Sister, I'm Feeling Pretty Safe, Dead in a Home-Made Grave

That night, I almost jumped off the roof, but the people saw me, and the police rushed up onto the roof before I got the chance. I wasn't sure whether or not to be happy about it. I was still alive... but living without Gerard was about the same as being dead. Actually, I would have rather been dead than have to sit alone her, trying to cope with the reality that I would never see Gerard again... ever.

I waited around in the house for two weeks. That was when I realized that he really wasn't coming back.

Gunner had made it out alive, but just about every bone in his body was broken. I wasn't arrested because I had done it out of self-defense. It had seemed plausible, so that was what I had said to the officers.

Even as I had stood there and spoken to the officers about what happened, how they had kidnapped me and tried to kill me, I could feel Gerard's presence, the scattered fbers of his being wandering in the darkness as though they had been watching over me... like he had been all along.

Shame on me for falling for a ghost.

Shame on me for kissing him with my eyes shut so tight.

Now he was gone and all I had left were the memories of the eleven months I had lived here. I moved into Mikey's house in January... and I was leaving in November. I just decided that I couldn't bring myself to stay there. The house held too many painful memories.

So one day, I just packed up all my stuff. My posters, my clothes, my furniture and my bed sheets and everything inbetween. I had my suitcases down in the living room as I waited for Mikey to help me load it into the car and say goodbye.

There was one thing that I felt I had to do.

I walked down to the basement and into Gerard's room. It was still a mess down there. It made me smile as my eyes welled up. I couldn't help it. I walked over to the dresser, where I saw the paperweight bat once again. I picked it up, bracing myself to hear a voice, but the voice never came, and I knew that I must have stupid to think that it would have happened. I shook my head and put the paperweight down gently. I wiped the stray tear from my cheek and left the room.

I heard the door open. "Faye?" I heard Mikey call out.

I quickly made my up the stairs. "Hey, Mikes! I'm here..." I said, trying to smile.

"Faye, I'm so sorry about all this... Are you sure you want to leave?" he asked me.

I nodded. "Yeah... I couldn't bring myself to stay here if I wanted to..."

He nodded. "Alright," he said. Mikey knew he had to accept him. He had gone through the same thing. "I'll help you with your bags."

Mikey took two suitcases and I took the other two. My furniture was already in a moving van headed for my parents' house in Moorestown, New Jersey. He put his two in the backseat. I put my two in the trunk. We hugged each other.

"Is this goodbye?" he asked me.

"No... it's not goodbye," I said. "Because I'm not going away forever... I'll still come back and visit all the time," I told him. "I swear on it."

"Pinky swear?" he asked me, holding up his pinky like he had when we were kids.

I laughed and locked my pinky with his. "Pinky swear."

He smiled and opened the door to the car for me. "See you," I said, waving as I got in and closed the door. I drove off, but over the two hours, I couldn't help but feel like even though I was starting over again, I was just going back home... going back to the way I started.

And I hated it.