Another Memory

“English Mikey, please,” Gerard laughed.

Mikey swallowed his mouthful of waffles and then continued. “I said, why don’t we go visit Ray when we’re done and watch a movie?”

I stared at Mikey quizzically. “I thought I was supposed to meet Frank?”
Mikey smiled cheekily. “It’s nine thirty, DJ. Some people like to actually sleep in on the weekends.”

“I could have come over at four. I was up, and decided against visiting for your sake,” I stated.

Mikey rolled his eyes. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

I glanced out the window right next to our booth in the diner. Leaning further into Gerard’s side, I folded my hands across my chest and huffed. “Carter and his bar buddies came over last night.”

“Ah, the weekly poker game,” Gerard noted. “Your dad win?”

“My dad doesn’t play poker,” I gritted, my teeth sliding against each other.

Gerard shook his head. “We’ve talked about this Deej.”

“He isn’t my dad anymore, Gee. He got lost somewhere a long time ago, so now Carter is here. That bastard,” I sighed.

Mikey interrupted before Gerard could say anything else. “They were over all night, huh?”

I glanced painfully at Mikey. “Until two in the morning.”

See the thing with Carter was, was that he wasn’t all that terrible. He could have been a lot worse, so I was sort of thankful. He kept his job at the car shop, and he got paid under the table. He’d get to work by ten, leave from there to the bar at a little past seven, and then come home around nine at night. Sometimes he’d bring his friends, other times he wouldn’t. Either way, when I got up at some odd o’clock in the morning, there’d be a wad of cash on the kitchen counter, for me to have for the day, everyday.

I was stunned the first time I found it; I was edgy on why it was just sitting there. I ended up taking half of the money and spending it on some DVDs to add to the guys’ collection. The next day, when the remaining half and some more bills were just laying there, I picked up on the hint. Carter was leaving me some sort of allowance money, and I wasn’t about to pass it up, it was the least he could do.

Mikey slid his plate of half eaten waffles across the table, handing me an extra fork. “Eat.”

I raised my eyebrows, smirking. “I had Oreos, I’m good.”

“No, no, no,” Gerard said. “You are going to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” I stated stubbornly.

“Oh, come on!” Mikey cried. “Stop being a bitch. You can’t just have Oreos, it’s not healthy!”

“That’s why I bought apples at the store earlier,” I grinned. “I’ll have one tomorrow.”

“You really need to start eating, DJ,” Gerard informed me. “This isn’t going to end well….”

“Add it to the list,” I mumbled. I really hated Gerard sometimes, but not like when I first met him. This was just an annoyed hated, as opposed to the I-really-fucking-hate-you, hate.

I first met Gerard through Mikey, and Mikey and I met when I first moved to New Jersey. We ran into each other, both in a rush at the grocery store. The cans of coffee he had went falling to the floor and my carton of eggs were destroyed. We awkwardly laughed it off, but stumbled to clean up the gloopy coffee grounds. A store employee scolded us, and we shamefully apologized. When he left, I told Mikey the guy needed to calm down and take some meds, and he quoted back some line from Star Wars about Han Solo. It all took off after that.

When we realized he lived on the street next to mine – conveniently all we had to do was cross through some lady’s drive way, that lived across the street from me, and cut into her small backyard to get to the gates of their house, instead of walking around the block – we started talking more. He introduced me to Gerard a little after a few weeks, and we hated each other. I think it was because we were jealous, both trying to have Mikey’s attention. That soon faded because we gave up on trying to constantly yell at each other, it was too draining. The mutual grounds we established quickly got diminished because we became friends.

“Well, if you keep acting like this Frank really isn’t going to like you,” Gerard said, throwing his arm around my shoulder.

“I don’t think I like him, and we haven’t even met yet,” I groaned.

“DJ,” Mikey smiled. “We want you to meet him because we want someone else to be here for you, just in case we aren’t.”

I tensed. “You’re implying that you’re leaving.” They weren’t supposed to leave me, they couldn’t leave me; as cliché as it sounded, I wouldn’t be able to live if they left. Goodbyes just didn’t work.

“We aren’t leaving you,” Gerard assured me. “It’s just in case something happens.”

“Only a precaution,” Mikey affirmed. “When I start my job on Monday I’m not going to be home all the time. We hand picked Frank out of all the others just so you had someone else around for you.”

“I have friends!” I told them.

Gerard counted off on his fingers. “Me, Mikey, Ray, and Bob. Huh, four.”

“You’re forgetting Pete, and his boy toy,” I quickly added.

Mikey noticeably reddened. “Pete and Patrick no longer count.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Yeah, Mikes. Why don’t you talk to them anymore?”

Mikey’s eyes widened. “For reasons you two will never know.”

* * *

Later that day, Mikey sat in a recliner while I was curled up with Gerard on a couch in the middle of the Entertainment area at Best Buy. We were watching Nightmare Before Christmas, seeing as Ray was nice enough to put it in for us.

It was probably halfway through our second time restarting the movie that I poked Gerard, ever so lightly in the stomach. He glanced down at me, my head resting on his shoulder, and he knit his eyebrows together.

He and I were always like this, as close to each other as possible. It was weird in a way that it wasn’t. Gerard and I were dependent on each other, always struggling to keep a good hold on the other so we couldn’t leave. We understood each other in ways that sometimes didn’t even make sense to us. If we were together, we were okay and stable, and if we weren’t, well the world wasn’t going to fucking end, but we just seemed off balance.

At first, Mikey went a little ape shit. He thought we were fucking, and he said it would ruin everything. He hated that we were always so close. We weren’t having sex together, though. The closest sexual acts we’ve ever done was press our lips to the skin on other others cheek.

When Mikey eventually got over it, we fell back into place. There were times when Mikey would get so mad that one of us would just have to leave, and it scarred us. Neither of us was good with goodbyes, so we all made the pact to never leave each other, and it worked for us. Mikey was like my older brother, and Gerard was like my boyfriend in the friend zone.

“You’re not actually leaving, are you?” I whispered just so Gerard could hear. I always let Mikey know what I was thinking even when I was talking to Gerard, and vice versa, but this would stay between us.

“I promise,” he answered, in a hushed tone.

Ray came up and sat on the opposite end of the couch. I was always thankful he never questioned what Gerard and I shared, especially since I was eighteen and Gerard was twenty five, and I couldn’t begin to explain what we had.

“My manager is getting mad,” Ray sighed. “He wants you to leave.”

Mikey smiled. “I was just getting comfy.”

“Don’t get me in trouble,” Ray warned. “It’s bad enough you guys only come when I’m on shift.”

“I’ll make it my goal this week to come when you’re not on shift, Ray,” I promised. “I’ll even buy some music.”

Ray grinned. “Thank you.”

Gerard looked at his watch. “We can just go back home and watch this, it’s only four thirty. Damn, when did we get here?”

“Only four thirty!” Mikey gasped. “Frank’s going to be over at five!”

I yawned a little. “We should go, then I can take a little nap or something before he gets there.”

Ray shot Mikey a look. “You’re letting her meet Frank?”

I felt a little uneasy then. Why did it sound like such a bad thing? “Yeah…”

“Good luck,” Ray snorted. “Kid’s like a battery that never runs out of charge. If you like just sitting around and watching movies, well you’ll be in for a shock.”

“Really?” I asked, sitting up off Gerard.

“Really,” Ray nodded. “You’d be lucky if you could get him to watch half of this movie.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fuck you Mikey.”