Play The Field.

To this day, I think that the worst kind of physical pain I ever experienced in my life was having my nose broken. Even later on, when there were times that every bone in my body ached, it still didn't equal that pain.

Mom drove me to the hospital immediately after she called my father, all of us still clad in our pajamas. She hadn't asked me what had happened yet, but it was only a matter of time before I had to answer her... and what would I say? From the threatening looks Gerard was giving me in the rearview mirror, I knew that this was only the beginning if I told the truth... but it didn't seem right to just let him get away with something like that.

Blood continued to trickle out of my nose the entire way to the hospital, slowly dying both my skin and my clothing a dark, sinister red. My entire skull was throbbing painfully, as if someone was repeatedly slamming a rail spike deep into it and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop the tears pouring from my eyes like a waterfall. I raised my hand to wipe some of the blood off my upper lip and accidentally pressed up against my nose, causing a loud yelp to spew from my mouth.

"Jesus Mikey, won't you stop fucking crying?" Gerard asked, turning in his seat to shoot me another one of his almost murderous glares. Before I could even think of an answer, my mother's right hand flew off of the steering wheel and her open palm connected with Gerard's cheek, creating a sharp, crisp sound. For seconds afterwards, there was silence from all three of us. I'd never seen my mother hit anyone, even in a joking manner, so this was a major shock.

Apparently she thought the same; she simply stared at her hand for a moment, as if trying to convince herself that she'd done such a thing. Gerard reached up to tenderly touch where his skin was now a bright red, his eyes void of all emotion. Eventually, he just turned to look at my mom with that same look in his eyes, that awful emptiness.

"I don't want you hanging around Joey anymore," Mom whispered, her attention now firmly back on the road. "I don't like what's happening to you, Gerard. You're turning into a rude young man."

"Whatever," he muttered, folding his arms across his chest and turning to stare out the window. For the rest of the trip, he stayed silent but the rage pouring off of him was almost literally visible; to be purely honest, it terrified me that my formerly nice, role model of a brother was turning into such a monster.

Luckily, we only had to wait in the emergency room a few minutes before a doctor said he would see us. He only had to take a quick look at me to confirm that I did indeed have a broken nose but he also said that it wouldn't take too long to repair it. To be quite honest, I was terrified of what he was going to do to me; my overactive mind rather thought that he was simply going to grab my nose and literally twist it back into shape.

However, it was really nothing like that. The only part that hurt at all was when he injected the area around my nose with a thing he called "anesthesia." I didn't really know what it meant but it severely dulled the pain that had been echoing in my skull; I was still aware of it but more as a background thought rather than something that was front page news in my head. Once the full effect of the freezing had set in, the doctor set about gently touching my nose, moving certain parts of it. After awhile, I shut my eyes and simply held still, trying to ignore the dulled feeling of the little bones moving beneath my skin.

After only ten minutes, I felt the doctors hands vanish from my face and I cracked one eye open, hoping that he didn't plan on using some weird, sharp object on me now that the preliminary work was done. However, he was merely standing a few feet away, smiling widely.

"Now I think that will set just fine," he said, tilting his head a bit. "You must be very careful however not to bump it again, otherwise surgery may be required. Do you understand, Michael?' I nodded frantically, eager to just get the hell out of the almost blindingly white treatment room and it's faint smell of disinfectant.

"Well then, as soon as your mom signs some sheets, you're free to go."

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When Mom and I headed back out to the waiting room, my Dad had arrived from work and was sitting beside Gerard, who was obviously still fuming. He sent me another glare before returning to staring down at the ground, arms crossed across his chest. I grabbed Mom's hand, looking away from him. I couldn't understand why he was so mad at me; I was sure that he'd be back hanging out with Joey at the end of the week, and things would be back to normal.

My estimate was off; the very next morning, Joey was once again at my house, with an apology for both my Mom and me. He said that he was very sorry for using such a horrible word around me and admitted that he didn't actually know what it meant. I watched him say all this while peeking around the corner of the living room entrance and I couldn't believe that my mom actually believed him.

Sure, he did sound sincere enough, pulling all the right cards and guilt trips at just the right times, but his eyes...

They weren't sincere at all. Instead, they were cold, black orbs that didn't have any guilt at all within them. I knew that he knew what a fag meant. And I intended to find out.

"How you doin' Mikes?" Joey asked as he headed towards Gerard's room, sending me a wink as he passed.

"Fine," I whispered, slinking back into the living room and returning to my spot on the couch, just as my mother happened to walk into the room, looking much happier than she'd been when Joey had first arrived.

"Maybe he's not such a bad boy," she said, sitting down beside me and flicking the television to one of her soap operas she watched religiously. "Do you think I maybe overreacted a bit Mikey?" I merely shrugged and climbed up into her lap, letting my head drop onto her shoulder. After awhile, I let my eyes droop shut as my mom hummed softly. It always made me feel better when she did that; it was almost as comforting as when Frank hugged me.

Just thinking of Frank made me kind of sad. From what he'd told me, from the few things he let slip, his mom didn't usually have anything to do with him, instead preferring to spend her days either locked inside her room or taking off, leaving Frank alone. Those were the times when he came over, spending a few hours with me until she got home.

But it didn't seem right that someone so fragile and so kind had to go through something like that. It wasn't right that my mother treated him better than his own. And although I thought Mr. Iero was a very nice man, it didn't seem right that he let Frank go through all of this.

If I thought things were bad now, they were only about to get worse. The day that I found out what a fag actually was, that Friday, was the day that everything in the Iero household just went to absolute hell.

And I was there to witness it all.