Witness

I wince and pull away slightly as I my mother puts some kind of cream on my forehead that will stop the self inflicted scratches getting infected.

I sit impatiently on the cold marble counter-top of our New Jersey kitchen my mum fussing with pieces of cotton that keep sticking to her fingers or the scratches on my forehead.

I glance impatiently up at the clock next to the window, the big hand on the ten and the little hand on the three. I can’t help but let my eyes linger on the small red seconds hand that tick, tick, ticks it’s way around the clock over and over.

That little red stick of plastic is taking me further and further away from Anthony and pushing me more and more into the life of Frank Iero, the friends and the home. Everyone just wants so much to take control. Snap the little piece of plastic, shatter it into a million pieces just to preserve something special. Time slips through our fingers and there’s just nothing that I can do. Nothing that anyone can do. Even if I snapped the little seconds hand off of every single clock in the world, that doesn't stop time. A clock is the visual, not the reality.

You can go out and buy all the different facial creams that stop wrinkles, or photo shop any photos of yourself, but at the end of the day, there is just no stopping time. It’s inevitable, like death.

“So,” My mother started, washing her hands in the sink next to her and pulling me into the living room where I flopped onto the sofa and she landed next to me. “Do you want to tell me why I was woken at half past three on a Sunday morning to the sound of a mirror smashing and my son screaming in agony?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Frank, this is no time to be messing around,”

“I-I had a bad dream…” I mumble, embarrassed.

“About what?”

“I don’t know, it was weird. It started that…that Dad was there, but he wasn’t Dad, he was like a zombie or something, and then he started chocking me,” I stopped and took a breath. “He told me…that it was my fault that he was like that. Then we were at the car park and I saw it all over again, everything I saw last week, I saw it all again, but this time I didn’t see it from the car, I was at the other end of the car park. Dad hit me and I fell on the floor, and when I opened my eyes again…Gerard was there.

“He was just talking to me normally and I noticed a crime scene and a gun. I picked up the gun but he told me to put it down again so I did. I asked what happened and he told me that someone had died…he asked me how my Dad had died. I didn’t know what to say, so I made some stuff up, and I felt all this pain in my head, like it was just being ripped to shit. Gerard d-didn’t care, he didn’t try and help at all.

“Then I was in this court room where I got arrested for Dads m-mur…death. He told them that it was my fault, and that I shouldn’t be allowed to see day light ever again. Gerard told me that I shouldn’t have touched the gun, and that it was my fault. Then I woke up,”

“Why’d you break the mirror?”

“I-I saw,” I paused. “I saw why my forehead had been hurting…it was because in my dream the word ‘LIAR’ had been cut into my skin, and when I woke up…I saw the scars. I was trying to get rid of them...”

My mum just smiled sympathetically at me, pulling me towards her, my face pressing into the crook of her neck as she held me in the motherly hugs that I loved to much.

“It’s not your fault,”

Tears filled my eyes. “I should have done something,”

“You couldn’t,”

“I should have tried,”

“And what Anthony? Caused me to not only lose your father, but lose you as well?” she snapped, tears filling her eyes.

“I could have saved him,”

“They wouldn’t hesitate to kill you…Why do you think we’re here?”

I just nodded into her neck, understanding that what she was saying made sense, but after that dream, there’s not much else that I could think.

“You’re not a liar either,”

“I am though. I’ve told everyone a life story and a name, but neither belong to me,”

“That’s not necessarily a lie, if you remember that it’s saving your life,” I nodded again. That made sense, but it doesn’t mean that I still agreed. “You should get some sleep, babe. And then go and see Gerard tomorrow,”

“Why?”

“Because as soon as you talk to him again, you’ll remember him the way he is, not as someone who cuts words into your head and watches you bleed,”

“Do you think I can trust—“

“No!” My mum snapped before she'd even heard my sentence, pulling my head away from her neck so she could look me in the eye. “You can trust no-one right now. Ever. This is our secret, and it’s going to stay that way. Now go to sleep,”

I nodded wearily and trudged back up the stairs, avoiding the glass from my mirror that was scattered broken and waiting for blood across my bedroom floor. I'd clean it up tomorrow, or the next day. It didn't really matter.

I climbed back into my bed, fluffing up the covers around me so I could make myself my own little cocoon, but merely for comfort, and for warmth. I didn’t need sleep, I didn't want sleep. I didn't want to dream again.