club of yours, Frank?” she asks, looking straight at me, as if she stares hard enough, the lies will come up on my forehead.

The lack of context before the question automatically makes me suspicious. Even though I've lied enough today, I have to do it again.

“We...we watch anime,” I say, quietly, keeping my eyes on food I've suddenly lost an appetite for, “Um. Talk about manga we've read.” I shrug one shoulder, “General stuff.”

“And what does that mean?” she asks, “That picture in your room of the woman crying...crying blood or something.”

Well, shit. I knew I should've hidden those print-outs.

“Um.” I swallow, but say nothing else, keeping my eyes on my plate.

“Do you know what those pictures mean, Frank?” she says, her anger rising, “Look at me when I speak to you!”

I look up and meet her eyes for a second, before my eyes drop to her plate, as close to her direction as I can make my gaze go.

“Do you know about these satanists, Frank? And these cults all over the place?”

This again?

“You don't even know how evil they are, what they're saying, but you worship them, these false gods, or these devils, do you realize how bad that is, Frank, do you?”

I swallow again and say nothing. Because disagreeing would mean a slap that I've been trying to avoid for years, even though I know how totally wrong she is.

“You don't even want to go to church anymore!” she says, picking up speed, “You won't talk to me, you're never here, and you weren't like this before you joined this club!”

I'm hoping she lets this go like she always does, so I can finish shoveling my food in my mouth (not finishing would mean being an ungrateful brat for not thinking about the kids that don't have what I do) and so I can leave and curl up in a pathetic little ball, and remind myself that I have no reason to feel sorry for myself, because it's not like I deserve what I have anyway.

“I don't want you going to this club anymore,” she says. And her decision is obviously final.

Of course my horror disregards how dangerous it would be to yell, “No!” like I do.

“I will send you out in the cold like I did last time, Franklin, don't push me!”

I stop. I try to swallow the tears back.

“If you're not going to eat, then leave.”

I take a second if she really means that. When I get up, she doesn't hit me, so I guess so.

As I trail off to my room, her words follow me, eating at me, powering the hatred that rests there; “I won't let you be led astray, Frank.”

As I push myself up the stairs, I feel the pain starting, my chest collapsing from the sudden claustrophobia, the knowledge that I'll never see Gerard outside of school – and introducing him to my parents would be as well received as if I brought home my supposed satanist cult- and knowing that I really can't hold it together any longer. I've been waiting for my release.

I lie down on my bed, kind of numb for a few seconds, until I really accept what's just happened.

And then It feels like a ragged hole has been torn in my chest, like it's been torn open and is bleeding from the inside. I want to rip it out. I wanted reach into my chest and claw it out, force it out, then tear it to pieces, anything, just anything to get it out to stop the screaming that comes from my heart rather than my head, a pain so intense it's only made it worse in that I can't see any blood, can't see any wounds when I look down at my chest, can't see anything physical that tells me what's hurting, so I can pull it out and stop it, stop the pain, but my heart won't stop screaming and all I can do is curl up as tightly as possible and cry, cry as every new wave of pain hits me, and even as I run frantically through my own thoughts, looking for an answer, a way out, I can't find one, so I'm left with this unbearable agony, until it becomes anger, anger at the fact no one will save me, not this dumb God that my mother loves so much, not a friend, not a miracle, there is just nothing, pure blackness, and then there is me, and I search, I search for me inside my head, try to attach myself to my skin, but who am I, who am I?

I lie there and rock back and forth uselessly for a while, until I push myself up, knowing that I only have a little while longer before my father comes home and I'm called downstairs again to play happy families again, and I have to lie, lie again, and pretend to be the perfect little boy they always wanted, that I have never been able to be. It's strange that my arms aren't aching too, that only my head swims and my heart still screams, that the rest of my body doesn't slow down too, doesn't just shut down and collapse, because it feels like a fucking blade in my chest, like acid burning a hole right through me, and I want it to burn, I want to know that there's an end to this, because I can't take it, I can't.

I don't wipe the tears from my eyes, so they just fall, and keep falling, even as my numb fingers close around the cell on my dresser, and I press the buttons, and I don't want to tell him, I don't want to, and telling him won't stop me from doing it, but he asked, and I guess I promised. I promised.

Im sry, I type, even as my fingers slip on wet keys, but I cant keep that promise.

The first cut I make is messy, a little too deep, so it really does hurt, but I take it, I take this physical pain over the war waging in my heart, over the ache I wish I could touch and destroy as my skin splits under the cold, sharp blade in my numb fingers. I cut again, less messy, a shallower cut, and I try to slow down my breathing, concentrate on the dark crimson that runs down my wrists, over faded troubles that were never as bad as this, as it lands on the floor, soaked up by dark carpet that has already taken so much of my blood. I watch the rose red blooms blossom from these wounds, and keep going, losing count after the third one, until my tears dry and the weight crushing my chest lifts, slowly, slowly, until I can breathe like normal again. Cut. Hold breath. Blood. Breathe. Again. Again. Breathe. Again.

I stop when my arm is criss-crossed with crimson, and the side of my other hand is stained red with the blood I wiped away to see the damage I made. I carefully put the blade down on my dresser. I look at the new scars, just stare at them numbly. Somewhere at the back of my head I think, 'what have I done?' but that part is very small and easily ignored, because I am here, able to feel the sharp throb around each wound, telling me what I want to hear. That I'm alive. I'm here. I can feel this, so I must be real. Real.

I try not to think about how I still feel like my soul is tied to Hell while my body floats here on Earth.

