Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance
Raise Your Voice Every Single Time You Open Up Your Mouth
0 ReviewsFrerard Oneshot. Frank's life is full of hatred and abuse. Can one guy save him? Sad.
Raise Your Voice Every Single Time You Open Up Your Mouth
Disclaimer: don't own MCR or anything. Credit for how Frank and Gerard meet in this story goes to benzedrine_barbie, and I probably should have asked permission first. Please go read her story because it's a hell of a lot less depressing (and generally better) than this shit. Frerard...isn't...r-r-ea-........................................lly the combination of Gerard and his brother Fred.
Frank's POV
~*~
“TOUCHDOWN SAINTS!” the announcer shouted as the wide receiver caught the Hail Mary pass just as time expired. My hands flew up in the air as my mom got up and started doing a victory dance. The white walls of our tiny house looked almost like snow against the black sky through the window (which meant it was far past my bedtime, but my mom and I were too busy screaming to notice).
Mother and I had just started to tango out of sheer, simple joy, when we heard the front door fly open. We froze, listening hard to the thunk, thunk, thunk of someone lumbering up the stairs. My anxious eyes flew to my mother as my mind constructed a scene of what was approaching toward us; I pictured a burglar, at the very least. But what came through the door of Mother’s bedroom wasn’t a burglar.
I should’ve known, even then, that it was something worse.
My father burst into the room, looking livid.
At age five, I didn’t understand why his eyes were so red. I didn’t know the reason he smelled like urine and alcohol. I couldn’t comprehend why my mother’s expression grew more frightened, or why she said, “Frank, I want you to go to your room and lock the door.”
“But mom, the Saints just—”
“Now, Frank!” Her voice quavered only slightly.
Sulking, I trudged down the stairs to my room, pulling a random comic book off the shelf. Within minutes, I was smiling again, giggling so much at the asinine characters that I failed to hear the screeches of Mother, nor the loud moans of my drunken father.
~*~
I walked very slowly up the steps to our pitiful house, turning the test over in my hands. The red ink reading 58% F is not going to go over well with my father. He’s probably going to kill me.
When I say, “Dad’s going to kill me,” I mean it differently than other people. Others, when they say that, they mean that their father is going to lecture them and take their phone away for a week.
I wish a cell phone ban was the least of my father problems.
As I pushed open the peeling front door, a feeling of dread built up inside me. There was Frank Sr., sitting on the stained brown recliner, holding a bottle of God knows what. “What’s that in your hand?” he asked, his words slurring together slightly.
Without looking away from those bloodshot, hate-filled black eyes, I handed him my test. He squinted at it for a bit, trying to comprehend the spiky red letters. “An F?” he spat. “You expect to get a job with an F?!” He stood up, wobbling a little, and came right up to my face. I flinched at the smell of his breath.
“How are we supposed to pay for stuff when you’re failing all your tests and shit?!” He raised his hand and smacked me across the face. I had no time to recover before a blow to my groin brought me to my knees. I cried out in agony, but he just kicked my forehead. “You think that hurts?!” he screeched. “Try not having any money, that’s what’s gonna hurt you!”
He’s just drunk, I thought. He has no idea what he’s saying. I slowly picked myself up off the floor. “Have we learned a little lesson today?” he sneered at me. I didn’t answer.
He grabbed my black side fringe and pulled up my head. My nose was bleeding. “Look me in the eye and answer me!”
Breathing heavily, I murmured weakly, “Yes…”
“And are you gonna study for your next test?”
Defeated, I replied, “Yes…”
“Good. Now get outta my sight. GET THE FUCK OUT!!”
He threw me on the floor. Scrambling up, I hurried to my room, away from his gaze.
Once inside my sanctuary, I flopped on my bed and, holding a tissue to my nose to try and stop the gushing blood, I turned on my iPod (a secret gift from Leah). It shuffled to “Broken Home” by Papa Roach as I stared up at the place where Drew Brees’s poster used to hang on my wall, right in the center of the black-painted wall.
Examining my bruises, I found that the ones from last week had finally started turning a mild yellow. By tomorrow, I would have at least two new ones.
This was my life, my nightmare, my Hell on Earth.
I fell asleep without finishing my homework, too early to see my mother come home from work, always there with a smile, however weary. She woke me up at three in the morning with her usual screams that left me just as sleepless as she.
~*~
The next day, I wore long pants and a hoodie to cover my new bruises.
I trudged down the halls of the hellhole known to man as High School. Right as the bell rings, though, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and yank me violently back. The raspy voice of Lucas, the spawn of Satan himself, whisper in my ear, “You’re dead next period, fag.” Ben’s moronic chuckle came from farther behind. Lucas snickered at me before shoving me toward my homeroom.
“I’m not…gay…” I tried to call after them, but they were already gone. I pushed the thought of them out of my mind.
Bored in homeroom, I started randomly devising plots to get away with listening to my iPod in class.
I had just started discreetly threading my right headphone through the sleeve of my hoodie when the door opened. In walked a guy with long raven hair that curtained his face. He wore all black.
When he looked up, I could see that he had the face of an angel, with hazel green eyes the exact same shade as mine. He walked swiftly to the empty desk at the back without waiting for the teacher’s introduction: “This is Gerard Way . He’ll be joining our class.”
I found myself sneaking peeks at him until the bell rang.
