Once Upon A Time, Back In Highschool

I woke up Saturday morning in a deep sweat, much like I had done for the last few nights. From now on my dreams consisted of anything to do with Mr. Way. I didn’t know whether I liked it or not, all I knew is that it confused me senseless.

I had gone up into my attack whilst dad was at his friends. I’d found the old cooker, pots and pans, a thick blanket, battery operated fairy lights and small pieces of carpet that had been discarded up here. I packed this all in tightly and placed it in a hardback suitcase, finding I still had a lot of room. I found my portable C.D player at the back of mum’s wardrobe and packed that too. I then put a few books, C.D’s in too.

I had rummaged around in the garage for a while, finding old tiles, paintbrushes and a small bath mat. I just managed to cram all this in and close it with a click. I lifted it up and laughed a little, shaking my head as I lugged it downstairs Saturday morning. On the back of the map Mr. Way had written me a small note in his twirled italic writing.

Meet me 3pm. G xoxo

It was 2.46 now and I knew how to get to Newark woods quickly. I took all the back routes to avoid suspicion. Mum had given me a funny look but said she was too tired to ask why I was lugging her suitcase round the house. I trekked through the field again, wrapping my scarf tighter round my neck from the cold. I took out my small map when I noticed a dot of red on a tree in the distance, I matched it up to my map and headed towards it.

I walked up to the red ribbon and saw a note attached to it. Collect the ribbon as you go through G xoxo

I had too remember to ask what his name was, I was still clueless. I collected each silken ribbon as I went through, smiling at the note that was pinned to the one near the end One more to go! G xoxo

I snatched the ribbon up and ran over to the house laughing at Mr. Way’s supplies that lay outside. An old deep red rug, a black rucksack that was bulging with items, battery operated lights, and his laptop bag which I assumed had a laptop in it.

“Hey!” I heard, I looked up and saw him standing on the roof, waving manically, “Dump your stuff and come up!” he called. He was wearing scruffy black jeans with rips in the knee, a Black Flag shirt, an tattered hoody and a battered leather jacket, he looked good. I began climbing the tree easily, wobbling along the roof tiles before climbing down the paint splattered ladder Mr. Way had placed at the entrance. I jumped down into the attack and chuckled, he had cleaned up a lot and the old arm chair was upside down -a new leg sitting in place, “I cleaned it up and fixed the chair, oh and I found an old ladder at my mom’s house,” he grinned, flipping the chair back over to it’s original state.

“Should we go grab all the stuff from down there and bring it up?” I chuckled; he nodded and passed me a side ways wink. I blushed pink before following him back to the ground. We set the portable radio up first, putting my Bon Jovi C.D in and blasting it as we set everything up. I found out his name was Gerard, he told me whilst we were painting and pinning up the numerous posters he had bought with him. I loved calling him that. Gerard positioned his gas lap in the middle of the ceiling and flicked it on, giving us more light to work out how to sort the floor. We used my carpet samples like a jigsaw puzzle, only covering a small quarter of the room. Luckily Gerard’s rug covered a lot of it.

“My brother was giving me such weird looks this morning. He’s staying round my mom’s because he’s just had a bad break up. I accidently woke him up by hitting him over the head with the ladder,” Gerard chuckled, as he decoratively wound my fairy lights into the vines that had managed to crawl their way through the walls.

“What happened with your brother? I mean his break up?” I asked as Gerard lowly hummed along to Dead or Alive, occasionally singing a line. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Me and Mikes –my brother- went shopping for the day because we wanted some ‘brother’ time. Mikey told me -when we were out- that he was going to propose to this girl. He showed me the ring and everything, it was pretty. Silver gold with a diamond, the poor sod must have spent a load on it. He said when we finished shopping he was going to do it. So we bought him this suit, right? Dressed him up in the car and made him look the part. Then we both snuck back into the house,” Gerard paused and stopped trying to get the camp cooker working, “We snuck in and she was doing this other guy on the couch. It was so fucking nasty, she didn’t realise we were both there. My brother just stood there, it was sick, the look on his face…” Gerard stopped and trailed of, looking like he was going to cry -an up turned grimace on his face, he shook his head again.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, putting my arm awkwardly around him.

“I punched the guy she was banging then I told her to get of the house. All the time Mikey just stood there, the ring box in his hand. He looked so good too, y’know? the suit an all, made him look real grown up. I can remember when he was a baby, so seeing him about to start a family was big, super big y’know? he hasn’t been the same since,” he mumbled, curling his hand into a fist, “he attempted suicide twice. That’s why he’s with mom because she’s retired and stays at home,” he shrugged and leant into my half embrace both of us still kneeling.

We stayed still for a while, just leaning into each other awkward hug.

“I’m gonna put you down for the award in comic art –at school. You deserve it,” he sniffed, pulling away and smiling, “Come on, we best put this shit together. I bought The Blair Witch Project for us to watch on my laptop. I thought it’d be scarily appropriate seeing as we are in the middle of the woods,” he laughed, going back to fixing the cooker, “I got food as well. And water. I was thinking sausage sandwich, then hot chocolate with marshmallows?” he grinned. I laughed and nodded.

We cooked for a while, joking around and getting comfortable. Gerard had bought two sleeping bags with him, and made a weird sofa out of the blanket I had. We both settled down in the middle of it, eating quietly and watching the film. It was dark by the time we had finished our food leaving an eerily cool breeze to float around our once warm den.

