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He Never Told Me What He Did for a Living

Chapter Twenty Nine

The silence was nearly unbearable as I sat huddled on the front steps of Gran’s house. Angel sat next to me, alternating between picking at her purple fingernails and biting her hot pink lips. I sighed, studying my ragged out canvas sneakers. I didn’t want to talk about it, but the silence had to be broken.

“So how much did you know already?” I asked, finally tearing my gaze from my shoes.

Angel’s nail picking came to a halt. “How much of what?” she asked, then dropped her hands and nibbled at her bottom lip.

“About Gerard,” I said, a cold chill settling in my chest.

“Oh,” she said quietly, which was so unlike her that I almost stopped my line of questioning. “I read about the engagement in one of those teen tabloid magazines. I’m not certain it’s true.”

“He’s engaged!?” I asked, my pulse suddenly loud and fast in my ears.

Angel looked at me, her blue eyes confused. “I thought you knew…I thought that’s what you meant?”

I shook my head and managed a few deep breaths. “No, I didn’t know that. I just- I saw him…with her last night. They were…” My breath caught, and I couldn’t finish.

“Oh, God. Josie, you saw him with Lindsey…when?”

I swallowed the tears, ignoring the fact that they were choking me. “At work. In the private room…the whole band was there.”

“Oh, Josie, does he know you know?”

I pressed my lips tightly together and shook my head again. “He didn’t see me. He doesn’t know I work there, he- he didn’t even tell me he was coming home!” With that explanation, the dam burst, everything that I’d been holding back came flooding forward with no end in sight.

“That bastard!” Angel ground out angrily. “Give me his number, I’m going to tear him a new asshole and make him cry like a little baby!”

The last bit brought a laugh out of me, chasing away my pain for a moment. Angel grinned, but I knew she’d been serious. As my best friend, I’d expect nothing less from her.

But neither of us were expecting things to go south again, especially me.

But go south they did, in fact, as soon as I heard the crunch of the gravel driveway.

“Who’s getting a new asshole?”

Angel stopped reaching for my phone and grabbed my wrist tightly, her mouth flattening into a scowl.

I gave her a look, and she lessened the scowl on her face.

“Oh, just some scumbag I’d rather never lay eyes on again,” she said. “I’ll see you later, Josie.”

Glancing at Gerard, I ignored him and called back out to her. “Wait a minute, Angel. If you don’t mind, I’d like a ride to work, if you're free?”

She nodded. “What time?”

“Pick me up in thirty?” I asked after glancing at my watch.

Angel flashed a thumbs-up and pulled out of my driveway, leaving Gerard and I standing there only a few feet apart.

“So, how ya been?” he asked, raking a hand through his jet black hair.

“Great,” I replied coolly.

He nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. “So, uh, you got a job huh?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s a great job. I work a lot but I like it.”

“Wow, that’s great. So what do you do?”

I took a deep breath, knowing this conversation was going nowhere good. “I’m a hostess right now, but I’m training to be a waitress soon.”

He grinned. “Aw, come on Josie, do I have to drag every little detail out of you? Where is it? What’s it called? Tell me everything.”

I gave him a tight smile, then answered his questions. “It’s in Newark, actually, this really nice place called Imonelli’s.”

Right before my eyes, Gerard froze, his mouth half open, and his face seemed to lose all color.
Neither of us said anything for a moment, me because I had nothing else to say, and him because he didn’t know what to say, or if he should say anything at all.

When Gerard finally did speak, it came tumbling out.

“Oh, god damn me, I am so sorry that’s how…that you had to find out like that. I didn’t know how to tell you! I couldn’t tell you over the phone, that was just wrong, but if I couldn’t be honest, I didn’t want to talk to you at all…so I didn’t. I tried to reason it out, that if it didn’t work out with…with Lindsey, I’d have hurt you for no reason, and you didn’t deserve that, but you don’t deserve this either…I just…fuck, I screwed up. This wasn’t supposed to happen! I should’ve just kept it in my pants…ah, fuck Josie, I shouldn’t have said that…Damn it!”

My stomach rolled at the thought of them together in the way that I’d been with him, and though I knew he wouldn’t go without while we did the ridiculous ‘wait-until-I’m-21’ thing, a part of me had thought maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t want to be with anyone else if he loved me.

Now I saw it for the naïve notion that it was. True love and all that bullshit.

“You love her,” I said softly, and knew it was true.

He opened his mouth to deny it, but found he couldn’t, and said instead, “I love you too, Josie.”

I nodded, because I knew that was true as well.

We stood in silence, until I checked my watch and had to break it. “I have to go get ready for work. Angel will be here soon.”

He nodded, raking his hand through his hair again. “Josie…I still…I still need you in my life. I don’t want you to just disappear, like you never existed.”

“I know, Gerard, and I feel the same, but…I’m going to need some time before I can be your friend.”

He smiled, and pulled me into a hug. “I know. I can never apologize for how much I know I’ve hurt you, Josie, but I am sorry.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist tightly and breathed in his own unique blend of leather, cigarettes and aftershave. Tears pricked at my eyelids, but I squeezed them back. “Thank you for everything, Gerard,” I said, putting emphasis on everything, to let him know I had no regrets about anything.

He stood, but didn’t move back, instead he cupped my face and kissed me softly for what was inevitably going to be the last time I ever kissed Gerard Way again.

So I made it count.

***

Angel pulled up shortly after Gerard left, and I grabbed the bag I’d just packed and locked up the house behind me. Tossing my bag into the backseat of Angel’s car, I got in next to her.

“Those sure don’t look like work clothes,” Angel said, staring at my usual jeans and tee combo.

I grinned. “That’s because I’m off today, and we have plans for a girl’s night,” I told her.

Angel’s face lit up and she pumped her arm. “Yes!” she squealed. “Finally!”

I laughed and shoved her off of me as she tried to hug me tightly. “Nothing too crazy, alright?”

Angel’s face sobered, and she asked, “So how’d it go with scumbag?”

I gave her a look but didn’t correct her. “Fine, actually.”

“Wait, you didn’t take him back did you?”

“No, Angel. He wasn’t mine to begin with, and he isn’t ever going to be mine,” I explained. “He truly loves Lindsey.”

Angel’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “But he loves you!”

“Yes, he loves me too, but…”

“But what? Like a sister? A daughter?”

I poked her in the side. “Ew, that’s just gross.”

“But what, Josie?” she asked again.

“I don’t know. I’m not what he needs, even if we do love each other.”

“Bullshit. Everyone deserves their happily ever after. What if he’s yours?”

“What if he is, Angel? I can’t make him not love her. So maybe I don’t get a ‘happily-ever-after,’” I said bitterly.

“Oh, Josie, I didn’t mean it that way,” Angel said. “I’m sorry, I know you’re hurting and I’m making you talk about it…I’m sorry.”

I waved her off. “I don’t know how to deal with this…break-up stuff,” I muttered.

Taking my hand in hers as friends sometimes do, she gave it a squeeze and said, “Well, that’s what I’m here for.”
♠ ♠ ♠
Sooo...we see Gerard redeem himself a bit here and explain himself...and now he's gone.

Or is he...?