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

Patrick’s been watching Frank skeptically for about a week. He just doesn’t buy it. He knows Frank too well. Frank doesn’t strike him as the kind of guy who’d have sex with someone to prove a point. He might kiss a guy or hold someone’s hand, but sex is taking it a bit too far. That’s verging on psychotic.

“So that thing with Aaron last week...”

“Uh what about it?” Frank asks, looking petrified. He’s terrified that someone is going to find out he kind of lied, and he’ll be thrown into the situation where he’ll have to tell Gerard why he couldn’t go through with it. The last thing Frank wants is to have to tell his best friend in the world that he’s been in love with him for five years. That’s a hard confession to even hypothesize let alone have to actually say it.

“Are you sure that’s what actually happened?” Patrick asks. Frank looks around the room to make sure no one is there, but he doesn’t know why he makes the double check. He’s in Patrick’s apartment for god’s sake, and Pete isn’t home. He’s being too paranoid, and even Frank can see that.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, listen, I’m not going to tell anyone what you tell me. I don’t think you slept with Aaron, because I don’t think you’re over Gerard enough to do that,” Patrick says, “and if you tell me that you didn’t sleep with him, then it’ll stay in confidence, but I want to know why you lied.”

“I... I didn’t lie,” Frank replies, “I just didn’t tell the whole truth.”

“You’re stealing lines from generic TV scripts, Frank. Either you slept with Aaron or you didn’t, and that’s a matter of fact.”

“Alright fine. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I thought of Gerard, and I imagined kissing Gerard when I was kissing Aaron and I couldn’t do that to Aaron. I’d be using him, and besides, I’m not at that place yet. I’m not emotionally ready to give up my feelings for Gerard. I still think I might be on my way there, because I do really like Aaron, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. At least not yet. I think it’s going to be a while before I’m ready to really walk away from those feelings, so yeah, I lied. I lied because I didn’t want you two to give me that knowing look, alright? I’m sick of being the pity case. Every time you or Pete bring up my feelings for Gerard, you look at me like I’m this little kid, and I’m sick of it,” Frank confesses.

“You could’ve said that. I mean, in private, not with Gerard there. You could have said that though,” Patrick replies. He hadn’t realized he’d been giving Frank any sympathetic faces like that, but now that he looks back on it, it doesn’t surprise him in the slightest. He never knew it bothered Frank though.

“What would you have said?” Frank asks, “Do you have any idea, any fucking idea, how painful it is to know that everyone around you pities you? It is literally the worst feeling I’ve ever felt, and I can’t do anything about it, because I fucking deserve it. I’m literally so hopeless and everyone sees that, but I can’t do a goddamn thing about it. You all make jokes, and like to laugh it off, because, hey isn’t it just the funniest thing in the world that Frank has a crush on his roommate, it’s just a real riot, right? But I fucking crawl into my bed every night and I have to remember that everyone thinks I’m just this funny little zoo animal. It’s funny to think about me as nothing more than this hormonal idiot who’s in love with someone who doesn’t even like him back. I’m this laughing stock! It hurts so much, because I understand that it’s funny on the outside, but in the inside, being me, being so in love with Gerard that it physically hurts... that’s not funny. That is literally like being burned alive every motherfucking day of my life, and I have to pretend that it doesn’t hurt me more than anything in the world. I have to sit there and laugh along with you, or Pete, or Mikey, or my coworkers saying something like ‘isn’t it funny how Frank has this undying love for someone who doesn’t love him back,’ and I have to laugh because if I don’t then I’ll lose my mind.”

“Frank, I’m sorry-”

“And I am losing my mind. Every day it’s getting harder and harder not to just let myself give in and collapse on myself, but I can’t do that, because than I lose him. I’m this building made out of plaster and beams, and if I let the beams give in, than everything comes tumbling down. I have the weight of the world on my shoulders trying to keep myself from having a mental break over Gerard. I can’t lose him though. I’m in love with him, but losing him would be even worse than getting to be his best friend, because at least this way, this way I get to see him. I get to make him laugh, and I get to watch movies with him, and it kills me, but it’s better than not having him there at all.

“But you guys don’t see that. You don’t see me straining to keep myself afloat, you see a stupid hopeless romantic ogling at his roommate, and wanting to get in his pants, but that’s not who I am. I just want him to once, just once, to fucking hold me and tell me that he loves me, but I don’t get that. I’m never going to get that, even though it’s all I want. I’m suffocating, I don’t have a life raft, and I’ve just been trying not to drown for so many years. Then there’s you guys, my fucking friends, you’re my neighbors! You and Pete, as well as the love of my life’s brother, are there every now and again to come hold my head underwater to make it worse. Adding insult to injury, and not even noticing how cruel you fucking are. You make these offhanded remarks that I’m supposed to put up with because it’s all in good fun, and you’re not being serious, but it’s a kick in the fucking stomach. And then you paddle away because at least you have a boat to keep you going, but I don’t. I’ve been in the middle of an endless ocean for so long doing a fucking doggy paddle, and I still don’t have him. Still keeping my head barely above water, and I’ll never have him. All I want in the entire world, and he doesn’t even know I’m here. Gerard is ruining my life, and I never get to have him.”

“Frank, I didn’t know it was that hard,” Patrick says frowning.

