Let Me Break This Awkward Silence

Chapter 12

Mikey’s point of View

Well, we all just sat there for a couple minutes in silence while Gerard sat on the couch and put his head in his hands in defeat.

“Gerard,” I started not knowing what to say.

“Just don’t say anything, Mikey. I know my daughter hates me. I don’t need to hear the fact that she talks to her uncle more than she talks to me. I don’t need to hear the fact that my daughter is taking anti-depressants! Was in a near fatal accident, spent a month in the fucking hospital, and won’t tell me about it!

“I don’t need to hear that every other word is a fucking insult at me! I don’t need to hear that no matter what I do, I’ll always be the fucking father who left her!” He finished, looking like he is about to cry.

That right there was the biggest shock that I’ve ever seen. I can count the amount of time that I’ve seen Gerard close to tears crying on the same hand.

“God, you guys didn’t fucking hear her. The minute she got into the car, she told me that I had to bear her for only 3 years and 25 days! She is counting! She has been to our concerts, and I didn’t recognize her! She had you guys sign her pants, but I couldn’t. I can’t do anything without getting a ‘Fuck off’ from her.

“Not to mention that she has yet to meet her grandparents, who like me and my asinine self, ignored her for fifteen years, she’s going to give them hell, probably make my mother cry. Make me feel like shit, no worse than shit, like steaming cow shit.” He finished rubbing his temples.

“Gerard, she doesn’t hate you. She’s just upset that she lost her mother.” Bob said cautiously. “She’s taking it out on the only parent she has left,”

“Yeah, besides it’s healthier than having it bottled up and getting a tumor.” Ray chimed in.

“Here, I’ll go talk to her.” I said feeling a bit out of place.

Yeah, I’m supposed to be the ‘spiritual advisor’ for the band. But what do you say when you know that you’re niece likes you better than her own father?

I crept up the stairs, feeling vaguely like a stalker. I cracked open the door to see her sitting on her bed, headphones in, and writing something.

She quickly whipped away a tear, and continued writing. I opened the door and left it cracked.

“Alyssa?” I said carefully walking towards the bed.

She lifted her head and looked at me. She quickly started to fix her face, so it looked like she
wasn’t crying.

“Yes?” she finally said.

“Just making sure you were okay,” I said sitting down on the bed.

“Well I’m fine.” She said avoiding eye contact.

“Well, if you fine, then, what ‘cha doin’?” I said pulling the sheet of paper from it. I looked at it
for a minute, it was music notes. Well technically it was a song, Mama, to be exact.

“Are you re-writing it?” I said after a minute of looking at it.

“No, I’m transposing it.” She said taking it back and pointing at the word ‘piano’ in the
corner.

“Oh.” I said laughing.

“Yeah, I do it for a lot of songs, this one is a request for one of my friends, and she is doing a piano recital back home and wanted a My Chem song, specifically ‘Mama’.” She said taking the headphones out of her ears. “I have to say, I have no idea how it’s going to turn out. I would have much rather doing another song, like ‘Demolition Lovers’. Partly because I already have it transposed. And it’s really pretty on the piano.”

“So how long have you been playing the piano?” I asked, I think it’s a pretty neutral subject.
She sighed before answering, “Um, about nine years?”

“Damn, well that could explain why you can play so well.”

“You heard me playing?”

“Yeah, and singing, you really do sound like you mom when you sing.” I said, trying to complement her. I regretted it the next minute, ‘cause her eyes just started to well up. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-,” I started but she cut me off.

“No, no it’s okay. Stupid pills got my emotions all screwed up. Just got the prescription refilled, I’m going to be Bi-Polar for the next couple days…” She said wiping the tears away, and taking a deep breath.

“You know, Alyssa, its okay to cry.” I said trying to comfort her in some way.

“I’ve been crying, if you we’re at the funeral you would have seen me crying.” She said glaring at me. And let me say, that girl gives new meaning to “if looks could kill”.

“Well – I – We didn’t think we had the right too.” I said finding the bedspread very interesting.
“He is my fucking father, he had the right.” She said looking straight ahead at her and letting some tears fall.

I pulled her into a hug, while she buried her head in my chest and let the tears fall. “Yes, he is you’re dad. A dad that thinks that his daughter hates him, and you probably do to an
extent, but you need to realize that he is trying to help, let him help Alyssa.” I said rubbing her
back.

“You know, guilt trips don’t work on me.” She said lifting her head up, and wiping away the smudges on her make-up. “Tell me, how bad is it?”

“Not bad, if you’re going for the whole, ‘I-was-just-crying-Helena’ look.” I said smirking.

“Well, that’s not the look I was going for. I guess I should change it.” She said going to the bathroom and taking off the eye make-up.

I took the opportunity to get up and look at her room. It was covered in different posters from bands from different genres. Some of them were framed and signed. She had a bookshelf that was packed with books and pictures. I took a closer look at the pictures and saw that
they varied between ages.

One caught my interest; it was a group of kids in their own black parade uniforms, one of them even had blond hair and was flanked by two girls in a modified version of Revenge make up. Another was of her when she was about five and some girl was helping her
blowout her candles.

“Yeah, that was the first birthday that me and Kaysi shared together.” She said behind me, causing me to jump at least a foot in the air.

“Damn, you’re fucking silent!” I said putting a hand over my thumping heart.

“Ballet, sweetie; you can’t go around stomping on stage, that would be taboo.” She said getting up on the balls of feet and mimicking the ballet dance from the “Helena” video.

“Now, that was cool. What else can you do?” I said smiling.

“Um, any type of dance really…Ballet, hip-hop, street dancing,” she started, “I can also do gymnastics and shit.” She said staring at the ceiling.

“You have a lot of band posters, but I don’t see any CD’s, where are they?” I asked randomly.

“Oh, they’re right here.” She said getting up and pulling out a big box of CD’s.

“Damn! How many you got?”

“I lost track after sixty something.”

We sat there looking at the CD’s for a few minutes; well that is, until we heard a smoke alarms go off. She got up and dashed downstairs in a blink of an eye.