I'll Never Be The Same Again

-~- Frank’s POV -~-

I had the same dream again last night… The dream where Rennie found us… Although it was different to usual… Instead of just finding her walking down the street she ran on stage at one of shows… It felt so real, that I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes to reality. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying to stop my tears from escaping. I miss her so much! I mean, Laura’s great… But she’s nowhere near as amazing as Rennie…

“Frankie? Are you ok?” I heard a female voice ask from beside me. It wasn’t Laura… Fuck… “Frankie?” As she spoke again, my brain kicked into gear; it wasn’t Laura, because it was Rennie, it wasn’t a dream this time!
“Rennie?” I asked, keeping my eyes shut, just in case my mind was playing tricks on me.
“Yeah, it’s me”
I opened my eyes to be greeted by Rennie’s beautiful smile.
“It… It wasn’t… It was real?” I struggled to say, probably sounding like a right dick.
“Are you crying?” she asked quietly, holding my hand.
“I thought it was another dream… It seemed too good to be true,” I muttered.
“It’s not a dream,” she smiled at me. I sat myself up to see that we had fallen asleep in the back room, which would explain the pain in my neck…
I heard a knock on the door.
“Hey, guys? Are you decent?” Gee whispered, not opening the door.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?” I replied at a normal volume.
The door opened, revealing Gee holding two mugs.
“Well… You know… You haven’t seen each other for so long… You might have… You know…”
“Look… I don’t want to upset you…” Rennie started, she sighed before carrying on, “I’ve been raped pretty much every day for the last five years of my life, so honestly, that’s the last thing on my mind, I don’t even know how to enjoy it” she confessed.
The look on my face must’ve mirrored Gee’s, both of our mouths hanging open slightly in shock.
“That fucking bastard.” He hissed, “Here, I made you some tea, black, not too strong, just as you like it,” he smiled reassuringly at her, passing her one of the mugs, “Oh and a coffee for you Frankie dearest,” he handed me the other mug.
“Thanks,” I smiled, looking over at Rennie. “Rennie? Are you ok?” her eyes were welling up; she was about to cry.
I shuffled over so that I was right next to her and wrapped my free arm around her shoulder. Gee sat down on her other side and did the same thing.
“I’m fine,” she laughed slightly as the tears began to spill, “It’s just… I can’t believe you remember how I like my tea,” she wiped her eyes, trying to dry them, but failing, “Of course I did, we all remember, we loved you too much to forget,” Gee explained, it was true, every one of my friends loved her, we were all broken when she was taken. “Plus… You were the only one who refused to drink coffee… And you’d throw a strop if anyone made it wrong and make us do it again…” he added, making us all laugh at the memories.
“Hey! Making a good cup of tea is an art!” she defended herself, taking a sip of her drink, “And it looks like you perfected it, this is beautiful,” she grinned at Gee, “He used to force me to drink coffee… Wouldn’t even let me buy any tea bags… Considering he ‘loved’ me so much, he was a dick…”
“If he ‘loved’ you so much, why didn’t he let you go? Why did he carry on hurting you?” I asked, hearing anger rising in my voice.
“I asked him the same thing, then he’d call me an ungrateful bitch and either rape me, or if I made him really mad, he’d just go and watch bondage porn at full volume in the living room to try and make me jealous…”

“Hey, guys?” Mikey knocked on the open door, interrupting our conversation; he looked so awkward…
“What’s up?” I asked, returning my voice to its usual level of calm.
“Erm… Security are here, they need to speak to us and Rennie…” he told us.
She sighed, before finishing her drink and standing up.
“Come on… Let’s get this over and done with.” She took my hand, pulling me up from where I was sat, I smiled at her, enjoying the feel of her hand in mine once again.
We walked through the bus towards the door; everyone was up already, watching us sadly.

“Ok guys, we need to ask you some questions independently about what happened on stage yesterday. In doing so, we will be able to determine whether or not the police need to be informed.” The head of security explained, “Lorena Harrison, we need to speak to you first if that’s ok?” he looked towards us as he spoke.
“Of course,” she replied, slowly standing up.
“You’ll be ok,” I reassured her, giving her a small kiss as she left.

I sat back down, rubbing my hands over my face. This was all so surreal.
“Hey, you ok man?” Bob asked from across the room, “You look like shit…”
I laughed slightly, shaking my head, typical Bob…
“Yeah, I guess so, just, can’t take this all in… Like… I’m so happy that she’s back, but she’s so broken… He’s done so much shit to her, every new thing I hear makes me want to kill the bastard,” I sighed, “Seriously, he tried to tell her that he loved her! How the fuck can you do shit like that to someone you fucking love?!” I clenched my fists, desperately fighting the urge to punch something.
“Dude… Calm down,” Ray said to me, placing both of his hands on my shoulders. I looked him the eyes, “Take some deep breaths, we’re gonna get this sorted,” I did what he said and managed to calm myself down slightly.
“He is a fucking dick though…” Ray added, making us all laugh.

