You Give Love a Bad Name

"Why the fuck do you care? You were using her for sex anyway. And don't try to deny it either, Frank, you told me so," I replied bitterly, realizing that our whole friendship must have been a joke to him if he decided to end it over that.

Maybe if it would have been a joke for me too, I wouldn't have felt like my heart was tearing into shreds right now...

Because it was obvious as hell that his wasn't.

What he did next not only surprised, but scared me a bit as well.

He laughed.

Not your normal laughter, but the one you might hear in a loony bin. Okay, so maybe not in a loony bin, but he looked like he was about to trash my living room from sheer anger.

"You think this is because of her?" He almost screamed in my face, moving even closer to me, so that he was about five inches away. "Are you really this fucking stupid?"

His hazel eyes were bearing into mine with surprise and frustration, which was making me very uncomfortable. He was contradicting himself. He said, well, shouted would be a more appropriate word, that this was about me not telling him that his girlfriend was cheating on him.

"Uh...Well, yes," I said softly, suddenly feeling drained of all energy, and hoping that this hell would end soon. Was I not getting the big picture here?

"This is about trust, Lena," he almost whispered, but I caught every word. "This is about me trusting you. As your friend. As your best friend. As someone who knew you for eight years, and as someone you said that you loved. This was never about her, it was about me feeling so fucking betrayed when I confronted her at the Prom, and she told me that you knew about it all along. This is what it's about, Lena. That's why it so fucking hurt."

He was so close that I could almost count the green specks in his eyes, which were looking at me disbelief and sorrow, all traces of anger from before not visible at all, making me want to just sit down on the floor, lock Frank out of the room, and erupt into tears.

It all made sense now that he reacted the way he did, after I saw it from his point of view. But he didn't know why I couldn't tell him, and I was going to make sure that he wouldn't find out. Only two people knew why, Mikey and Gerard, only because Gerard was there when it happened, and Mikey found out because he helped Gerard calm me down, and they swore that they were going to keep it a secret.

"I wanted to tell you, Frank. I really did," I looked into his eyes with as much honesty as I could muster.

"But you didn't," he replied bitterly, turning around. "And that's what matters in the end."

"I didn't tell you, because I left Prom early," I blurted out quickly, feeling my eyes glaze with unwanted tears. "That's the only reason. I founded out about that the same day you did, Frank, after I saw her screwing some guy in an empty classroom."

"Look," he turned around sharply, some of the previous fury seeping back into his features. "I don't see what was so important that you couldn't find five minutes of your time to come and find me, and tell me about what you saw."

"Well it was important, okay?" I tried to control my quivering lip, as the memories of my worst night to date; Prom, flashed through my head. "So I'm sorry that I didn't run around the school campus, keeping track of your love life. And I'm sorry that our friendship ended the way it did, because you were everything to me, Frank. You were my second half. But don't you blame me for what she did to you."

I tried to walk past him, but couldn't make past two steps seeing as Frank grabbed my hand, spinning me around to face him.

"Let go of me, Frank!" I tried to yell at him, choking on my own sobs, tears streaming down my face as I finally did what I was afraid I was going to do; I was having a nervous breakdown.

"Not until you tell me why you left," he caught my other hand. "And don't you dare lie, either."

"It's none of your fucking business, Iero," I tried to break free, my attempt in vain. I mean, who was I kidding? It's not like Frank didn't work out enough for him not to be strong, despite him being not the tallest guy around.

"Obviously it is," he corrected me, trying to peer into my face. "If it made you so upset right now, and stopped you from telling me about Valerie that night."

"Go to hell," I said, avoiding all eye contact with him. "It's not like you give a fuck anyway."

"Of course I give a fuck," he looked at me sharply. "If I didn't, I wouldn't be standing right here, trying to get you to tell me what the hell is wrong with you. I care about you. I never stopped."

"Bullshit. Not after the way you've been treating me for the past three months."

"Look me in the eyes, Lena, and tell me," he insisted, pulling me closer to him and angling my body so I was staring him in the eyes.

"You know what? Fine, Frank. Fuck you, you asked for it. I left Prom early because my then boyfriend almost raped me that night."