You Mean More to Me Than Words Could Ever Say

I sat there, working on the art project. We had to create a picture out of ripped pieces of paper. Mine looked like a pathetic excuse for an art project. Gerard finally had put his sketch book away, and then started the project. Though he was far behind, he didn’t rush and took his time. And it showed. Every time I’d glance over at his paper, it looked better and better. The pieces were glued precisely, and his picture was forming nicely. I was stunned at his patience. He looked over at my paper, and I felt myself becoming embarrassed. I felt like he was analysing my work, judging me and scoffing at my lack of talent.

“It’s shit, I know.” I blurted out. He looked up to meet my eyes and raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not that bad.” he said, looking back at my paper. I crossed my arms over my chest and shifted in my seat to really face him.

“Gerard. Come on.” I felt weird saying his name. It felt like I talked to him as if I knew him, like he was a friend of mine. But that was silly.

“Okay, it’s bad.” he said, stifling a laugh. I chuckled slightly and continued working on it. He shook his head and got back to his masterpiece.

For a second, I wondered if maybe he was being serious when he said it was bad. I don’t mean to say he wasn’t kidding about it being bad, I knew it was, but I wonder if his intentions were to be a dick. Considering our first conversation, it was hard to tell with him. I didn’t know when he was kidding and when he was serious. Shrugging it off, I continued gluing the paper. Hopefully, he was honestly just joking and was just trying to have a friendly conversation. I don’t know why I gave a fuck, but I realized that I care about how he thinks and feels.

X~x~X~x~X

I was sitting at home, upstairs on the computer. For some odd reason, my mind kept jumping back to when I pressed against Gerard to get to his chair. It was strange how he didn’t pull his chair in to let me by, or the way he seemed to have a permanent smirk on his face afterwards. It was almost as if he purposely pushed his chair back, so that that could happen. But I immediately pushed this thought aside, knowing I was being paranoid, and starting playing guitar to get my mind off things. Only a couple seconds into playing, the doorbell rang. I was stunned for a second, but then realized it was probably Bob or Ray.

Heading downstairs, I opened the door to find a skinny, mousy brown hair colored kid. He looked at me through thick framed glasses, with a funny look on his face.

“Uhm, who are you?” I asked. Instead of answering, he threw a question back at me.

“Can I use your bathroom?” I shrugged, stepping aside.

“Er...yeah, uhm, down the hall...first door on the left...” he was already walking past me, and made his way in the bathroom, slamming the door. What the bloody fuck. I looked out the door, seeing he walked here, considering there was no car. He came out a couple seconds later.

“Thanks.” I nodded at him.

“Couldn’t you have gone outside?” he looked at me funny.

“No that’s weird.” he shrugged. I looked at him, stunned.

“Weirder than knocking on a random person’s door to use thier bathroom?” But the kid didn’t answer, he had his attention elsewhere. I looked over, following his gaze, and saw he was looking at the movie stash.

“Wow. You’ve got all the old good shit!” he exclaimed. I chuckled.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

He walked over without asking and shifted through them. I was frozen to the spot. A random stranger was in my house going through my movies, and I wasn’t doing anything about it. I wondered why he was by my house anyway. I lived in a secluded area, there was only about one or two more houses on this street, at the opposite end of the road.

“What were you doing on this street, like why’d you need my bathroom? Where do you live and what’s your name?” I rambled on, the questions coming out harsher than I planned. He looked stunned for a second and then recovered.

“I was walking back from a friend’s house down the road from here, and realized I had to majorly piss. I live a few blocks from here. And my names Mikey.” he told me, calmer than I had been. I nodded, processing this information

“Oh, alright. Well, I’m Frank. Nice meeting you?” it came out like a question, I wasn’t sure exactly what to say. I tried to say whatever a normal person would in this situation, because I am definitely not normal. He nodded his head, never taking his gaze away from the movies. He started rambling on about the dates they came out, the actors, and how amazing their story plots were. I chuckled at him.

“You sure know your shit.” I said. He glanced up at me through his glasses. The lenses were so thick they distorted his eyes, making them slightly small.

“Yeah, well, I’m a huge horror fan. And judging how there’s nothing but horror here, I can tell you are too.” he said, sounding sure of himself. And he had every right to be. I was a huge horror fan. Before I could respond, he pulled out a movie. I saw it was the classic ‘Night of the Living Dead.’

“Let’s watch this!”

I looked at him wide eyed. Practically a stranger wanted to watch a movie with me? This was too weird.

“Don’t you have someone else to be? Maybe get home to your mother?” he looked young, maybe a few years younger than me. Probably a freshman.

“Pfft, the second I hit sophomore year, my mom let me do whatever I want.”

“So you’re a sophomore than?”

“Yeah. Turned 16 on the tenth.” I nodded my head.

“You?” he asked.

“Senior, I’ll be 18 on Halloween.” I told him.

“Wicked.” he told me, looking over the movie once again.

“Are we watching this or not?” he asked. I shuffled on my feet.

“I think you should get home.” I told him. I felt way too awkward. He scoffed at me.

“Don’t be a pussy.” I raised my eyebrows, and then chuckled at him. Ah, what the hell. I was lonely anyway. I walked over and popped the movie in. We sat on opposite sides of the couch, waiting for it to start.

“Can’t wait, I haven’t seen this in forever, I love it.” He said.

“Ditto.”

And that was how I came to know Mikey.