I Didn't Mean to Fall in Love (But I Did)

“So I saw Frank leaving with a dashing human being a few minutes ago, and bear in mind that I’m the heterosexual in the room, but even I saw that that was a beautiful man,” Mikey says, because he isn’t one for easing into a conversation. Mikey is subtle as Voldemort is polite. So in other words, he isn’t.

Gerard makes a face, and shivers at how disgusting it is that even his own brother is gaga over Aaron. Aaron can do no wrong, and he has a stupidly nice face. Gerard hates him.

“You don’t like said gentleman, I presume,” Mikey says.

“Why do you say that?”

“You just made a face like you ate a lemon,” Mikey replies, “and I don’t see any citrus fruits so I’m thinking you don’t like Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome.”

“That’s Frank’s boyfriend,” Gerard says.

“Oh, so that’s the enigmatic Aaron you hate so much! Given the pieces I was given, I really should’ve figured out that puzzle sooner,” Mikey says that last part more to himself than Gerard.

“Yeah you really should have. That’s Aaron, and I hate him. I hate him more than I hate fucking anything.”

“More than you hate the Vince Vaughn remake of Psycho?”

“Way more than I hate the Vince Vaughn remake of Psycho,” Gerard responds.

“Whoa dude. This is serious,” Mikey says, “so why do you hate him then?”

“I don’t know, I just do.”

“You have to give me an answer.”

“I,” Gerard starts, but he doesn’t have anything to say, “He’s too perfect.”

“A real answer.”

“I don’t know! I mean, I just don’t like him. I guess, I feel like I just don’t want Frank to be going out with people. I don’t know why. I really can’t explain it, okay? I just don’t like it,” Gerard says.

“Why though? You need a reason!”

“I don’t like it! I thought I wanted that for him, but now he’s getting too close to other people, and I don’t want him to be. I want him to spend time with me. I don’t know,” Gerard shrugs.

Mikey’s eyes widen and he asks, “Are you jealous? Are you jealous that he’s hanging out with Aaron instead of you?”

“I’m not... I’m not jealous! I just don’t like him being with someone else. He’s my best friend, I want him to hang out with me. He’s, like, the best person in my life. I don’t want him to forget about me, and spend more time with other people. I want him to spend time with me.”

“Gerard, you’re jealous,” Mikey says.

“I’m not!”

“Can you picture your life without Frank there?” Mikey questions.

“What? No! I don’t want to. I’d hate to live without him. Like, that’s the scariest thing in the fucking world. I don’t ever want to stop living with Frank, ever. I mean, I don’t know, I just feel, like I want him to always be there, until I’m all old and shit. I just really want him there for the rest of my life,” Gerard says, almost nonchalantly.

Mikey’s jaw has dropped so far that it’s almost stretched down to the floor, “Gerard, can you fucking hear yourself?”

“What? He’s my best friend, Mikes! I don’t want to lose him,” Gerard says.

“You’re jealous of Aaron.”

“I am not. Aaron is his boyfriend, why would I want to be-”

“Gerard, you’re in love with Frank,” Mikey states, with complete deadpan, “You’re in love with him! You want Frank with you for the rest of your life. You love him. You fucking love him!”

“I do not!” Gerard argues quickly, “I absolutely do not love him. How could you think that? I don’t love him, Mikey.”

“Yeah, you kinda do,” Mikey says.

“No, love is something different altogether. Frank is the best person I know, okay. He makes me really happy when he’s around, and he’s the best roommate in the world. I like seeing him happy, and seeing him happy makes me happy. He’s my best friend though.”

“Would you sleep with Frank if you could?”

“What!” Gerard asks, looking scandalized, “what? I’m not going to answer that! Mikey, that’s completely inappropriate.”

“You didn’t say no. You totally would, I know you would,” Mikey shakes his head. “You love Frank.”

“He’s my best friend.”

“You’re in love with him,” Mikey says.

