You Give Love a Bad Name

"You look ridiculous," I laughed, pointing chocolate cupcake batter covered spatula in Melanie's direction. "Have you seen yourself yet? It's like Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory threw up on you."

Melanie grinned and licked the last of the sugary chocolate frosting from the bowl in her hand. "You should talk."

The six hours that I spent at Melanie's house were not only extremely fun, but also some of the silliest, immature and reckless times that I ever spent with a friend. Especially one that I only knew for two months.

As soon as I stepped through the door, Melanie grabbed my hand and literally dragged me over to her sweet, brand new, state-of-the-art plasma TV so we could watch Jarhead, a somewhat crude - but never less amazing - movie about life of a soldier on the front of Persian Gulf as part of Operation Desert Shield.

After two hours of watching Jake Gyllenhaal parading without his shirt off, the movie ended, so we did the only reasonable thing for a two bored teenage girls to do; we decided to bake chocolate cupcakes.

The task is pretty easy for a normal human being, right? Well, with Melanie's disastrous cooking skills we not only splattered everything in the kitchen with chocolaty mess, but almost burned down the kitchen as well. It wasn't my fault though, I warned Melanie that if she held the wooden stirring spoon next to a heated burner that it would catch on fire.

"Shut up," I scrunched up my nose, sticking my tongue out. "I'm not the one who was running with a flaming steering spoon in her hand."

She laughed and set the bowl that contained the frosting down on the counter. "Okay, the cupcakes are baked, frosted, so now we -"

"Decorate!" I finished for her, clapping my hands in excitement.

"Right," she nodded, surveying our fifteen perfect cupcakes with wonder. "Got any ideas?"

"Erm," I scratched my nose, instantly regretting it as I left a brown, gooey streak on the very tip. "We can always be unoriginal and write the names of our friends and family on each one."

"But if we draw some kickass stars, hearts and polka dots around the names, we can totally make up for the unoriginality," Melanie informed me brightly.

"Sounds good," I approved, watching as she got out a ton of tubes containing gel-like icing from one of the drawers. "Whoa! Dude, where did you get all of these from? I thought you were helpless when it comes to making something edible."

"I am, but my sister and mother aren't," she explained, laying the tubes in a straight line on the counter. "Let's count. There's me, you, your brothers, Ray, Bob, Frank, Cara, and Jake. That makes nine."

"You're forgetting someone," I reminded her, picking up acid green icing and examining the label.

"Who?"

"Manda," I replied, looking up. "So that makes ten."

"Oh yeah," she shrugged, biting on her lip. "Can't believe I forgot about Manda since she's like Frank's shadow now. It's kinda annoying, actually."

I picked up another tube of icing, my stomach giving a somewhat sudden and unpleasant lurch. "Whatever, as long as he's happy."

Thankfully she dropped the subject, picking up on my sour expression and not pressing for explanation for my hostileness towards my best friend's girlfriend.

"Family now," she started counting on her fingers. "We got your brothers covered, so they're out. That leaves my sister Nikki, my parents, and your mom."

"And my dad," I added. "I didn't see him yesterday since he was working overtime, so Gerard, Mikey and I are seeing him on Monday after school. I can give him his cupcake then. So overall, we have fifteen. Just the perfect amount."

Over the next few minutes we worked in silence. I was working on mine, Gerard, Mikey, and my parent's cupcakes, while Melanie was decorating her, her parents', her little sister Nikki's.

I decided to beatify Gerard's pastry first.

In blood red icing, I wrote his name in cursive letters on the chocolate base. Taking special care not to be messy, I drew a large white bat on the upper right side and surrounded the rest of the available space with blue and green stars. I thought it looked pretty cool, myself.

To the left of me, I heard Melanie clear her throat.

"Um, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she started uneasily, "but how are things working out with your Dad?"

I stopped writing Mikey's name in purple icing and bit my lip ring, thinking of the best way to say how I felt without seeming like a complete and utter pansy.

"No, it's okay. Well, it's...," I struggled for the right words. "It's different, I guess you can say."

"Different?" Out of the corner of my eyes I could see Melanie lift her eyebrows. "How so?"

I abandoned the cupcake completely and turned to face Melanie, shuffling my feet somewhat nervously, while searching my brain for the much needed phrases.

"It's different because I'm used to seeing him at least once a day, you know?" I told her frowning slightly. "I mean, even then he used to work overtime, yeah, but knowing that your father doesn't live in the same building as you anymore is somewhat depressing."

"What about Mikey and Gerard?" Melanie asked me softly, coming over and putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"Mikey is taking it pretty well. It's Gerard I'm worried about," I told her, meeting her green eyes with my own. "You see, Gerard is, um, I guess you could call him a 'family man'. He always wanted the traditional 'American family'. You know, a wife, a couple of kids, a dog or a cat, a cozy house and a good job."

She nodded and I continued.

"Well, it's kinda hard to make that your goal when your own family fell apart. Ripped at the seams. He kind of always prided our parents for staying married while everyone else's were separating all around us, so I guess that just worsened the blow. I can't say that I blame him, the divorce was somewhat out of the blue."

"Oh," she breathed out, giving me a hug. "But you guys are going to be okay. You, Mikey, and Gerard. I know it. You are extremely close, anyone can see that. Sometimes all you need is that closeness to help you heal."

I smiled and hugged her back. "I hope you're right."