We Could

Our town’s high school had a uniform, pretty standard with nothing special. I wish I could say that I could wear cute shoes or stockings, but they were pretty strict on the whole dress-shoes and pantyhose thing. It made it easier to figure out my outfit for the school day, so I didn’t care either way.

In the morning was double English, probably the only subject I was good at. Grammar and reading came easily to me. It also helped that Frank wasn’t in the same class, since that shithead always tried to distract me. He had some kind of magic power to be able to excel in his classes while putting in minimal effort. I tried bribing him into doing my workload on top of his, but he wasn’t having it.

I had Math second, and after that I had lunch. That’s when the interesting stuff happened. Frank and I didn’t usually eat lunch together – he sat with Mikey and the other guy from the party with the curly hair, while I mingled with Jamia and Amanda, our other friend that was kind of a big slut. She was nice, and she wasn’t a bitch, so what she did in her free time didn’t bother us.

“…and then I punched him in the face! Little jerkwad,” Jamia was fuming over her peanut butter and jelly, obviously still angry about Saturday night. I gave her a tight smile, and tried not to laugh at her. She might outwardly hate Frank, but she still kept personally inviting him to her parties. Maybe she got off on the attention?

“I know. I thought he was going to pass out in his food when we went to eat afterwards,” Jamia threw me a look, and scrunched up her nose. She looked like she smelled a fart.

“I don’t know why you hang out with him so much. He’s a douche.”

“He’s my douche-y best friend. Can’t help it-“ A hand grabbed my right forearm in a death grip, and I looked at its owner expectantly.

“Whatever you do, don’t turn around,” Amanda interrupted us, looking over my shoulder wide-eyed and leaning forward. My spine straightened out, and I tried my best to busy myself with digging at my salad. Amanda’s expression turned increasingly alarmed, and I felt a prod at my shoulder. That kinda hurt. I spun around to confront whoever that was, and it turned out to be Gerard of all people.

In the school uniform, with its one-size-fits-all form and padded shoulders, he looked a bit more heavyset than he did the other night. He jammed his hands in the pockets of his blazer, and suddenly looked uncomfortable. The entirety of our table was staring him down, and I could see the back of his neck get red.

“Can I uh… talk to you? Over there? Not here-“

“Yeah, sure. I was done anyway. I’ll see you later Jamia, Amanda,” I gave the two girls a wave of my hand and bundled up my food that I wasn’t actually finished with. They sent me weak waves back, and I followed Gerard to the doors to the outside tables. No one was out here, it was ridiculously humid and not one person wanted to deal with feeling sticky. Except Gerard, I guess.

“How far behind are you?” He asked, still walking ahead of me with his shoulders hunched. I followed him, holding my skirt down in the breeze. We rounded the building to where there were no windows, and he finally stopped and leaned against the wall.

“I may or may not have done nothing the past four weeks?”

“Christ, Van,” Was all he could say. I gripped the hem of my skirt tighter and carefully leaned against the wall next to him.

“That’s why I’m looking for help-“

“Why didn’t you just do it in the first place? It’s not that hard. Anyway, Mrs. Jenner doesn’t take late work.”

“I convinced her to let me turn it all in for a D- grade, so at least I’ll pass.”

“Shoot for the stars, I guess. You still live on West Market?” I briefly wondered how he even knew where I lived in the first place, but we both walked to and from school so he probably saw me go home that way. I nodded in answer and he nodded back, “I’ll be over tonight then. Sometime after six, have your homework ready so we can get it done fast.”

And then he walked around the building. I couldn’t decide if I wanted weirdo Gerard Way to help me do my homework anymore.



I shut the door to my house behind me – gently, otherwise Mom would ream me a new one – and headed into the living room where Mom was reading a gossip rag on the couch. The Kardashians were on the television, and I scrunched my face at the program before turning to my mom.

“I have a uh… friend that’s going to come over tonight.”

“A tutoring friend?” She joked, but she shut up when I nodded.

“He’s a boy. He’s not my boyfriend, never will be, so don’t even hint at it, okay? He’s weird and I’m not sure if I even want him to help me,” Mom waved her hand and went back to her magazine where they were talking about Jennifer Lawrence’s nudie pics that were stolen.

“Alright, fine. Not like you’ll find a boyfriend with Frank hanging around anyway. You’ll probably end up with him, you two are just kidding yourselves,” I ignored her and went upstairs to change into sweats and an old Disneyland t-shirt that we got from our family vacation. Dad wouldn’t be home until late, so hopefully Gerard would be gone before then.

I thought about starting my Art homework, but I mostly just got around to writing my name in the upper-right corner of every sheet, and then piling it all together so it would be easier to get through. Just as Mom and I were about to sit down for dinner, the doorbell was rung and I realized it was 6:30. Gerard. I sent my mom a pleading look, but she shooed me off to answer it.

There he was on my doorstep, wearing black jeans and an Iron Maiden t-shirt. His hair was wet, and he smelled like Wolfthorn Old Spice, which happened to be my favorite. I grumbled a hello to him, and he waved awkwardly, and I realized I should probably let him in.

“Mom and I are eating dinner, hungry?” I asked, hoping he would say no and just sit in the living room while I rethought this whole decision. He tried to say that no, he wasn’t hungry, but my Mom called in from the dining room for him to come sit down and eat. It was awkwardly quiet as he picked at his food and I tried to eat as fast as possible so we could get my homework done and over with.

“Done,” I said quickly, jumping up to drop my plate in the sink and hurry upstairs. Gerard spoke to my mom for a minute, probably thanking her, before he followed me upstairs to my room. It wasn’t too special. The walls were cream colored and the whole house had hardwood. I had a few band posters from Frank that were hung up, but other than that my walls were pretty bare.

“Smashing Pumpkins?” He asked, shuffling over to the wall next to my bed to look at the mentioned band poster. I shrugged and dropped down on my desk chair to get started.

“Yeah, Frank got it for me for my birthday. They’re my favorite.”

“Didn’t peg you as the type to like that type of music.”

“Lemme guess, Katy Perry? Nicki Minaj? Frank would murder me. No, thank you. Pumpkins are fine with me. Let’s get this done,” I grumbled while digging around my desk drawers for a pencil. Gerard grabbed the puffy-cushioned chair from my vanity table and dragged it to sit next to me. He was closer than I was comfortable with, but he probably needed to see the papers. Whatever.

All I could smell was Old Spice and I couldn’t complain about that, Wolfthorn was my favorite line of theirs, like I gushed before. His hair had dried and stuck out at funny angles, which wasn’t helped by him running his hand through it while he rattled off the names and dates I needed to copy down. He tried to quiz me after each sheet, but it didn’t seem to stick in my brain so he gave up after we got through a week’s worth of work.

“That’s enough for tonight, turn in what we got done tomorrow and that should make Jenner happy,” He said, standing and pushing my vanity chair back in its place. I gathered up the completed work and jammed it into my Art History folder to take into school tomorrow. Gerard stood in my room awkwardly, probably wondering if the right time to leave was now. It definitely was.

“Thank you for the help, Gerard,” I said slowly, and it seemed to snap him out of his trance and he looked at me with a strange expression. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but he nodded and said he would come over tomorrow again to finish the other half of the work.

After he left my room, I let out a heavy sigh and flopped onto my bed. My brain was exhausted.