So Long and Goodnight...

You finally arrived at the concert venue at 8:47 and you were the first one out of the car.

Looking around the parking lot you could see that this was your kind of concert.

Kids with baggy clothes, eyeliner, piercings, crazy beautiful hair, and rock-mosher attitudes were heading in large crowds toward the ticket booth in front of the huge outdoor venue.
You reached into the car and yanked Frank out by his arm.

"Come on, come on, come on," you said jumping up and down.

You were really excited now.

Ray got out of the car, laughing followed by Gerard and Mikey.

Gerard smiled at your excitement he LOVED surprising his friends and it was ten times better when they were totally excited about it.

Bob got out, pushing Mikey out of the way and Mikey, intrigued by the opportunity to act like an idiot, ran around to your side of the car.

He watched you as you jumped, his head following your movements.

You suddenly became aware of someone jumping up and down right next to you.

You turned your head and glared at Mikey, never pausing in your attempt to burn off some of your overwhelming energy.
Mikey flashed you his famous innocent child smile and you stopped jumping, followed quickly by Mikey.

The others were apparently having a ball watching the two of you.

They were all laughing somewhat.

You smiled suddenly and stepped playfully toward Mikey.

"Race you to the ticket booth," you said slyly and gave him a semi-hard push in the other direction.

You sprinted off toward the venue entrance laughing loud and apparently disturbing the "Goth vibe" of a group of scary looking kids not far from you.

They glared at you as you flew past.

"Hey," Mikey yelled after you receiving the same evil glare.

"Not fair! You got a head start!"

"Excuses, excuses, Michael. Come on," you taunted, pausing in your running and turning to see Mikey finally sprinting after you.

You reached the entrance easily first but REALLY regretted it as soon as Mikey caught up with you.

He stopped a little short and bent to catch his breath he was obviously having trouble doing it.

You took several cautious steps toward him.

"Mikey," you asked, gently placing a hand on his back. "Are you okay?"

You wanted to kick yourself in the face right now.
How the fuck could you FORGET that he had asthma?
Everyone thought he'd grow out of it and he had ...a little bit.
You had to admit it wasn't as bad as when you were all little kids, playing tag in the Ways big back yard before Bob was even around.

Mikey didn't even need his inhaler anymore ...or he chose not to use it.
...You weren't exactly sure which one it was.

You stood watch over Mikey like a hawk, silently vowing to rip out the throat of anyone who viewed him as easy prey.

You were worried. Mikey's wheezing still wasn't easing up and it was pretty bad.

A second later, though you felt his muscles tense up and realized your mistake.

This time he was faking and you fell for it.

"Ha-ha. Gotcha," Mikey yelled as he sprang up and leaped for you.

You may have fell for the joke but you were faster than him.

Jumping back away from him, you turned and ran to the other side of the parking lot away from the side Gerard had parked his car on.

You were amazed.

Mikey caught up with you and passed you easily.

You stopped in your tracks and stared at him unbelieving.

He walked back to you smiling, not even breaking a sweat.
You were in absolute awe and it finally hit you what all this meant.

"You outgrew it, didn't you? You finally outgrew your asthma!"

"Yeah," Mikey said smiling wide. "I guess all that hard work I did finally paid off, huh?"

"OH MY GOD," you yelled as you leaped on him, wrapping your arms and legs around him in a hug that seemed like it would squeeze the life out of him. "Mikey, I'm so happy for you. You worked so hard for so long and you finally did it! You finally beat it!"

You let a small sob of happiness escape your throat and Mikey hugged you tighter.

Behind you, you heard Frank laugh.

"You must've told her, Mikey."

"Yeah," Mikey replied laughing as you released him from your death grip.

"You guys knew about this the whole time," you asked accusingly as Gerard, Bob, and Ray appeared.

"I asked them not to tell you," Mikey said jumping to their defense. "I wanted to show you. I knew you'd be proud."

"I am proud, Mikey," you said smiling as you hugged him again.

"I've never seen anyone work as hard as you have for this."

And he had worked hard: lifting weights, exercising, running, basically anything he could do to expand his lung capacity and it had all finally paid off.

Mikey didn't have asthma anymore.

"HELENA!" you heard someone scream from behind you and you turned around just a split second before Brooke jumped into your arms and Autumn and Raven walked up laughing.

"Holy shit!" you said excitedly, setting Brooke down gently on her feet and walking over to hug Autumn and Raven.
"What're you guys doing here?"

"Mom surprised us with tickets," Raven said jumping up and down. "She only told us we were going out of town so we wouldn't make other plans."

"Did she come with you guys?" you asked anxiously.

"Yeah. Turn around," Autumn said smiling.

You turned around and saw Avril, (Autumn and Ravens mom, who you had officially adopted as your own mother along with Gerard and Mikey's mom) walking toward you through the rows of parked cars.

MOMMY!!! ...kinda...

You ran the twenty feet to get to her and threw your arms around her neck, knocking her back a few steps.

"Hi, mom!" you squealed laughing.

"Hi, Helena!" she said smiling and hugged you again. "I haven’t seen you in such a long time."

"Too long," you agreed.

"How have you been," she asked pointedly.

What she meant but would NEVER say was 'How's your asshole of a father been treating you since the last time?'

The last time you'd seen her you were crying so hard that you couldn't breathe and you had bruises everywhere because daddy had had a bad day.

He'd stayed out drinking until 3 in the morning.