“No you didn’t,” Frank replies, “Because you’re in a happy relationship, and it never occurred to you that not all of us have it so lucky. You get to be with the guy you’re in love with. You get to watch movies with him, and burn food together, and sleep next to him at night knowing that he loves you and you love him back, but I don’t fucking have that. I have to watch Gerard when we’re watching movies and picture what it would be like to be wrapped in his arms. I have to watch him try to flip a fucking pancake unsuccessfully, and I don’t get to tease him and tell him I love that he burned half of it. I don’t get to wake up next to the one person in the entire world who I want to. I don’t get to smell his nasty morning breath or feel his arms around me when we cuddle. I don’t get any of that, and that’s all I want, because I don’t care about the other shit, I just want... I want Gerard to hug me the way people do when they remember how lucky they are to have found each other. The ‘squeeze the life out of you hug.’ I just want that. That’s it. It’s not even anything, but that’s it. But you and Pete have that, and it never crosses your mind that I don’t. I don’t even kind of have that.”

“You do have Aaron,” Patrick suggests.

“Aaron’s not Gerard. He may like me, but that doesn’t change who he is, and no matter how hard I try, I’m never going to stop loving Gerard. Never. I can’t and I don’t even remember why I wanted to. I know that I can’t have him, because my life is literally horse shit, but does anyone fucking care other than to make fun of me? No. In a lot of ways, I’m defined by Gerard, and I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be the guy dependent upon him, but I am, and fuck it, if that’s who I’m going to be than fine. I don’t want to be with Aaron, but maybe if I give it time, I’ll love him. Maybe it’ll happen. That’s all I have though, Patrick. All I have right now is the hope that maybe someday I won’t be in love with Gerard. I don’t have any hope for him loving me back, so this is it. I have to hope, and pray, and fucking plead for this feeling to go away, but I don’t think it’s going to fucking die. I’m in love with him, and if I don’t hope that that goes away someday then I can’t even wake up in the morning. It’s stupid as well because I’m not an idiot, it’ll always be there, but we all have to hope for a miracle every once in a while.”

“Frank, there’s something I think you ought to know,” Patrick says, because he feels as if he has no choice other than to tell him. Frank’s got himself so down, and as much as Patrick hates meddling in other people’s lives, he also sees this as an opportunity. Frank may be with Aaron but that doesn’t mean he’s in love with him. He’s far from in love with Aaron. Aaron might be in the way, but that doesn’t mean he’s not in love with Gerard. Frank is miserable, Patrick doesn’t want Frank to be miserable. By god, if Frank is going to be in love with Gerard, than he should know that Gerard loves him back.

“What? I’m a fucking dumbass?” Frank suggests.

“No!” Patrick assures, “That’s not it. It’s about Gerard.”

“Yeah, the guy I’m in love with. Of course it’s about him. It always is,” Frank says.

“Well there’s something I know about him that you don’t,” Patrick says.

“Doubt it. I know everything about him,” Frank replies putting his head down, the way he always does whenever he’s talking about Gerard.

“Well this is one thing you don’t know.”

Frank’s eyes narrow at Patrick like he’s very sure that Patrick is wrong. There’s literally nothing Patrick could know about Gerard that Frank wouldn’t know first. Frank knows what kind of toothpaste the guy uses. He knows the name of Gerard’s second grade teacher, and sixth grade locker combination.

“See, okay, the other day,” Patrick starts, trying to figure out how he can say this, “the other day, last week, when Gerard was sick-”

“He still is sick,” Frank points out, because Gerard’s been practically bedridden for a week. Gerard’s had to call in sick for work the past week.

“Well yeah, but when he first got sick, I talked to him. He’s sort of got this problem that stressed him out so much it gave him a physical illness. He’s worried himself into that fever,” Patrick says.

“Alright?” Frank says, because he knows that’s possible, but what on earth could have happened in Gerard’s life that would have caused that?

“And see, the thing is that I shouldn’t be telling you this. I shouldn’t because I was entrusted with his secret, but it’s ruining the both of you, and the last thing I want is for you two to drive yourselves insane, so I’m going to come out and be totally honest with you, Frank. Gerard’s in love with you.”

Frank freezes for a long moment, and just kind of looks at the counter without thinking or saying anything. Patrick’s heart races in his chest, so fast that he could probably fuel a rocket. He’s waiting for Frank to do something, but this isn’t exactly the reaction he was expecting. He assumed a bombshell like that one would have induced at least something.

“Wow,” Frank replies finally.

“I know,” Patrick says, feeling relieved. He really shouldn’t have said that, not according to his basic principles, but it had to be done. He’s not a natural born gossip, but the fact that the two of them loved each other made it feel like Patrick owed them.

“I can’t believe it,” Frank says, looking at Patrick with an unreadable expression.

“I thought you should know because-”

“I can’t believe you thought it was okay to make fun of me like that,” Frank finishes, and Patrick’s face crashes like a wave. That had not been the reaction he was expecting.

“Frank, that’s not what I was saying!”

“No, you just thought it was funny to joke about my feelings for Gerard,” Frank says, picking himself up from the stool at the counter.

“You are completely misinterpreting what I said,” Patrick replies, “I didn’t mean it as a joke, I was being literal.”

“Yeah right,” Frank says, grabbing at the door to the apartment. Frank is avid at dramatic exits, and they’re one thing that he enjoys even when the situation is as unfortunate as this one is.

“Frank, what will it take for me to convince you that I’m being honest?” Patrick calls out at him before Frank slams the door.

“A concussion,” Frank replies, because that’s the only state you can get him where he’ll ever be that gullible.