The End

When Gerard called me up and said that he wanted to get together with the rest of the band, I knew something bad was going to happen. I grabbed what I needed, kissed Jamia goodbye, hugged the kids, and went out the door. As I was driving, I thought about My Chemical Romance and how far we had come in the past 12 years. I can honestly say I never want this band to end.
I stepped out of the car, into the cold wind, and wrapped my jacket closer to my body, shivering. I walked into the lobby and immediately saw Gerard, Mikey, and Toro waiting for me. I cast an uneasy glance their way, my heart beating faster with every possibility of what this could be. They all had sad looks, so I knew this wasn’t going anywhere good.
I cautiously stepped towards them, my steps the only sound in the blaring silence. I sat down on the reclining chair, across from Gerard and Mikey, and next to Ray.
Gerard started talking, "Listen, Frankie, we've been talking and… And we think its time for My Chemical Romance to end." I could feel the color drain from my face as he spoke. Of all the things I thought he was going to say, ending our band was not one of them.
"We are all starting different things, Ray wants to have a kid, Mikey and Alicia are divorced, and I need to work on my comics."
I could feel my whole body shaking with horror. What was happening? "You motherfuckers didn’t think to include me in this conversation?" I spat. I was angry. My Chemical Romance is - was - my life, and now we're ending it. What would that do to our fans?
Gerard sighed. "Look, we thought it was for the best. We knew that if we said anything before, you would try to make us stay, and that would make it harder." I got up and started pacing. Walking up to a wall, I punched it as hard as I could. Motherfucker that hurt.
"Fine," I spit out. "Fine, if that’s what everyone wants. My Chemical Romance is over. That make you happy?" I stormed out of the building, more sad than angry. My life just ended, my whole life other than my family.
The whole drive home I fought back tears. Frank Iero doesn’t cry over some band ending. Except this wasn’t some band, this was MCR, the most dangerous band in the world. But I would be strong, I couldn’t let Lily or Cherry or Miles see how much this affects me.
As soon as I got home, I logged onto My Chemical Romance's website. I saw that Gerard had already told the world of or breakup. He left our fans with only five lines. Five fucking lines.
I logged onto Twitter, and watched as our fans slowly realized what this meant. There was chaos, no one understood. I didn’t even understand. People were changing their icons to black to show respect to our decision.
I sighed. Sure I could always start another band, but it will never be the same as My Chem. That band was special. It saved lives. Whatever happened to Gerard saying 'this band keeps us alive'? If the band keeps us alive, then how will we live without it? Sure, that was years ago, but it still applies. Yeah, I have a family now, a wife and kids, but I felt like I belonged to MCR.
My notifications on Twitter were blowing up with questions and pictures and protests. I ignored them all, typing 'Things that should be simple and easy rarely ever are.' But of course, that wasn’t enough for the fans. They wouldn’t let us go. But we are already gone.
Cherry crawled into my lap as I watched people talk about the tears they were shedding over the break up. Unable to hold it back, I let a single tear run down my cheek as I wrapped my arms around Cherry.
"Daddy, what's wrong?" she asked, looking as concerned as she could, being so young.
I sighed and answered, "This is the end."