“Frank is great, okay? Can I picture my life without him? No. Do I ever want to live without him? No. Do I want to see him every day for the rest of my life? Yes. Is he the nicest person I know? Yes. Is he the reason that I smile when I wake up every morning? Yeah. Does he make me laugh all the time without trying? Yes. All those things might be true, but... fuck.”

Mikey looks at him expectantly as Gerard’s whole face falls, and his eyes widen like a frog. He looks like he’s just had the biggest epiphany of his life. The biggest epiphany of anybody’s life.

“Mikey,” Gerard says worriedly, “Mikes, shit. Shit. Fuck!”

“What is it, Gerard?” Mikey asks completely stone-cold, because he knows precisely what it is.

“I think I’m in love with my best fucking friend,” Gerard says.

“Yes, Gerard.”

“Fuck! How did I not realize that? How could I have overlooked something as big as this? This is huge, Mikes. How did I not realize this?”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Mikey replies.

“Yes I am! I’m a huge, gigantic fucking idiot, who’s so fucking unbelievably stupid it hurts, because I fucking love Frank. Legitimately! I’m in love with him. I love that son of a bitch more than anything in the entire fucking world, and I cannot believe I didn’t know that!”

“I can’t believe you didn’t know that either!” Mikey says exasperatedly.

Gerard falls onto the counter with his back slumped, “how did I not figure that out?”

“You’re a lot dumber than I thought you were,” Mikey comments.

“Please no,” Gerard shakes his head, “no Mikey, don’t do that. This is fucking wrong. This is so messed up. I can’t believe... I can’t even believe this.”

Mikey frowns, because his normal sarcastic behavior is not exactly welcome right here and now.

“This is sick! I can’t be in love with Frank,” Gerard says, picking his head up, “but I fucking am. Oh fuck. Why do I have to be in love with Frank?”

“I have no idea,” Mikey says.

“Why did no one tell me?” he asks.

Mikey just looks at the lump on the counter and sighs. Mikey didn’t put two and two together until Gerard just practically announced it a minute ago. He almost lets the secret out that Frank’s in love with Gerard, but he stops himself. He doesn’t know whether that’s still true or not, because there’s a new guy in his life now. A new guy who isn’t Gerard. Also it’s not Mikey’s secret to tell.

“Dude, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“My life is over,” Gerard’s muffled voice says from where he’s stuck his head into his arm.

“You’re being a bit melodramatic.”

“I’m in love with my best friend who is dating the most perfect fucking human ever, and they’ll probably get married, and have little adopted babies that Aaron saved from some remote village in Uganda.”

“They’re not going to get married, Gerard. You’re just really emotional right now, because you figured out that you’re in love with someone you should have known you were in love,” Mikey says.

“Oh god, how long have I been in love with him? Has it been ever since he moved in? Jesus fuck, there were like four other people who wanted his room and I chose Frank, was that because I was falling in love with him already? Mikey, how did it take me five years to realize this?”

“I don’t know!” Mikey says, “You really should have, how did you not figure that out?”

“I literally am the dumbest person on the planet. I am dumber than Paris Hilton. I am so stupid.”

“Okay, calm down,” Mikey says, raising his arms like he’s ready to surrender, “just breathe in and out, okay? So, are we absolutely sure that you are indeed in love with Frank? Are you positive that’s what’s going on?”

“I think so?” He says, “I’ve never been in love before, what’s it supposed to feel like?”

“Tell me about Frank. In your own words, describe him,” Mikey instructs.

Gerard frowns and thinks for a moment, then he gets this little telling smile on his face, “He’s my best friend. I like hearing him talk, even when he’s talking about things I don’t care about. I like to look after him when he’s sick. When his nose is all red, and his limbs are too weak to even move, and he’s so innocent. I love the way his voice sounds when he’s singing in the shower, and doesn’t think anyone can hear him. I love the way that his given choice of shower song is usually Disney or a show tune. I like being around him, even when he’s angry at me.

