The True Horror Began On Friday 13th

Gerard thought I was asleep, Mikey thought I was asleep, I wanted to be asleep. Mikey had put a film on for me and him to watch, half way through I fell asleep, I was woken up my drenched sobbing again.

I stayed with my eyes closed; any thought of having to confront him turned my insides. He just wouldn’t stop crying, it sounded like he was dying. He kept thumping himself on the lower back and in the stomach trying to relieve himself. He’d sometimes start to cough as well, great wheezing breaths that made him topple off the sofa like an old man. It was horrible.

“She doesn’t love me anymore,” Gerard sobbed, sounding muffled from the cushion he was had pressed against his mouth to try and muffle everything.

“She does love you,” Mikey murmured, “You two love each other –too much sometimes. You will do anything for her and she will do anything for you. Some times… some times you both need to take a step back and look at the situation,” he continued.

“But I’ve dug myself a hole. And every time I try to fill it in I fuck up badly again. I just want to love her but everything keeps falling out backwards,” Gerard muttered furiously, “I’m sucha dickhead!”

“Do you remember what grandma used to say, she used to say if you got your ice cream and it didn’t have sprinkles, you shouldn’t ask for them. But of course you ruined that saying when you were around ten right? I remember you were whinging because I had pink ice cream and you wanted the pink one-“

“I was a pansy ass even then-“

“No, and then she told you that saying and you said-“

“And I said ‘grandma, if I can’t have sprinkles, can I have a chocolate flake instead?” Gerard added, using a small lispy voice. Mikey chuckled and Gerard snorted quietly, “I can remember when I was sixteen and you came home with that black eyes and your glasses were snapped in half. And grandma was round and she was threatening to go beat up the people who did it, until eventually you told her a girl hit you, do you remember that?” Gerard asked, sniffing.

“Yes. I do remember Lucy punching me because I tried to put my hand up her skirt. I didn’t realise she didn’t want me to,” Mikey chuckled.

“Oh god, I remember my first time at ‘girl handling’ it was very embarrassing, I ended up locking myself in the bathroom red face and mortified.”

“What happened?”

“I think… I think we were in her room. And we were on her bed and she said she’d take her top off, if I did first. So of course I did, but she said she didn’t want to yet. So I said okay and we started kissing again. Well I say kissing but my nose kept whacking into hers so we had to start all over again,” Gerard chuckled in a watery manner, “And of course being the young man I was I got rather excited when I got to actually touch her hip. It was completely ridiculous, anyways I was sitting there hoping to get some kind of action when she eventually put her hand on my leg. And her dad started up the stairs so I had to hide in the cupboard,” Gerard said, sniffing a little.

“The cupboard?”

“Yes the cupboard, with all her clothes and underwear and everything else I would have rather not seen in my fragile state. Anyway, once he had gone we decided to just get on with it. I ended up in the most horrible predicament of having my school trouser down round my ankles and trying to un-clasp her skirt at the back. Of course her dad walked in again and he chased me around the house with a shoe,” Gerard finished, chuckling a little after.

I couldn’t help but smile a little myself into the pillow, my body twitching to just hug him and tell him how good it was to hear him telling stories again, like he used to.

I didn’t though, I thought it’d be best to let them exchange memories by themselves.

After a while, I heard Mikey peacefully snoring and Gerard was humming lightly to himself. It was nice humming though, not demented and jittery. He must have gotten up after a while, because I started to hear music from the C.D player. I couldn’t pin point it at first but I soon recognised it as Enya, Gerard’s weak point. If we were going on drives in the dark he’d play her, to calm himself.

He hummed along to it. I desperately wanted to open my eyes and apologise or make up but I stayed on my back, my eyes closed and my arms flung lazily over my stomach.

I felt him approach, I wasn’t scared, I was just nervous. He knelt down beside me and I heard his breathing grow shaky as he let his hand loftily fall over my chest, picking up my ring from inside my shirt. The little gesture made my heart swoon that he wasn’t plunging his hand down my shirt. He let out a small ‘oomph’ as he fell back against the floor and he rested his hand on my stomach. My heart raced as he parted my chequered blouse and smoothed out the Beatles tee beneath it.

I heard him murmur a few words under his breath, singing along in a voice breaking fashion to the radio. He lifted himself up and nudged my shirt up a little before resting his head on my bare skin, gently dry pecking the skin.

“I-I know you’re awake,” he stuttered, a wet roll of tear pooling on my stomach, “And I know you don’t want to look at me right now. But I’m going to change. I’m going to try my hardest, honest.”