My phone beeps, making me jump. I stare at the screen, my arm still held gingerly on my knee, to stop the blood getting anywhere other than the carpet. After a slow second, I realize that it's a call, not a message, and I hesitate, biting my lip and looking down at the scars I've created. I've destroyed myself. Again. I didn't think. I just acted.

I don't regret it. I know I should. I don't.

Eventually my phone stops ringing, and the light fades, as if it's sighing, going back to sleep. I relax a little, trying to push back the guilt I know is waiting to take the place of the ache in my arm, the relief I shouldn't feel after something like this.

The relief doesn't last long.

My phone starts ringing again, almost indignantly, pissed at me for not picking up the first time.

I stare at the screen again.

I could just not pick up. I could just leave. Run away. Hide somewhere, I don't know, die somewhere? I look down at my arm again and gently trace the few cuts that have stopped bleeding. I could just disappear.

I pick up.

“Hello-” I've barely chocked out the words before he yells over me.

“Frank! Oh my God, thank fuck, Frankie, I thought you might have- I thought you might have done something and- fuck, I'm not there, I fucking knew something like this would happen if she- if I wasn't there and oh God, Frank-”

“Gerard.” It was a hoarse whisper, but he stops abruptly. I can hear him breathing heavily in the silence. Breathing. Like he's been crying.

This is where the guilt curls me up again, and I care enough about getting blood on the sheets that I curl up on the carpet instead, the phone still pressed to my ear, and I can't hold on any longer, I just cry, all over again, and it's not as good as the cutting, I can't see the monster eating at me bleed out of my body, but he's there, listening to me, and somehow that's enough, just to know that someone, someone cares.

“Frank,” he says, his voice barely a whisper as he holds back his own tears, “I'm so sorry. So, so sorry.”

Sorry never fixed anything. It doesn't fix anything now. But in hearing his voice, I can feel a little piece of my heart slowly healing. Just a small part, but it's enough that I don't pick up the blade again.

“How much, Frankie?” he asks, when I've calmed down just enough to be able to speak.

I'm silent for a bit, just keeping my breathing steady and then, “A lot.” My voice is tiny. Ashamed. So ashamed.

I can hear his intake of breath, I can imagine him closing his eyes, and his eyebrows furrowing as he thinks. “You promised.”

“I didn't really.” My voice is a squeak.

More silence.

Then, “Would your mum let me come over if I was there?”

“Are you?”

“Well, no, but...would she?”

I think of what just happened. I think of the chances of her letting Gerard in. I imagine the impossible, of my mum opening the door and not spinning some excuse about me being sick, or tired, or some other thing that would make me unfit to see someone.

“No,” I whisper. I can hear his pained exhale, and I do the same, although my breath catches in my throat a little on the way out.

“What...what happened?” he asks, and I can hear the frustration and hopelessness in his voice.

I tell him everything. How she laid it into me about how this new club was making me hate her. How these new friends were leading me down the wrong path. How she refused to let me out. How she basically told me I was going to go to Hell for not worshiping her God. How I couldn't see him as often as I wanted anymore. How all of this just added to the weight, the tumor that had been fed more and more over the past almost 9 years, how if this kept up...

“Gerard, I...I can't...” the stupid goddamn tears clog my throat, but I force them down, so I can tell him, “I can't hold on anymore, I don't see why I should anymore, it's not like I was ever worth anything anyway, Gerard, I can't-”

“Frank,” he cuts me off, his voice sharp, angry for the first time, “Don't you fucking dare tell me you don't think you're worth anything.”

“Fine,” I snap, my angry rising to match his, “I won't tell you. Who the fuck do you think you are, God? You can't stop me from thinking it, Gee, you can't just tell me to-”

“Frank!” his voice rises so suddenly, I jump, startled, “I lost a friend to this, and I'm not gonna lose you, do you hear me? Do you?”

Oh. Oh well. He didn't tell me that.

I nod, realize he can't see, and rasp out a small, “Yes.”

“I know it's hard,” he says, “But you cant just give up. Frankie, you're the strongest person I fucking know, are you gonna just throw it all away like that?”

“But what good am I doing? What am I even here for, I don't have a purpose-”

“Then live!,” he almost hisses desperately, “Live so you can find out where you're meant to be! Live so you can find your meaning, you think you can do that from your fucking casket, Iero, do you? You don't know what you're here for because you haven't lived yet, you haven't gotten there, you think everything is supposed to end for you now? Frank, if the only way you die is by taking your life away from yourself, you just killed your entire fucking destiny, and no matter how much I love you, I would never forgive you, okay? Fucking never. I know it's hard. I know. But everything you suffer through makes you stronger. Frank, you...you don't know. So wait until it's too late if you have to. Wait until the time comes when it's not you that takes your life...wait until...until life's through with you, not the other way around.” He sucks in a deep breath, and then exhales. “Okay?”

Silence.

“...Frankie?”

I say nothing.

“Frank?” his voice hitches up a few pitches in fear.

“I'm here,” I force out, but I can't speak much yet. Because even though I don't really believe that that I do have a purpose, it's true. I don't know yet. I really don't know.

He lets me think for a while until I can speak again. “Gee,” I say.

“Yeah?” his voice is soft, much more calm.

“Gee...” I hesitate, think about what he's just told me, and then, “You know...you know I love you, right?”

I grip the phone, wait for his stiff, awkward reply- or no reply at all- and I squeeze my eyes shut as if that'll ease the rejection I already feel.

“You know I love you too, Frankie,” he says, and I can hear the small, sad sigh in his voice.

I let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding. “Yeah,” I say wistfully, “I guess I do.”

Just not in the way I want you to, I think, Not in the way I shouldn't want you to.