The World is Ugly

I handed Gerard his cell phone back as he gave me a sad look,

“Aw, don’t worry it’s just a car accident,” I smiled grimly and began to tell Gerard exactly what I had discussed with Brian. It was simple: Gerard and I will be ‘taking’ a car ride on a rainy day (it’s been raining a lot in California, so that shouldn’t be difficult), we hit a slippery spot and our car hydroplanes and crashes into a ditch. The car catches on fire and were both burned beyond recognition. Our dental records will be needed. They will be molded and fitted into a John and Jane Doe.

“Sounds perfect, do you think they’ll believe it?” Gerard asked as I sat down on the bed and stretched out across it. I had no clue. Would Jimmy, Kitty, Lyn, and Steve believe that we were dead? When I was in Jersey, death seemed so close because I couldn’t imagine life without Gerard. But now that we were together again, those thoughts seemed so far away and exclusive to that old life, the one with the cameras watching me and Gerard a thousand miles away behind those cameras for three years with no one there for comfort except for Mickey and Brandon, to where my mind was so set on proving a point to him, to myself, that I would have killed myself over it. I don’t really think I want to go back there, “Holly?”

“I don’t know,” I turned my head to look at him and studied his features. Over the past two hours I had looked at him but never noticed the small things that had changed. He had gotten older, obviously. With turning thirty-four he had little bags under his eyes from little to no sleep. His hair was different, cut short and black and I think the worst thing of all was he was sickly thin.

“What’s wrong? Are you afraid of dying?” Gerard smirked as he held his arms out. I shook my head and climbed up towards him and laid against his chest.

“Well the thought of dying is so frequent in my mind -or it was, before. But now that things are back to normal. Dying –real or not- seems so far out and to tell you the truth, I’m terrified about the next few days.”

“It’s not going to be that hard, I mean we’ll get our teeth molded and Brian will contact the morgue and get us the bodies we need, he’ll get a team to mold them to look like us, cloth them like us and then he’ll take my ‘car’ throw it in the ditch and set it on fire.”

“You make it sound like day in the park,” I mumbled into his chest. “Won’t we have to change ourselves too?”

“You’re rethinking this quite a bit, why?” Gerard moved himself around to look at me straight in the face.

“Well I know it was my idea but… But I’m just scared that they won’t believe that we’re really dead and they’ll find us and kill us and I’ll never get to spend the rest of my life with you,” It mostly came out in a whisper and I knew tears may come soon. Gerard cupped my face and rubbed his thumbs underneath my eyes. I looked down at them and saw inky black remnants of what used to be my eyeliner and mascara.

“It’ll be okay, trust me. It’s not like I’m not scared because I am. I’m petrified, I don’t want to loose you either now that we’re back together again after so long, so very long. Holly there’s nothing more I want than to settle down with you somewhere, anywhere you want and get married; Pick up exactly where we left off three years ago at JFK.”

I studied his face and it reassured me as much as a grown man crying ever could and actually the truth streaming down his cheeks was all I needed right then. I just hoped that it was enough to fight the storm that was coming.