Fickle Reticence

“Mikey, I think something’s really wrong with Gerard,” Frank says breathlessly. He’d run back the entire way from Gerard’s room, and his lungs are burning. It’s both cold and slippery out, so he’s pretty impressed that he didn’t slip or something. It seemed important to get back to Mikey though. He knows way more about Gerard.

“What?” Mikey asks looking up, “why? What’s wrong?”

“Gerard saw the fucking handout thing, for the Christian thing. Gerard had this black eye, it was awful, Mikes. I don’t know who gave Gee the black eye, and Gee wouldn’t tell me!”

“Whoa whoa, wait,” Mikey says holding his hands up, “Gerard has a black eye?”

“Yes! I just told you that. I don’t know where it came from, but it was there!” Frank says, clutching the stitch in his side.

“Tell me exactly, and I mean exactly what happened. Don’t leave out any small details,” Mikey says.

“What? Ugh, fine. I went to the dorm, knocked on the door, and Gerard told me to go away, but wouldn’t open the door. There was like moving around and shit, then Gerard came to the door, and there was this black eye staring me right in the face.”

Mikey nods, “okay, and I don’t mean this in a creepy sense at all, but what was Gee wearing. Was it girly clothes or more guy-like?”

“I guess... I mean I’d say more guyish.”

“This may sound weird but was there a distinct... um, sort of I guess, a burning smell?”

“What? Why would that matter?” Frank asks.

“It just does to me, okay? I know how to deal with Gerard, I know what happens when things get to be too much,” Mikey replies.

“What do you mean? What happens?”

Mikey stands up, and grabs a jacket, pulling it on, while he tries to organize his thoughts, “Just answer please. Burning smell or not?”

Frank’s eyebrows draw together, as he watches Mikey and he says, “Yes, so?”

“Fuck,” Mikey says, and then he starts swearing to himself in a long string.

“What? What!”

“Stay here, I’ll be back,” Mikey says, “but fuck... I am going to kill Gerard.”

“Why? What’d he do?”

“I’ll see you later,” Mikey says shortly, and then the door is slamming shut behind him. Frank is left standing in the middle of the room. He can’t exactly follow behind, because it’d piss of the already really pissed off Mikey. Frank doesn’t have a death wish, thank you very much.

Mikey stomps to Gerard’s room. No word works better than stomps, because he looks angry even with every step. He’s a lanky kid, but in this state, just about anyone would let him walk past, because he looks like he’s out for blood.

He enters the dorm, walks over to the hall, and then finds Gerard’s door. Mikey takes a deep breath before rapping his knuckles against the door.

“Gee, you open this fucking door right now, or so help me god, I will rip both your arms out of their sockets,” Mikey says slamming his fists against the door.

“No,” Gerard answers resolutely.

“Do you think for one second that I won’t punch the fucking door down, because you underestimate me?”

“Please go away.”

“I’m going to kill you one way or another,” Mikey states.

“Then why would I open the door to let you in?”

“The brawd who lives there is weird, bro. It ain’t worth it,” a guy says from behind Mikey and he turns, ready to kill a bitch.

“Do you really want to test me, man, because I will mess you the fuck up. I am not even sort of kidding,” Mikey warns him, and the guy scampers off. Mikey has the scariest angry face in the world, especially to those who spend a lot of time with him, because his angry face is actually different than his other faces.

“Gerard. Door,” Mikey says simply.

It takes a few moments but the door opens, and Mikey gives Gerard the most severe ‘you’re in trouble’ look that has ever graced this earth.

“What the fuck were you fucking thinking?”

“Can you wait until I close the door?” Gerard asks, cringing at Mikey’s yelling.

“Alright,” he waits until the door makes a clicking noise and then repeats, “What the fuck were you fucking thinking?”

“I didn’t do anything, Mikes!”

“No? Really? Burning smell? So what did Frank smell, was someone having a campfire in here or something?”

“Okay fine,” Gerard says, “I’ll own up to wanting to do something, but Frank, he... I don’t know. He like interrupted me, and then I started rethinking things. It sort of made me feel bad thinking about how what Frank would think about me if he knew.”

