The Alexander Swallowtail

I didn’t know exactly where Gerard was driving us but from the look of the place, it wasn’t a great neighbourhood. I felt somewhat nervous as a few people stumbled onto the road right in front of the car, causing Gerard to stomp on the breaks and mutter under his breath.

“So whose party is it exactly?”

“Just a friend of a friend’s. I don’t really know the dude, but hey, there’s free booze.” I was surprised when Gerard suddenly pulled over. Apparently, we were there. The drunken idiots on the street seemed to know Gerard as they waved across at him upon seeing him, receiving a curt nod in return. “You look nice tonight.”

“Thanks,” I said, though ‘nice’ could mean a lot of things, depending on how it was said.

“Listen uhh… I want you to be safe tonight so I’m gonna lay a few things straight. I’m not sure exactly how often you go out to things like this. I wanted to broaden your horizons. You can’t spend your whole life watching movies in my living room.” Ouch.

“I –” Gerard interrupted me before I could get a word out with his finger on my lips.

“I’m not done. This is important.” He dropped his hand back to his side. I was listening. “Mikey would never forgive me if anything happened to you. Really. So don’t go drinking anything you’re unsure of, don’t find yourself with unfamiliar people in secluded areas, and if someone asks you if you want a ride, for Christs’ sake don’t get in their car. Okay?” I simply nodded my head at Gerard’s little lecture. It was nothing I hadn’t heard from my mother over the years. “I hope you enjoy yourself. Come, follow me and I’ll introduce you to some people.”

“Okay.”

Gerard walked me inside the house, which was filled with a fair amount of people already. He stopped by the kitchen and started pouring a couple of drinks, one for himself and handing the other to me. I tried to ignore his lecture in the back of my mind. Surely, he hadn’t meant that I should apply it to him, too?

“It’s rum and cola.”

“Gerard! It’s been so long!” I jumped as I turned around at the sound of Gerard’s name being called, not expecting the person to be so close already. He just about leapt onto Gerard and gave him a hug before turning to me and doing the same. “Who’s the pretty lady?”

“This is Alison.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Ali. Can I call you Ali?”

“Uhh…”

“Alison, this is Frank.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said, smiling as he smiled back in return. He seemed friendly enough. I turned back to find Gerard, panicking as I saw that he was already walking off, shimmying through a few people that stood in the doorway to the lounge room where a loud steady rhythm was coming from. After a moment all I could see was his drink as he held his cup up in the air to save from spilling any of the contents, and then that disappeared, too.

---

I’d ended up spending a long time just talking with Frank, who told me he met Gerard at a gig of his. He said he played the guitar, and that he wasn’t a bad singer, either. He was around the same age as Mikey and I, and I found him quite a warm person once the initial layers of noise and excitement had worn off of him.

Frank was walking me around the place, introducing me to different groups of people. We stopped a little longer with some groups than others, and eventually I stopped noticing who we were talking to and what the topic of conversation was as I finally spotted Gerard through the window out on the back porch, his lighter illuminating his face for a brief moment.

“I’m gonna go find Gerard,” I said into Frank’s ear, giving his arm a squeeze before I left. I didn’t want him to think anything had happened to me. He seemed to have gathered that this wasn’t a scene I was used to, and I very much appreciated the effort he was making to help me fit in.

“Where’d you go off to?” I called out as I stepped outside, wishing I’d brought a jacket with me. Gerard seemed to notice my shivering as he ran his fingers along the goose bumps on my arm. All I could notice after that was a foul stench in the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Wanna try?” Gerard was holding his smoke out to me. By that point, I was pretty sure it wasn’t the usual tobacco.

“I don’t know how.” I hated how small I felt then, but Gerard didn’t laugh. Not even the tiniest of sniggers had escaped his lips.

“It’s easy. Here, breatheeee,” he said, extending his last word as he took another hit. Before I could protest, Gerard had taken the few steps forward to close the space between us. His forehead rested against my own as he exhaled the smoke into my mouth, and I remembered to breathe as he’d told me to.

Gerard took a step back then, resting his hand on my back as I coughed for a moment. I took the time out to assist my cheeks with fading a little from the glorious red they were surely showing.

“Gross,” I muttered once I was standing straight again, coughing a little more until I finally found my breath. Gerard just shrugged.

“You get used to it.” We stood around for a moment before he passed the joint to someone a little way behind him and came back to where I was awkwardly standing, wondering for a moment if he was going to wander off on me again. He hadn’t though, and instead he led me back inside to where Frank was sitting up on the kitchen counter once more. He passed Gerard and I both a drink as we arrived. I elected to put mine down behind me and forget about it for the night, already feeling a little bit tipsy from the first few I’d had. Gerard took a decent mouthful of his.

“This is probably gonna get busted up soon, so I dunno if you wanna take it to my place or what?” Frank asked Gerard, who didn’t really reply save for screwing up his nose a little.

“We’ll wait a while, I think. It doesn’t seem too rowdy.”

“You know what it’s like though.” Gerard just shrugged. We talked for a while about music and Frank discussed what his band was up to now. I found myself drifting as their conversation turned to being about people I wasn’t familiar with and from across the room, I spotted her. Roxanne and her friends were slowly making their way through the kitchen, I could only assume to find something to drink.

“Are you okay?” I was a little surprised that Gerard had noticed my quiet panic, and saw from the corner of my eye as he turned his head to face the same way I was, frowning as he spotted the girls. “I heard they have it out for you at school.”

“Where’d you hear that?” I asked in a fluster. This really wasn’t helping.

“Mikey and Clarissa were discussing it. Here,” he said, grabbing my hand and slipping past a few people until we were in the hallway. Gerard opened the first door he found and pulled us both inside, closing it softly behind us. “We’ll wait for them to pass through,” he whispered. It was in that moment that I felt the shelves digging into my back and realised, with mixed feelings of confusion and humour, that Gerard had pulled us into a cupboard.

“Gerard, we’re in a–”

“I know I know,” Gerard replied, then a few giggles escaped his lips. “I remember this game.” I was glad he hadn’t reached to turn the light on at any point. I could feel my palms getting clammy as I took in just how close we were standing. I could feel Gerard’s breath on my neck, and then his lips on my cheek.

“W-What are you doing?” I stammered.

“Maybe I’m a little drunker than I thought I was,” he admitted, before bringing his hands up to cup my face and planting his lips straight onto my own. A flurry of emotions raced through my mind as his lips stayed there by no accident, the very tips of his fingertips pressing into my hair a little firmer as I finally found myself kissing back.