Chance

Frank awakes in a state where he’s not entirely sure if he’s actually awake or not. He’s very comfy, very warm, very much at peace. He feels arms wrapped around him, warm ones, strong ones. He remembers instantly who those arms belong to.

Frank smiles, remembering Gerard. He remembers the night they shared, the best night of Frank’s life. He remembers every last moment.

He remembers watching Gerard the second he stepped foot in the bar. He saw Gerard, didn’t see anything else around him, not who he was talking to, not what was going on, he just saw him. Gerard was beautiful. He was a million bucks. He was sitting over a glass of dark liquid, looking somber but also lively. Like he was awaiting company, company that Frank was glad to give him.

He remembers seeing that sleaze ball walk up to Gerard, and remembers the fight or flight instinct kicking in. He hadn’t even intended to intervene. It was never his intent. He just stood up, walked over, he was ready to pounce on that jerk. He felt somewhat possessive over this pretty guy he’d never met before. Knew somehow, that this man was going to be important to him.

Frank relives the first moment Gerard looked at him in his head. He watches it like a movie on the inside of his eyelids, and it makes the smile on his face even wider. He doesn’t want to open them. He doesn’t want this moment to stop. He wants to let it keep on going, never let it stop.

He remembers kissing Gerard. He doesn’t know who, if either of them, first initiated it, or if they just had a mind meld. He remembers the earth stop spinning the second his lips touched Gerard’s. He can still feel the numbness of his body when it happened. He can feel the way Gerard orchestrated the beating of his heart like a puppet on strings.

Frank remembers Gerard saying that he loved him, and how Frank inflated like a helium balloon, he was sure he might just float away, off into heaven. Then he realized that he was already in heaven. Every second he spent with Gerard, it was heaven by all means.

Possibly Frank’s favorite memory from last night however, was kissing Gerard in the rain. It was everything. It was perfect. It’s what he’s going to say to Gerard in their vows. No moment will ever be able to beat that one.

Frank is pulled back to reality when he hears a sort of rustling sound, and he expects that it’s just Gerard stirring from sleep. Frank doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to disturb this moment at all, he wants to conserve it like he has all the other moments, so he just lies still and waits for Gerard to wake up, because until he’s awake, Frank doesn’t want to have to put any effort into thinking about anything but last night and their future.

Now that the day is new, Frank can see the world with Gerard. It’ll be like a different world, not the same one as last night. A new day brings with it a new chance to start over. Nighttime is very final. Now that it’s over, it’s like Frank can begin his new life. His new life with Gerard.

Frank can’t wait. It’s Saturday, in just a few minutes, he can drag Gerard to the Subway. He can take him home to meet his roommate, Ray. Or maybe Gerard can drag him home. Maybe he can meet Gerard’s roommate, or his brother. Maybe they won’t even go home right away. Maybe they’ll go get breakfast, or lunch depending on what time it is. Maybe they’ll go to the fucking zoo, he doesn’t care. Anywhere that Gerard is, he’ll be glad to go.

Gerard’s arm is around Frank’s waste, his other arm somewhere that Frank can’t feel right now, and Frank’s entire body is pressed against Gerard’s. He’s nearly falling off the bench, and he’s sure that if he moves, he’s going to fall face first into the concrete. Or grass. He can’t quite remember where they are.

Frank hears more rustling, only he doesn’t feel Gerard moving. He expects it’s the wind.

Then it occurs to Frank that he doesn’t actually feel any wind on his face. He sighs reluctantly, and decides that he’s going to have to open his eyes. He doesn’t want to, but he’s curious. He also should check what time it is.

When Frank opens his eyes he’s met with an unfamiliar face. It’s very near to his own, and it’s meddling with something on the ground. Frank has trouble registering what this unknown person is doing, but when he glances down he sees his stuff, the stuff he’d thrown in all of his bags.

“Hey,” Frank says, realizing slowly that this man is digging through Frank’s stuff. Considering that he doesn’t know this man, he’s got a pretty good idea of what he’s trying to do.

The man looks up at Frank in surprise, and not a second passes before he grabs the bags, both his and Gerard’s, and makes a run for it. Frank’s stomach sinks, but he doesn’t let it stop him from jumping up to his feet quickly. He doesn’t even think about it, he just starts chasing.

