So Long and Goodnight...

Gerard’s P.O.V.

I was leaning against a wall in the dirty, deserted alleyway behind the venue the band had played tonight and I was halfway through a cigarette when I heard what sounded like a girl crying. Before I could even totally process the sound my mind took me back to another time and place.

It was summer and I was heading to the skate park to kill a few hours. I was just passing Helena’s house when I stopped and tilted my head to the side, listening. I thought I’d heard someone crying and I was right. I couldn’t see anyone on the porch but I could hear them so without using the stairs, I set my board on the grass and hopped up on the half wall that surrounded the front porch and perched there. Directly below me was Helena, curled in a ball, crying softly. She still hadn’t noticed me. I silently stretched out along the top of the wall, laying on my stomach and got my head about an inch away from her ear.

I waited a few seconds then said: “HEY!”

She jumped up and turned to face me looking about ten times more pale than usual. When she saw it was me she rolled her eyes.

“Gerard, you bastard. I almost killed you.”

“Yeah I could tell by the way you jumped out of your skin like that,” I joked. “Scariest moment of my life. Bar none.”

She came closer and shoved me playfully and sat back down on the porch beneath me.

“So what’s wrong?” I asked gently. “Why are you crying and who do I have to beat?”

She laughed softly and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “No one. It’s just …my parents are fighting again. Well …dad’s fighting with mom again. He …he’s drunk.”

“Already? It’s only 1:00.” I said only half joking.

“Yeah well …he has different standards.”

“More like no standards,” I mumbled. “And April?” I questioned wondering why she wasn’t out here comforting her like she always did.

“At the mall with some guy. She invited me but it would’ve been really awkward. Now I’m kind of wishing I’d gone.”

“Well you could just hang with me instead.”

“Where you off to?”

“Skate park to try and look punk and shit. Wanna come?”

“I don’t know how to skateboard.”

“Even better. I can teach you.”

“I’ll look like an idiot.”

“But you’ll be my idiot,” I said sweetly, placing a hand over my heart. “And I promise to beat the shit out of anyone who makes fun of you. Deal?”

She pursed her lips in thought and tilted her head back to look up at me with her soft and breathtaking baby blue eyes. “Ok,” she said. “Deal.”

At the skate park, after I’d warmed up a bit and (I’ll admit it) showed off for her. I showed her how to balance on the board (without having to hold on to my shoulders) and I started teaching her her first trick: an Old School Impossible. I did it a few times to show her how it was done and then I let her try …and tried not to laugh when she fell on her ass.

“Are you okay?” I asked hiding my laughter as much as I could as I stepped over her and held a hand down to her to help her up.

“No, Gerard.” She said laughing so hard she was almost crying. “I’m not o-fucking-kay. I think I just broke my ass.”

Ever since then “I’m not o-fucking-kay” had been an inside joke of ours and always our first and most natural response to the question “are you okay”. Since we were both extremely accident-prone …we got asked that a lot.

I had my eyes closed watching that memory play through my head like a clip from a movie and I fought to hold on to it as it faded from my mind; the color of her eyes, the smell of her skin, the healing sound of her laughter …the way it broke my heart to see or hear her cry; but the memory faded and I was thrown reluctantly back into reality.

Toward the dark end of the alley, I could still hear the girl crying. The pessimist in me warned that I shouldn’t go back there. I was probably going to get jumped or robbed or something. This was downtown ghetto knock-you-the-fuck-out LA. It wasn’t a very far-fetched thought. But the sympathetic, concerned side of me wouldn’t stop asking me what I would do if it was Helena out here all alone in some dark ass creepy alley somewhere crying. Could I ever walk away from her? The answer was no. So I sighed, dropped my cigarette, put it out with the heel of my shoe, gritted my teeth, and started walking quietly toward the sound.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I got closer to the end of the alley, I saw the outline of a figure huddled against the back wall. She didn’t even seem to notice she wasn’t alone anymore and I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the poor girl to make her feel like this.

I tried to sound as friendly and non-threatening as possible as I stopped a few feet away from her and said: “Miss, are you okay?”

She didn’t look up when she replied. She didn’t even move. But she might as well have punched me in the stomach because when she did find the strength to reply to my question, it was as if all the air had been sucked from my lungs and it felt like I would never breathe again.

“No,” She sobbed. “I’m not o-fucking-kay.”

Everything my brother had said in the dressing room, every single word of Helena’s note, every tear my shirt had ever soaked up, every smile I ever had the honor of bringing to her perfect face, they all crashed over me like a Hell-bent tsunami and I could’ve sworn I was drowning. I wanted to believe the absolutely impossible thought that kept circling the air around my head but my brain was screaming at me not to believe a thing I was seeing or hearing. In my head and all around me there were suddenly so many sounds that I was sure my head was going to explode but then the girl slowly looked up and all the sounds (even the sound of her crying) abruptly stopped so that there was nothing but absolute silence and stillness. It was then that I found myself gazing into the most perfect and breathtaking pair of baby blue eyes that I had ever seen

…and they were no strangers to me.