“Jeez, this is creepy,” Gerard mumbled, chuckling lowly.

“Tell me about it. Did you have to choose this weird movie, we have to walk back through the wood as well,” I laughed, letting him nudge closer to me, in turn ruining the sofa because he pulled the side of it over his lap.

“Bollocks, I’ll cry, I really will,” he muttered, pulling the blanket around our shoulders and tucking it between us. An owl hooted off somewhere in the distance and he let out this scared grunt. I laughed out loud as he clutched his heart, his eyes wide, “I don’t like it!” he whimpered.

“I think you’re over reacting just a-“ I cut myself off by jumping when a dog barked and yipped in a disgruntled manner, making Gerard start for the second time, “Stop jumping, you’re making me jumpy,” I chuckled as he nibbled his lip. For the next half hour Gerard jumped and twittered and grabbed clumps of my clothes as if he thought he could hear something. When the gas lamp fizzled out I guessed that was too much for him because he jumped up and grabbed the sausage knife.

“Oh god I hate this!” he whimpered, “I can’t believe I’m this scared, I haven’t been this scared since I saw that clown movie,” he mumbled, “Can we go?” he asked timidly. I had to nod, I wasn’t going to keep him here any longer seeing as I was getting pretty creeped out. I didn’t want the scenario to turn out me and my high school teacher were going to get hacked to death by a woodsmen.

We left everything in our attack, turning off the fairy lights whilst Gerard sealed the roof with a black bin bag, his fingers quivering form the cold. We both cautiously climbed down the side of the house, giving each other shifty side grins. We jumped down outside, shivering from the frosty air. As the minutes passed I realised it had began snowing again, each light snow flake settling onto the floor. It was scary to say the least. Scary as in, you had to look around every to make sure there were no beady eyes following you. If I didn’t feel like some one was staring at me from the side, I felt some one was going to jump down from our house, laughing manically whilst trying to slash us up with the sausage knife.

“Bloody Hell,” Gerard muttered, pulling his hands into his pockets and blowing out.
“I know,” I started, “Come on let’s go, it’s too creepy here,” I told him, beginning to walk forward. I felt a hand take clump of my jacket, I had to smile.

“I’m just making sure you don’t go anywhere,” he grinned, “I’m certainly not scared,” he chuckled, “Will your parents be mad, it’s nearly ten o ‘clock and you haven’t called?” he asked worriedly, stumbling on a root and grabbing my arm, which he stayed clung too.

“Nope, they’re still trying to compete with each other. I think right now dad will be at the office and mum will be attempting to work out the books. She probably thinks I’m up in my room,” I said, “It’s stupid. They work together anyways but mum’s too feminist to realise that being a stay at home mum wouldn’t be too bad, she thinks that a modern woman should work. But then that just makes dad feel less ‘masculine’, so then they start competing,” I said, punctuating it with a sniff because it was cold. I think Gerard thought I was crying because before I could say anything, he wrapped his arm round my shoulders and clutched the farthest one in a comforting manner.

“I’m sure it’ll work out,” he said, “My parent’s had foul rows when I was little. I can’t remember what they were about.”

I nodded and we continued to stumble aimlessly through the woods, heading straight forward, knowing it had to lead somewhere. We trekked up a muddy bank, well I trekked up it, Gerard slipped down it and ended up looking like a mud statue. Laughing, we continued to heave out way through the thick bushes and trees, clinging to each other’s muddy hands in case we lost each other.

“I can’t get up!” Gerard whined, clinging to a tree desperately before trying to scrabble up.

“The field is right behind me, just take a run up, it’s no that hard honest,” I laughed as he took a few step back before running up and grabbing my out stretched hand, managing to fall back down anyway. Ten minute later, he ended up crawling on his hands and knees, pulling up clumps of grass and dirt as he went.

“Oh god, I feel like I’ve rolled around in mud,” he grunted, wiping his hands on his jeans before trying to pick a clump of mud out of his hair, only failing in smudging it around.

“You basically have been rolling around in mud,” I chuckled a we walked through the field, trying to scrape the worst of the dirt off, “Every time I go out with you, there’s always one reason or another I have to change my clothes. I think I should just wear a swim suit around you and be done with it,” I laughed. Gerard grinned and rolled his eyes jokingly.

“Have you heard of that new Club -Six6Six?” he asked, “It’s meant to be pretty good-“

“The one that got raided for class A drugs last weekend? I think a transvestite punched my dad’s friend as well,” I laughed, Gerard giggled shiftily “I’m only kidding with you, what about it?”

“Well, you wanna go? Next Friday? I think it’d be pretty fun to go with each other. You can keep me in toe, other wise I’ll probably end up a having a gay orgy in an alley way somewhere. I’m a terrible drunk, I’ll do anything,” he said laughing.

“I’m not sure? What about my parents? Clubs end real late right? I mean… I don’t think they’ll let me come back at two in the morning,” I said, chuckling as Gerard pulled of a lump of mud from my jacket, “If I can though, I’ll go with you.”

“Well… if it’s not too weird for you, you can stay in my spare room. At my house. I mean, if it’s too weird then I don’t mind. I could sleep at mom’s for the night or Mikey might not mind lending out his old house-“

“No, it’s fine,” I intervened, “But isn’t it a little… illegal?” I asked worriedly, shiftily glancing at him when he didn’t reply.

“Ren, to be honest darling I think we crossed the illegal line long ago.”