When finally he stumbled through the door he was still angry at life and angry that his unruly teenage daughter had ruined his life so he ripped you out of your bed and beat the living shit out of you.

It was bad.

Avril wanted to take you to the hospital but you begged her not to take you because if anyone got the police involved your father would make you physically suffer for as long as he thought he could get away with it then he would kill you and you knew that they would never find the body.

The whole time he was hitting you that night he was screaming:

"you made me do it."

"Its all your fault."

"You're the reason they're both gone."

...All but confessing to killing your mother and sister.

You did blame yourself ...everyday.

"If only Id been a better daughter..."

"If I wouldn't have been so difficult..."

"If I had listened to him more..."

You blamed yourself for your fathers slow spiral into hell and, in turn, the eventually death (the correct word was MURDER) of your mother and sister so the words your father screamed found your fragile veins easily and stung like the venom from a deadly rattlesnake.

Your friends and Don and Donna and Avril and Joel (Autumn and Ravens dad) all knew the truth but hadn't gone to the police for the same reason you refused to go to the hospital that night.

They feared that if the police were told they would never see you alive again.

The truth was that the night before the accident your sister and mother had been planning to take you and Brooke to a concert.

You were going to stay the night at Brooke's house then the next night both of you would be picked up and taken to the concert for a fun filled night of extreme rockage, Olive Garden, and an extremely late movie. (Your sisters’ boyfriends’ dad at that time owned the movie theater and had agreed to open it for you after the concert.)

It was to be the best damn night of your young life.

The day you left for Brooke's your father had kept insisting that something was wrong with your mother’s car and that he have a look at it.

Finally just to get him off her back she gave in.

There definitely was something wrong, you could feel it in the air, but you knew for a fact that it wasn't with your mothers car.

Still, you went to Brooke's anyway and the next night, a half hour after the concert was supposed to have started, a police officer showed up on Brooke's doorstep to inform you that you no longer had a mother or sister.

So much for the best night of your life.

You were supposed to have gone to a Simple Plan concert and 30 Seconds to Mars was going to open for them with your favorite song.

Simple Plan had always been, for all four of you, the favorite band and "From Yesterday" (the song 30 Seconds was supposed to open with) was pretty much the anthem shared by you, your mother, and your sister.

It would come on in the radio in the car and you would turn it up all the way and belt it out together.

That was then, though.

Now the song just brought back every bittersweet memory you tried so hard to bury.

You snapped out of the seriously deep trance you were in and turned your attention back to Avril.

"I've ...been ...good," you said as your gaze drifted inescapably to the pavement at your feet.

Avril knew you were lying and gently slid her hand under your chin, forcing you to look at her.

"Helena," she asked calmly. "...Has he been ...hitting you again?"

You didn't want to look her in the eye, didn't want to tell her the truth. You didn't want to be here.

You held her gaze for a few more seconds, silently pleading with her to just forget about all of it, then the tears began filling your eyes and you looked away.

You felt Avril take her hand away and put it over her mouth to stifle a helpless sob.

"How bad," she asked after she had calmed down a bit.

"Not bad," you mumbled still not able to look her in the eye.

"Don't fucking lie to me Helena," she sobbed, tears spilling from her eyes and running like rivers down her cheeks. "I want the fucking truth. How bad is it?"

You let half a minute go by without answering her.

You were hoping she would just walk away and forget about it, (your defense for every problem in your life) but you knew she would not so, tentatively you rolled up the sleeve of franks oh so cherished hoodie and showed her the angry looking bruise.

She stared blankly at the blackish-red looking handprint and after a few eternally silent seconds, blinked the tears from her eyes and pulled your sleeve gently back down.

She looked into your eyes and you suddenly felt at peace.
For a split second you saw your own mother staring back at you.

Avril opened her mouth to speak but you held up a hand to stop her.

"Look, there’s nothing you can do, okay? I appreciate the concern but stop kidding yourself. My dads a fucking mechanic for Christs' sake. He is a friend to every cop in the city. He gives them constant discounts and sucks up to them like an expert. Every cop on the force thinks he's a goddamn angel. No ones going to believe he's beating his teenage daughter ...let alone care."

You imitated what the reaction of the cop would be.

"Fuck, if a guy that upstanding is beating his daughter ...well hell the little bitch probably deserves it, right?"

Avril looked away defeated.

You made one hell of a good point.

"Helena, you may be right about that but if you don't get out of there ...I'm afraid that he's going to kill you one of these days."

Knowing she was absolutely right you gazed yet again at the familiar blacktop you were standing on.

"I know," you whispered helplessly.

After another few seconds of suffocating silence she out her arm around you and together you walked up to join the waiting group.

"Ok," Frank said frantically. "We gotta go now or were gonna miss the opening!"

"Definitely wouldn't wanna do that," Gerard said winking at you.

They all started jogging up to the ticket booth and after Gerard handed the guy every ones tickets he gently grabbed your wrist and led you to the entrance of the venue.

Before you got a chance to peek in and see whose name was on the backdrop of the huge stage, Gerard stepped behind you and put his hands over your eyes.

He was so close to you.

You couldn't help but smile.

He guided you gently forward and gradually the sound of a lot of restless people filled your ears.

You didn't want to trip over something and look like a complete idiot so you just kind of froze up and stopped moving.

You felt Gerard's lips and hot breath as he whispered something into your ear.

"Trust me," he said gently.

...it wasn't fair, really.

Your heart had never given you a choice.