If I Knew Who You Were

I just stared at his small body as he stayed slouched against the door frame. Mikey coughed awkwardly from opposite me, and the weight on the bed altered as Lilly stood up and put her hand lightly on my shoulder, kneeling in front of me for a second. “You don’t want to be thinking ‘what if’,” she said almost sadly and instantly my heart went to her. Mikey had said she loved me as more than a friend, yet she still sat there with me giving me advice over the two different guys that I was moping over.

I placed my hand on the back of her head, and pulled her lips forward to meet mine lightly and quickly, before looking into her wide orbs as our eyes connected. “I’ll always love you,” I whispered before letting go of her head and letting her walk out of the room. I didn’t miss the dazed look in her eye as she left as she brought her hand up so her fingers could lightly grace over her lips. I didn’t miss the smile either. I knew she knew what I had meant.

The door closed and Frank stumbled forward a little as it hit his back when it closed, I just knew that Mikey and Lilly were on the other side of the door with their ears pressed as close against the wood as they could get them. Either that or they’d cheat and get cups or something.

He looked up at me with those wide eyes, and I think my heart almost fell out of my chest once more, but I wasn’t going to let him back into my heart again just because of that face.
I just kept my eyes on him as he made his way across my large room and stood looking out of the window, a thoughtful look on his face. We stayed in silence for a little over five minutes, when his voice sliced through the smooth noiseless room.

“What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your whole life?” He asked his voice low and even, his eyes stayed downcast to the floor as he paced the room, his light footsteps thumping lightly across the floor with each step he made.

“What?” I snapped, an irritated tone taking over my voice because you just don’t ask something like that when you’re supposed to be apologising.

“What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?”

“Trusting some of the kids in Middle School who didn't ever actually like me for me,” I said, a bored and borderline sarcastic tone to my voice. What did this have to do with anything?

“You wanna know my biggest mistake?”

“Why not,”

“Going to the Misfits that night – that night that I met you,” he said lowly. That caught me slightly off guard. “If I knew who you were that night...I would have never,” he paused, and for the first time since explaining everything, he looked right at me. “I would have never given you my number so you’d be able to contact me again.

“My life was so much easier before you came along. I mean, sure it sucked, can you imagine living in a mansion but seeing only the workers rooms or the back garden? Its hell, I can assure you. But even though it sucked, it was routine. I was used to it. I knew what I was supposed to do and when. I knew when I could go out and who I could talk to at what times. I didn’t know anything else. Then I met you and everything was just fucked into the floor. I couldn’t avoid you like I normally did; I couldn’t hide from you, because I was no longer the shadow. I had a name, and you could put that name to my face, which is something you were never supposed to do, something I was never supposed to let happen, but it did anyway,

“You were so genuine and nice – most of the time – that I just...I couldn’t tell you. I thought you’d hate me,”

I just stared at him as he once again looked away from me. I didn’t know what to make of his little speech so far. “I know what happened Frank, you don’t need to remind me, and I’d rather you didn’t blame this on me,”

“I’m not blaming it on anyone!”

“Yes you are. You’re going on about how it was only when you met me that everything got ruined,”

“Well that’s true. Before I met you I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders because I knew that I had to keep things from you. I only had to hide from you,”

“If I ruined your life so much, why did you keep in contact? You addressed that letter at Christmas to me as well as your mum. Plus, you said you were going to write a letter to me on my birthday,”

“I believe that everything happens for a reason,”

I just stared blankly at him. No wonder this boy was such a good liar. He was so vague in everything that he said. It was like...he answered the question, but almost indirectly. Yeah, I can’t make any sense of it either.

He chuckled slightly at my bewildered and blank face before speaking once more. “I mean that...even though you indirectly messed everything up for me, there must have been a reason for it. There were hundreds of people at the Misfits that night, what are the odds of us meeting? Two people who happen to live in the same house, but don’t actually know who one another are? I know this is going to sound lame and cheesy, but that to me is fate,”

Once again, I just stared blankly at him. The more I thought about what he’d just said, the more I guess it made sense. I didn’t believe in fate or anything like that, but I guessed that what he was saying was some sort of inverted compliment. He wasn’t blaming me for ruining his life because he believed that it was meant to happen?

I voiced this to him, and he chuckled slightly before nodding.

“I-I don’t think I can forgive you though, Frank,” I said, somewhat sadly. “I want to, because I know that buried under the lies, there’s an amazing person. If I’m to believe that you are the same person that you were that night that we went on that date, when we were sitting at the park, then I know that you’re an amazing person,”

“That was one hundred percent me. I wish it wasn’t. I gave too much about myself away that night, and I shouldn’t have, because it just gave me the opportunity to grow more attached to you...”

“I’m glad it was you. That’s the only time I’ve ever been able to see the real you since I met you...and I’m grateful for it,” I smiled, hating that I was letting him in again, but fuck it; what’s life if you don’t take a chance?

“What you have to realize though Gerard,” Frank started, before I got a chance to speak. “Is that I’m not a liar. I hate liars. I know I kept things from you, but that was because I had to. If I’d have told you that I lived in your house and you’d have taken it the wrong way, I’d be on the streets right now, and so would my mum probably! If I’d told you about taking the money, my Dad would have had an absolute shit-fit. That man loves money, more than me... even more than the son he wanted...Matt. He gets so angry when something involving money went wrong, and I witnessed and suffered that. Both times I lied to protect myself, but I had to, in no way did I want to,” he explained, a pleading tone in his voice.

“I want us to be friends,” I said suddenly, shocking myself. My eyes widened and I looked over at Frank whose eyes widened also. Had I actually just said that?

“Really?”

I scratched the back of my neck and thought it over a little bit. Did I really want to be friends with someone who stole from me, and lied to me twice? “Yeah, really,”

I was caught off guard at the sudden weight I felt on my front and looked down to see the top of Franks head as he hugged me. I smiled softly and wrapped my arms around him, continuing and prolonging the hug as I nuzzled my face into his hair, feeling the feeling that I felt a couple of nights ago. The feeling that Frank and I...we fit perfectly together, like the only two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

“Who knows,” I murmured, sighing in content, “Maybe we could give it another go one day, and be more than just friends,”

“I think I’d very much like that,” he mumbled back, smiling dreamily into the fabric of my shirt.

For this first time in over six months, I knew that I was prepared to let that strange and mysterious kid, Frank Iero, back into my life.