Fickle Reticence

Frank sits in the library trying to come up with a plan for several minutes before he decides he can’t wait any longer. He packs up his stuff and runs out of the library. The cold is discomforting, but he doesn’t stop until he gets to his building. He then walks quickly down the hall to his room, and pulls his door open, to reveal Mikey sitting on his bed with a book in his hand.

“Hey Frank,” Mikey says, not looking up.

“Mikey, I need to know where Gerard’s dorm is,” Frank says, wasting no time with pleasantries.

“Why? And you can’t see Gerard today. Gerard is-”

“A girl? Yeah, I saw.”

Mikey who’d been looking at his book with bored eyes, practically jumps up in surprise at Frank’s words. He puts his book down, and looks at Frank intently, saying absolutely nothing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mikey says, and the lie is so plainly written on his face, that Frank thinks he might as well have told Frank that he’s really Lucille Ball in disguise.

“Cut the shit, Mikes,” Frank says, “I saw Gerard in the library, dressed as a chick. Either that was Gerard or you slipped something in my coffee this morning when I wasn’t looking.”

Mikey shakes his head, and grabs his book, “I am not talking about this with you, Frank.”

“That’s why I asked you where he lives! You can’t expect me to just pretend I didn’t see what I saw, because I did,” Frank exclaims.

“You’re just tired, you stayed up late last night.”

“I am not insane, Mikey!” Frank yells, sounding angrier than he’d hoped too, “I want to know what’s going on. Gerard ran away from me before I could ask, and that’s not exactly fair to me.”

“Life isn’t fair, Frank,” Mikey says monotonously.

Frank, whose temper is rising because of the way that Mikey is completely disregarding him, yanks the book away from Mikey’s fingers. He’d understand Mikey not wanting to discuss the topic, but to call Frank crazy is crossing a line.

“Mikey, no offense, but you’re being a bitch. Do you see me insulting him? No, I’m not, I just want to know what’s going on! I think that’s a reasonable thing to ask for. Gerard is someone I’m acquainted with enough to know what’s going on,” Frank says.

“It’s just not something my family is comfortable talking about, Frank,” Mikey says grabbing the book back from Frank. “Especially Gerard.”

“I’m not trying to be mean here, Mikey! How would you feel if you were just trying to do your work and then a guy you know, who you even consider a friend, is sitting across from you dressed as a girl? Yes, I’ll say it, I was freaked out at first, but now I just want to know what’s going on! What do you want me to say? I’m not judging? I’m not, if that helps! I just want to know what the hell is up,” Frank states.

“Okay, so what happened then? You were at the library, you saw a person that looked like Gerard, and you called her name or something? Then she ran away. Wouldn’t that be a good tell for you to keep your nose out of it?”

“Mikey!” Frank says desperately.

“What? If she doesn’t want to talk to you, she doesn’t have to. It’s not my choice who she talks to. I don’t want you to bother her if she doesn’t want to see you, okay? No matter how you feel, Gerard is still my sibling, and I will respect Gee’s right to privacy.”

“But I-” Frank doesn’t know how to respond, because Mikey does make a pretty good point, but he’s still so confused.

“It’s not like you have any divine right to know everything about Gerard. Believe me, this is much harder on Gee than it is on you.

“But why?” Frank asks.

“Because she’s extremely self-conscious, and you probably scared her shitless.”

“I’m not trying to be rude about it, Mikey. I just want answers.”

“And maybe you’ll have them, maybe you won’t. It’s not my place to decide. Anyway, it’s not about you. It’s about Gerard. This isn’t about the way you’ll treat Gee, it’s about the way that Gee will feel about themself. I’m not in a place to risk that it’s going to hurt Gee, so until I know how Gerard feels about you knowing, Frank. I’m not going to talk about it.”

“You are so... gah!” Frank shouts, and he walks over to his bed before collapsing, and burying his head in a pillow.

“I’m not being unreasonable, and I think you know that,” he says, “just let the situation cool down, okay? When I’m confident that it’s an okay time to ask Gerard, or have you ask yourself, then I will, but for now, let it be.”

