Early Sunsets Over Monroeville

As I sat alone in the hospital room, I began to think. Firstly, I thought of how terrifying the room was. The walls were painted white, with clunky, noisy machinery lining them, but with nobody else in here with me, just my own rattled breathing and the machines’ mechanical, methodical bleeping; I noticed it looked as if the walls were folding in on themselves, enclosing. In the huge, empty room, I began to feel claustrophobic. Absently, worriedly, I wondered if I’d be crushed by them as they ate me whole: if being digested by white plaster was how my end was coming.

However, ten minutes later when I wasn’t dead and the walls seemed the same distance away from me, I calmed down a little. The noisiest machine got softer, quieter. I think I stopped considering my death as a likely thing. I was recovering. I was going to be okay.

How ironic when I finally have something to live for, I get run over by a car, and when that thing leaves, I recover my impeccable health. Maybe it was God trying to send me a message. Yeah, something along the lines of 'I hate you', evidently.

The second thing I mulled over was this: Why? What had I done, what had he done, to cause Gerard to leave me? So suddenly, too – no explanation, no warning, no feeling of foreboding. Just...gone.

And why had he waited for me to wake up? Obviously, he’d been planning to run out, so why not just do it while I was sleeping? Or did he consider that ennoble? Did he think of anything like that, after what he’d done to me?

Whilst I was submerged in self-pity and self-hate, I lost my awareness. I didn’t look, couldn’t hear, around me, and anything could have been happening. Actually, what happened was more than anything. It was everything, and nothing. All at the same time. Now, if only I’d been paying attention!

“Gerard Way...?” came a deep, metallic monotone, like blood if it were a voice.

“He’s not here,” I sulked, lip piercing falling into a lonely pout. Still, now, I’m uncertain why I answered.

“Frank Iero...?” Now was my perfect opportunity to buzz for help, hide under the thin covers, ask who it was, what they wanted, why they were here. To find out about Gee, understand it. Not the best time, however, to cry out:

“Yeah! That’s me.” Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Well, I brought this on myself.

I heard a heavy boot pounding on the floor – two heavy boots – and glanced down to see a steel-tipped toe point through the door. Uh-oh. My eyes came up from the ground, following the shoe up to his scruffy blue jeans, then to a workman’s belt filled with God knows what, to a black t-shirt, too small, to a big, wide, terrifying face. It took me a minute to register the features.

Bert. It was Bert.

And I knew, in that moment, that he was going to kill me, or try to. Not there, in the hospital, but somewhere, sometime, eventually. And I was scared. I don’t know where the feeling came from, but it was like a sixth sense, a sick warning. /Scared/.

Because I also knew, in that moment, that the last thing I ever saw would not be Gee’s adorable, gorgeous face, feel his breath washing over me, know he had my hand safe in his grasp. No, it would be Bert. Bert’s face, Bert’s breath, Bert’s chapped red hands.

That was when I realised I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up ever again.