Spike Me and Save Me

Gerard’s P.O.V.

Before we knew it, PR was over. The tour after that went fast as well. Frank and I barely communicated. We didn’t hang out before or after shows, and we barely interacted on stage. We didn’t fight. We didn’t argue. We just stayed the fuck away from each other.
Lynn-Z and I barely saw each other after PR, but we spoke on the phone all the time. When I wasn’t performing or sleeping, I was on the phone with her. We were still in love. I loved her.

Before we knew it, we had played our last show of the year – it was early December and we had the rest of the year off. It was less than a month, but it was the longest break we had had since we started out, so we did nothing but enjoy it. It was hard not to talk to the guys. I called Mikey every now and then, and Ray at least twice a week. Bob was on speed dial two – he was always up for a talk. I missed the guys, and even though I didn’t want to admit it, I missed Frank. I missed his perkiness, his jokes, his energy, his smile, his hugs, his…everything. I missed Frank.

I still hadn’t told my parents. I hadn’t even told Lynn-Z yet. She was coming home for Christmas, but I still wasn’t sure if I was gonna tell her – or what to tell her. What was I gonna say? That her husband was dying? That I married her even when I knew that I might die? Even when I knew this was gonna be a tough marriage? When I hadn’t even told her my biggest secret? She would think that the marriage was a sham. She would think that she couldn’t trust me. She would break it off – break my heart.
I couldn’t handle that. I wouldn’t be able to have my heart broken twice.

I didn’t tell her. Somehow I managed to keep everything a secret. After chemo I spent the night at either Mikey’s or Ray’s. I didn’t want to be a burden, but I simply couldn’t tell them – neither Lynn-Z nor my parents. It would break them. It would break me.

Frank’s P.O.V.

I missed Gerard.
At first I had been mad at him. I didn’t understand how he could be that mad. He knew I loved her! I told him I had bought the ring a long time ago, but even if I had bought it a few days before he found it, he would still had known that I loved her!
After a while, my anger calmed down, and I began to ignore the thought of him. When something reminded me of him, I would turn my back to it. I stopped reading comics, stopped watching horror movies, stopped dyeing my hair. Yet I kept running into two things that every day reminded me of him – coffee and smoking. The latter was the worst, considering the fact that it was the cause of his…illness. I ignored him, but it still hurt when I thought of it. I hated it.
Eventually I started missing him. I had missed him the entire time, but it took a while for me to admit it. I missed him a lot. I worried about him. I didn’t know what he was doing. I didn’t know how he was doing. I sometimes called up the guys to hear how they were doing, but I was still not admitting to anyone but myself that I missed Gerard – that I worried about him. I always hoped they would bring him up and say how he was doing, but they didn’t. Eventually I realized that if something was wrong with him, they would bring it up – they would tell me. After all, we weren’t enemies – we were just in the middle of a minor feud.
After Christmas – my first without him – I really missed him. All of my anger was completely gone, and I even started to apologize for his reaction. I started to understand why he had gotten mad – he felt betrayed. Betrayed by the fact that I hadn’t trusted him. But I also figured that there had been more to it. He was jealous and afraid. He was jealous of Jamia and afraid that I would leave him for her. But I was sure he hadn’t even been half as jealous than I had been, when I heard of his marriage. When he had married Lynn-Z, he had betrayed me – a lot more then I had betrayed him. If he only knew how much it had hurt me. I was devastated. Not only had I lost him for good, but I had lost him without him even telling me. He had done it behind my back – he had left me without saying goodbye.
I dwelled in my own pain for a week after New Years, before Brian called me and told me that the band was meeting up again. I was glad – happy. It was a chance for us to make up. A chance to make it all good again. Even if I couldn’t get back what I had with Gerard before his spur-of-the-moment-wedding, then I could at least get his friendship back. I missed him. I miss him.