“Gerard, I can’t believe you. You know I can’t believe you,” Mikey says solemnly. “I want to believe you, because I don’t want you to ever hurt yourself again, but I just can’t believe that you didn’t.”

“I didn’t, I swear! I thought of how you would react, like you are right now and it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. It was worse thinking about Frank’s reaction.”

“You’re damn right it isn’t the right thing to do,” Mikey says, “because if you’re lying to me, I will eviscerate you.”

“That sounds quite painful,” Gerard responds.

“Damn right,” Mikey says, “but you didn’t?”

“I didn’t. Three years is a long time, Mikey. It’s too long to throw down a drain,” Gerard replies, making the most sincere face possible.

“But there’s a lighter in here, at least. There has to be,” Mikey says, deciding that Gerard’s telling the truth, “and you’re going to give it to me.”

“Yeah alright,” Gerard replies, turning around and picking up a small lighter from on the bookshelf in the corner of the room. “Happy now?”

“No, not really,” Mikey says, “you threw up such a fuss, and now this fucking Christian club has thrown you back a million steps. I don’t want to see you tear yourself up again. I don’t want to see you hurt yourself again.”

“But I didn’t!”

“But you almost did,” Mikey retorts.

“It’s fine though.”

“It’s not fine, I’m not anymore happy about this then you are.”

“They don’t want me here, Mikes,” Gerard says, “that hurts, not being accepted. I mean really, who does?”

“I do, and I’m sure Frank does.”

“Two people. Woohoo, look at me. Two whole motherfucking people who care about me.”

“It would be more if you let people in, but you don’t. You sit in your room feeling sorry about yourself, crying over the fact that you have no friends, but you don’t get up and go make more,” Mikey says.

“Are we going to do this again?” Gerard groans.

“Well we are if you keep doing this self-loathing thing again. I told you already, Gerard. It doesn’t have to leave a scar to count.”

“But people only care if you leave a mark,” Gerard says softly. Gerard turns and sits down on the edge of the bed.

“I’m not going to say that’s untrue, but that’s only most people. I care when you’re sad, Gee. I don’t need to see the physical part to believe that it’s there,” Mikey answers.

“What did I do? What did I do to deserve this shit? I don’t know why I’m the target of all this stupid stuff. I don’t know what I did,” Gerard whimpers.

“You didn’t do anything, and it’s pretty damn awful that people are blaming you for this,” Mikey says, “because I know you didn’t choose this. I know you wouldn’t.”

“Why do they hate me though, Mikes?”

“’They’ would be this club? That who gave you the shiner?”

“Some big bulky guy. I saw that flyer thing, and I... I mean I tore the thing down,” Gerard says, “because it offended me, as it should.”

“I did that too, I hoped you wouldn’t find one of those flyers. I really tried to get rid of them.”

“Apparently people kept tearing them up, so there was a guy watching to make sure no one did that. I mean, I didn’t see him or anything, he was standing in the corner. Apparently people remembered me even after I left for a few months,” Gerard explains, “remembered the weirdo cross-dresser.”

Mikey rolls his eyes at the term, because there’s nothing he can do to put that word back into Gerard’s mouth, “So he hit you because of... because of who you are?”

“I think so. I didn’t stay too long to ask,” Gerard shrugs. “I didn’t do anything to him though. I just took down a flyer. That’s all.”

“I know, Gerard. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry that I’m all fucked up, or sorry that the guy punched me?”

“I’m not going to go through the thing where you call yourself messed up again, Gerard. If you try that, I will give you a matching bruise on your left eye, got it?”

“Right, sorry,” Gerard waves the apology mindlessly.

“First thing tomorrow, I’m going to talk to someone in charge about this,” Mikey says, “technically, they can do whatever the hell they want, freedom of religion and all, but we might be able to talk the school into banning them advertising it. We can try making it forbidden to put up any more flyers.”

Gerard shrugs, “it’s worth a shot, I guess.”