“I just can’t believe how much he’s done to her… I mean, she cried this morning just because Gee remembered how she likes her tea… Apparently he refused to let her drink it…”

“Frankie?” It was Ally this time, she came and sat down next to me, where Rennie had been, “Don’t think about it now… Just…” she sighed heavily, it must be so hard on her too, being her cousin, “Stay calm, and then go in and talk to them, they’ll realise that they need the police, and everything will get sorted,” she spoke to me calmly.
“I know… Sorry…” I sighed, “I just hate people who treat women like that…”

“We know,” Gee laughed, “I remember when she first told you, and you came storming round to mine and wouldn’t stop pacing, mom thought you were gonna wear her carpet out,”

Before we could say anymore, Rennie came out of the room, shortly followed by who I guess was questioning her. Her eyes were red and puffy, she had clearly cried a lot.
I rushed over to her, wrapping my arms around her tightly. I could feel her shaking.
“Frank? We need you next,” The guy said. I didn’t want to move.
“Frank?” Iris touched me on the shoulder, “We’ll look after her,” I sighed, and left Rennie in the arms of Iris as I entered the room.

I sat down at a table, across from the security guard. He pressed record on a tape; it felt like I’d been arrested or something.
“Frank Iero, I am Mark Rushton, I’m just recording this to use as evidence for the police, it may mean that you will not need to be interviewed by them again, is that ok?”
“Yeah, sure,” I replied.

“Ok, when did you first meet Cayne Maxwell?”
“It was five years ago, I had just played my very first gig, not long after, Rennie walked off to go to the toilet, after about ten minutes I started to wonder where she was, I just guessed there was a queue or something… Then another five minutes passed, so I decided to go look for her, as I went outside I heard someone’s muffled screams… I looked over and it was Rennie, some guy had a hold of her. I ran towards her, but he threatened me with a gun. He then tied us both up and threw us in a van…” I had to stop talking for a while… It was getting too much…
“Ok Frank, I know this must be hard, but what happened next?”
I sighed before continuing with the story.
“He drove us to some derelict house, leading us into this dark damp room with just a mattress and a chair… he tied me to the chair, and threw Rennie on the mattress. He hit me several times, and raped Rennie in front of me…”
“Was it the first time he had done that to her?”
“No… She moved to America to get away from him… He had been her friend, but then took advantage of her…”
“And she told you this?”
“Yes, and I spoke to her mom about it, who confirmed it…”
“Ok, so continue, what happened after he raped her?”
“He made her decide, she could either go with him and I’d be let free, or she go… And he’d… He’d kill me… She refused to let him hurt me… So she went with him, he drove us back to Jersey, kicking me out of the van into the park, and then drove off. Until yesterday, that was the last time I saw or spoke to her.”
I rubbed my hands over my face again, it seemed to relax me slightly.
“So then, yesterday, explain to me what happened”
“We were in the middle of our set, it came to the song ‘Honey this mirror isn’t big enough for the two of us’… It always reminds us of her cos the name was something she had said to me once… Kind of an inside joke… Anyway… Gerard introduced the song, saying that it means a lot to us all, especially me… I always lose myself in the song, I guess I try to distract my thoughts so I that I can still play… So there I was… On the floor doing my stuff when I realised that everyone else had stopped playing and Ray was calling you guys through the mic. When I looked to where Gerard was I saw her. I just froze, not really believing what I was seeing. I saw Cayne running after her, trying to grab her and stop Gerard from pulling her over the fence… Then they got her on stage and she ran over to me throwing her arms around my neck, when she kissed me… That’s when I realised that it was real…”
“Did she say anything about what had happened?”
“She said that he’d not allowed her to see any news or anything like that, so she didn’t even know that we were here… It wasn’t until she heard Gerard’s dedication to her that she realised it was us… When I apologised for not finding her sooner she told me that she didn’t blame me… He had a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it, she showed me a bullet wound just above her hip… She said that he’d raped her pretty much every day for the last five years… We haven’t really had much chance to talk about anything else…”
“Ok, thank you Frank, I’ll let you go now.” He pushed the button to stop the recording as we both stood up.
“Just so you know, we’ve already informed the police, they’re on their way, I don’t think that bastard’s gonna get away with anything” Mark said before opening the door, letting me out.
“Thank you Mark,” I said already walking to Rennie’s side.
“You two can go for now, we’ll be in touch when we have more information.” Mark said to me and Rennie.
“Come on,” I held my hand out, she took it willingly and we were soon on our way back to the bus.