It takes him a few moments of dizzying movement for him to remember that he left his phone, and he thinks his wallet as well in the pockets of his wet pants. He doesn’t feel either of them on him, so he assumes that they must be there. He tries to speed up, not let this man get away. The park where he is isn’t overly busy right now, so there’s no way for Frank to yell at someone to stop this man, so he’s just got to run faster. He’s got to catch up with the thief and knock his lights out. And Frank is from Jersey, so he can, and he will.

Meanwhile, Gerard is jolted awake, not from the absence of Frank against him, because Gerard is a brick when he’s asleep, but from a sharp sound panging from his pocket. He groans, squinting because there’s sunlight in his blurry eyes, and he doesn’t know where he is, what day it is, what time it is, or anything else for that matter.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He’s forced to blink repeatedly to get the sleep out of his eyes in order for him to so much as read the name on the Caller ID. When his vision clears, he sees the name Mikey blinking at him, and he knows that if he doesn’t answer it, he’ll wind up dead or worse. Mikey has that power.

“Hello?” Gerard asks, groggy, and definitely not awake. He’s not thinking about anything at all right now, not a thing in the world, nothing other than that his back hurts and he wants to be in his bed, but he’s not, which is a bummer.

“Where the hell are you?” Mikey snaps at him, not necessarily angry, just annoyed.

“Uh, not sure. Just woke up.”

“We’re supposed to meet up for lunch, dimwit,” Mikey says. Gerard, confused, looks around him, and then remembers his watch, and looks down. It’s nearly noon.

“Fuck,” Gerard says, getting to his feet. “Right, I totally forgot.”

“Well it’d be nice if you could get here soon, asshole,” Mikey replies. “The waiter thinks my date stood me up.”

“Fuck, you’re there now?” Gerard asks.

“Yeah, I’m here now,” Mikey replies, even more irritated.

“Right, I should get going,” Gerard says, and he doesn’t give Mikey a chance to say anything before he hangs up.

Gerard takes a moment to gather his thoughts before he moves a muscle, just looks around and tries to remember why it is that he’s on a park bench of all places. And why did he fall asleep on a park bench?

Then he remembers. Frank. He was with Frank. He was with quite possibly the love of his life. Who’s he kidding? He was with the love of his life.

Gerard smiles, for a moment, and then the smile fades instantly.

Where is Frank?

Gerard looks around him, turns around, looks in every direction, looks everywhere in sight. He doesn’t see Frank anywhere.

Frank’s not here. Frank is nowhere to be found.

Gerard feels an immediate sense of betrayal wash over him. Frank’s gone. He left. Gerard’s alone.

He had given Frank the best day of his life, allowed himself to believe that Frank felt an inkling of the same way that he did, opened himself up like a book, completely let it go for Frank. He would have given Frank anything. He’d have given the guy his fucking social security number if he’d asked. He was going to marry that guy. He was going to have a life with him. He was going to show him off to all of his friends.

Gerard knows it’s stupid. He met this guy last night. He doesn’t really know him. He may have heard just about all of Frank’s life history, literally knows the name of Frank’s childhood best friend, knows everything that there is to know about this man, and yet, he doesn’t know what Frank is really made out of.

What if Frank really was just a sociopath who had been leading Gerard on for the fun of it? Maybe Gerard misread the situation. Maybe Gerard pressured him, cornered him into saying I love you, into kissing him, when he didn’t really want either of those things. Maybe Frank has a boyfriend that he didn’t tell Gerard about. Maybe he just wasn’t that into Gerard.

Gerard thinks for a small moment, that it’s all a misunderstanding. Frank just had an emergency and left Gerard a note, but it blew away with the wind. Gerard checks his pockets, maybe Frank managed to get it in there. What he finds is just a receipt for the clothes he’s wearing and nothing else. No note, no phone number, no nothing. He also doesn’t feel any wind. It’s a perfectly still day, no wind to speak of.