“Well when will that be?” Frank asks.

“It’s not like I have a schedule for this or anything. You weren’t supposed to find out like this,” Mikey says.

“Find out what?” he asks with irritation.

“I’m not going to fall for that, dumbass,” Mikey says, “please, let me handle it for now.”

Mikey gets up and Frank watches him from his place on the bed. He watches Mikey pull on a coat like he’s getting ready to go out.

“So when you say I wasn’t supposed to find out like this does that mean, I was supposed to find out in some other way?”

Mikey sighs, “Well I wanted you to know. I still do, if I’m going to be honest. It’s just that Gerard is having a lot of trouble accepting it on their own, and just isn’t in the right headspace to tell people yet.”

“Just... I mean, I want you to know whatever it is that’s going on, if Gerard is like, uh, transgender or something, I’m not upset about that. I mean, it’s fine to me, I just, I mean I guess I want to know why he had to run away. Or she, or they,” Frank says, stumbling on the correction. Mikey had said ‘they’ so Frank tries to file that knowledge away for the future.

~*~*~*~

“He freaked out, Mikey! I swear to god, he must hate me.”

“Frank told me that all that happened was he saw you, and then you ran away,” Mikey replies.

“Well of course I ran away. What if he yelled at me or something! What if he’d gotten really fucking pissed off and tried to call me out in front everyone in the library or something.”

“You know Frank. You do, and you know he wouldn’t do that. He’s really easygoing, Gee.”

“But I totally scared him, I know I did. How does he not hate me? I hate me!”

“You’re being hard on yourself. Frank told me that he wasn’t upset or anything. He was a little offended actually that you ran away. He thinks you’re mad at him, and I can’t say I really blame him,” Mikey explains.

“But I didn’t want him to know, Mikes! I still don’t want him to know, it’s not fair that he found out when I didn’t even choose to tell him myself. If I was going to tell him, I’d have wished I’d actually told him.”

“I understand, Gee. I do, but it’s too late now. What happened happened, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

“But-”

“No but’s, no what if’s. It’s done, so you just have to try to accept that, and move on from here. Frank isn’t upset, though. At least you know that. You were nervous that he’d be angry or abandon you, but Frank isn’t that type of person.”

“He could be though, Mikey,” Gee says, doing just about anything to convince herself that she’s screwed up, “maybe he really is upset and you didn’t see it.”

“Or maybe you’re being too harsh on yourself,” Mikey says. “You needed to open yourself up to someone anyway, maybe this is your chance! Maybe deep down you know that, and that’s what’s got you bugging out so much. You were already there when Frank sat down, so why didn’t you just leave?”

“Because I thought that would draw more attention! I freaked out, okay. I freaked out, so I hid myself from him, and then I guess I thought I was still hidden, but I was wrong, and now I’ve royally messed everything up.”

“You have to just calm down. Just breathe, just get your feet back underneath you. Are you going to be okay with talking to Frank maybe? He’s not mad, remember.”

“But maybe he would be if I talked to him,” she answers.

“Or maybe he wouldn’t be. He said it to me, directly to me that he wasn’t angry, so it’s very possible that he was telling the truth about that. In fact, I’d say that’s the most likely possibility.”

Gee groans, “What if he doesn’t understand?”

“Make him understand! Explain it to him if you have to, and try to remember who we’re talking about. This is Frank, a guy who cries during Toy Story 3-”

“Everyone cries during Toy Story 3.”

Mikey has to admit that Gee’s right about that one, “Well still. He’s not very intimidating. I mean, he really isn’t. He’s a good person, and so are you, so just let him in.”

“And if you’re wrong about him?”

“Like I said earlier. If I’m wrong, you have my permission to kick me in the balls,” Mikey says.

“I don’t really want to,” Gee answers, wrinkling her nose.

“Well you might not say that if I turn out to be wrong about Frank. Besides, I’m pretty sure that I’m not wrong about Frank, so I don’t think I really have that much to worry about.”

“We’ll see.”

“Is that a yes?” Mikey asks, crossing his fingers.

“It’s not a no, but it’s not a yes.”

“It’s good enough for me.”