“I miss him when he leaves the room for more than ten minutes. That’s how you feel when your best friend isn’t there though. The world just kind of seems less special if he’s not there. But that’s normal.”

“No it’s isn’t, you dunderhead, that’s how you feel when your significant other leaves the room!” Mikey tells him, and Gerard looks confused. He’s actually that oblivious, he didn’t know that was a normal feeling.

“I’m sorry?”

“God you’re such a fucking idiot. Okay, do you like, when you’re out shopping, and you see something cool, do you picture how Frank would react to seeing it, or do you just react by yourself to how you feel?”

Gerard looks at Mikey like he’s an alien, “well if it’s something Frank would like-”

“Oh my god, you’re in love with Frank.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Gerard asks. “This is disastrous. How do I stop it?”

“Stop what? Loving him? Dude, you don’t. You live with it, or you act on it. I mean, it can take years and years and years of hard work to fall out of love,” Mikey says, “and sometimes you can’t ever fall out of love.”

“I’m screwed,” Gerard says in defeat.

“Okay dude, don’t raise the white flag yet. Frank’s just dating a guy. It’s been a month, he’s been in-” Mikey catches himself almost too late on that one, because he almost tells Gerard that Frank’s loved him for five years. “He’s, uh, been in relationships before. They never lasted.”

“Yeah, but I introduced him to those guys!” Gerard says, “And he hated all of them. He met Aaron by himself, and he’s in love with the guy already!”

“Frank’s not in love with Aaron.”

“Yes he is!”

“He is not,” Mikey replies, “Gerard, it’s been one month. One month out of one year, out of several years of his life. This is barely a blip in time when you look at his entire lifespan.”

“Why on earth did I set him up on dates,” Gerard asks himself, completely ignoring Mikey. “Why would I do that? How did I not realize back then that I love him? How could that not have computed? I’m so dumb I might as well become a politician.”

Gerard’s eyes are out of focus, and he’s starting to wheeze. It looks like he’s having an asthma attack which is strange because he’s not asthmatic. Mikey jumps to the next most likely conclusion and that is the idea that Gerard’s having a panic attack.

“Okay, Gerard, what do you need right now? Paper bag?”

“I want Frank!”

“Gerard,” Mikey says, standing up, “you need to go crawl into bed with a box of Oreos and a cheesy movie.”

“That’s not a cure! That’s not a cure for this horrible, all-consuming love I have. Fuck, I’m in love with Frank,” he says again, “no matter how many times I say it, it’s sounds even more absurd, but it’s so weird, because I know it’s true.”

“Oh it’s definitely true,” Mikey says, “You love him, but you need to settle down.”

“But what if Frank gets married to Aaron, and what if he asks me to be his best man, because I swear to god, I’m more likely to push Aaron off a cliff than I am to let him marry Frank.”

“I’m going to repeat this one last time, Gerard. They have been dating for a month. They are nothing more than a couple right now. It’s not serious,” Mikey says.

“Yet.”

“Okay, well... what do you propose you do?”

“Sabotage it!” Gerard says confidently.

“Okay, no. You are not going to sabotage their relationship. Frank is your best friend, and while you are in love with him, you should want him to be happy.”

“I want him to be happy with me,” Gerard says.

“Tough shit, Gerard, because you didn’t get there in time!” Mikey says, sounding ready to blow his top at Gerard. “You missed your window, okay? It’s unfortunate, and the world is cruel, but it’s true! You missed the window, and now you just have to hope that you’ll get another chance, but you know what, that’s all you can hope for. You can’t pray for Aaron to die in a freak accident, because that’s not the right thing to do. The right thing to do is just try to make Frank happy, and maybe someday, he’ll be free, and you can ask him out, but until then, you have to wait and be patient.”

“But it’s hard.”

“Yeah, it’s hard, but it’s life,” Mikey says.

“I hate this,” Gerard mopes, and his head takes its place back in the bundle of his arms.

“Join the club,” Mikey groans as he looks at his miserable brother. This is going to be a Mount Everest of an impasse.