Gerard wants with all of his heart to believe that there’s been a mistake here, but it doesn’t seem logical. Frank clearly isn’t here. He clearly didn’t intend or try to leave a note. He’s just gone. Gerard wants for him to be here, but he’s not. He’s just not here. He woke up, realized the huge mistake he’d made, and just left. He left Gerard. Didn’t even have it in him to leave a note. How little must Gerard have meant to him if he couldn’t even bother to write him a note?

Gerard feels the first hot tear swell in the corner of his eye, and he collapses on the bench, feeling every single fiber in his body ache. It’s not because he slept on a park bench at an uncomfortable angle, it runs far deeper than that. Frank left him. After all they went through. After all of that, Frank just left. He’s gone. He didn’t leave Gerard anything. Not a phone number, not a note. He’s just gone.

Gerard’s skin crawls, he shutters, and gags on air, feeling as though he might puke. He feels gross. The bench feels like a million degrees and he hops back onto his feet, afraid it’ll burn him. His head becomes instantly dizzy at the feeling of him standing up, and what he had thought was just a passing feeling a moment ago, turns out not to be true.

With tears, streaming down his face, Gerard realizes that he’s going to vomit, and he doesn’t have time to waste.

Gerard, a mess in every sense of the word, makes a run for it. He needs to find somewhere, anywhere, private enough that he can get sick that’s not in front of moms with strollers or people walking dogs.

Gerard, rather ungraceful, throws up by a trash can. Not in the trash can. By the trash can. He doesn’t feel good about it, but it’s better than puking on the sidewalk.

After retching a few more times, and feeling as though he was just dipped into a vat of lava, Gerard collapses to the ground a few feet away, and just loses it. He doesn’t think he’s ever been in more pain in his entire goddamn life. When his first boyfriend broke up with him right before prom is nothing compared to this. This is like he just lost a spouse after their fiftieth anniversary. This is what it would be like to lose Mikey.

He can’t get a breath in, feels his lungs burning up with intense, searing, pain. His face is red with a waterfall of tears falling uninhibitedly down. He looks a mess, feels even worse.

Frank had meant so much to him, he means so much to him. He was sure Frank felt the same way. Frank was the one who originally hit on him. Frank kept reassuring him that he felt the same way, doting him with praise, making Gerard feel like he was worth something for the first time in such a long time. Frank was everything.

Not having him here, and knowing that Gerard’s been, for lack of a better word, dumped, is beyond awful. It’s humiliating, mortifying, but mostly, completely heartbreaking.

This is the worst feeling in the world and Gerard would do anything, anything to make it stop.

Frank loses the thief around the bend of a street corner that leads through an alleyway. It’s a four-way intersection, and Frank can’t see the man in sight. He knows the second that he comes to the intersection that it’s a lost cause. There’s no way to know which direction he might have gone.

Frank groans, dejectedly. It’s not the end of the world, he knows it’s not. He hasn’t lost anything of any extreme importance. But that was still a hundred-dollar phone, and his wallet was in there, so now he’s going to have to call the credit card company, go to the DMV, replace all those fucking loyalty cards, and to top it all off he was only one cup of coffee away from a free one, but now his punch card is gone, because god hates him.

Then Frank remembers Gerard, still there on that park bench. Probably still asleep. Still the same gorgeous man Frank’s mind will forever be dedicated to. The thought of him forces a smile on his face that he can’t help if he wanted to.

Frank strolls back leisurely. He can’t wait to see Gerard again, but he’s walking off the anger and annoyance from the theft. He wants to make sure he cools down enough that by the time he sees Gerard again, he’ll be able to be someone worthy of seeing Gerard.

Frank sees the park after turning a sharp corner, and he smiles, knowing Gerard’s only a little ways away.

He makes his way to the bench, looking down at the grass, trying to remember if he and Gerard had stood on this exact spot last night or not.

When he looks back up after a few feet, Frank stops dead in his tracks. He sees the bench. He sees the bench where he and Gerard had slept. He’s certain it’s the same bench. It’s got the same ad printed on the back of it. He sees the bench where he slept, the ground where their bags had been, but what he doesn’t see is Gerard. Gerard’s gone. Frank scans the area around it, turns around in circles more than once. Gerard’s not there.

That’s right around when Frank feels the ground beneath him completely vanish.