I was barely out the door before Ben slammed me against the wall. Everything went black for an instant, and when my vision returned, I heard an eerie snap, and I saw crimson dripping from the stone before he lifted me by the shirt and held me a foot above the ground. My consciousness started gradually slipping away as Lucas delivered strike after strike to my head, the sneers and laughs of my peers washing over me. I was sure I was imagining when a voice said, “Put him down. Now.”
My face hit the cold, smooth floor. “That’s right. Back away, nice and slow.”
My vision started shimmering around the edges, but I clearly saw Gerard Way holding out a pocketknife and looking absolutely deadly. He appeared about to say something else, but then my focus slipped, and I fell into darkness.
~*~
My awareness returned suddenly.
There was something sopping wet being pressed to my face.
I started.
“Whoa!” Gerard said, shocked. Then he smiled up at me, showing all of his dazzling teeth. “Hey there, sleepyhead.”
“Whuzzgoinon?” I blinked. I sat on the bathroom counter, the bright lights throwing the graffiti into sharp relief. Soaked brown paper towels lay on either side of me, stained scarlet.
“Well,” Gerard replied, clapping his hands together, “I just saved your life from those sick bastards. And now, I am cleaning you up so you do not look like you bathed in cat blood.” I grinned.
“So,” he continued, “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.” He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Gerard. Failed outta my last school, so now I’m here, apparently as the protector of the innocent.”
I shook his hand. It was incredibly soft. “Frank Iero. Um…shouldn’t we be in class right now?”
He waved his hand. “Eh. As far as I’m concerned, school doesn’t really matter.” He looked at me sideways. “Do you care about school?”
I shrugged. “I don’t, but my dad does.”
“Well, the only conclusion that I can reach is that we shouldn’t be in class right now.” He grabbed my hand. “Come on, let’s go outside.”
~*~
Several hours later, we were sprawled out on the grass, chatting and laughing like we’d known each other for years. We’d discovered that we had completely opposite tastes in food (Meat? Really?), but similar tastes in clothes, and we were arriving on the topic of music.
“Okay, so what’s your favorite band ever?” he asked me.
“Oh, that’s easy.” We said at the exact same time, “Green Day.”
We stared at each other for a moment, and then promptly began freaking out. “Oh my God!! You love them too?!”
The subject of Green Day and Billie Joe Armstrong carried us until the end of the day, and after walking part of the way home together, we parted reluctantly at the intersection of Cemetery Drive and Main Street .
My luck was unbelievable. I had found someone I could be myself with. There was only one other person about whom I could say that.
When I arrived at my driveway, I saw that her car had pulled up to the house.
Without pausing to think, I rushed in the house to her room. There she sat, looking worn out, but a real smile crept onto her face when she saw me.
“Leah!” I squealed, running into my mother’s arms.
“Hi, Frank,” she murmured into my hair.
“Why are you home so early?” I asked.
“Eh. I felt like taking a day off.” I pulled away so I could look in her face. “You look happy. Did something happen at school today?”
“Well,” I began, took a deep breath, and continued, “I have a friend.”
Her grin expanded. “That’s wonderful, Frank!” She hugged me again.
It sure is, I thought.
~*~
From then on, Gerard Way and Frank Iero were inseparable. We had all of our classes together, so you never saw one of us without the other. Lucas and Ben never came near us. My grades started increasing, even though I spent as much time skiving as I did in class. My father had fewer reasons to beat me.
He was the yin to my yang, the Pop to my Tart. He was hope, the beacon in the dark, stormy night. He was everything.
One night, before Leah arrived from work, I dug through the piles of crap in my bedroom. It was a challenge Gerard had given me: “When I moved, I found all sorts of stuff that I had totally forgotten about.”
Suddenly, I felt a sharp sting in my index finger. I withdrew it to find a thin scarlet line across the tip: A paper cut.
I searched more cautiously this time, and I carefully extracted a poster.
It was Drew Brees.
I gazed at it mutely for a time, forgetting Gerard, forgetting the past 12 years of my life, recalling those days when this man was my only concern. A tear landed on his face.
My door creaked open.
My head whipped around so quickly I cricked my neck, and I saw Frank Sr., looking very wasted and in desperate need of a punching bag.
I would not awaken until the next morning.
~*~
I drew my hood over my head, feeling wretched as I dragged myself to school. I didn’t bother to wait for Gerard, nor did I slow down when I heard him calling after me.
Suddenly, he appeared in front of me, preventing my further walking. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said irritably. He slid his finger underneath my chin and lifted my face so I could look in his eyes, which were about five inches above mine.
After perusing my eyes for less than half a second, his expression morphed from cross to worried. “What’s wrong?” he whispered in an entirely different voice. When I didn’t reply, he picked me up and threw me on his back. He carried me to the grassy field on the school grounds where we were never caught skiving lessons.
“What’s the matter?” he asked again, and his eyes were so full of concern that I had no choice. Slowly, I pulled up my shirt, revealing the brilliant black stamp pad on my stomach. Gerard’s hand covered his mouth. “Oh my fucking God.”
Abruptly, without any warning whatsoever, tears started spilling out of my eyes, and I started wailing with misery. Words were a never-ending waterfall out of my mouth, words telling him what I had never told another living soul. He pulled me into his lap, and I cried into his shirt. I could feel his tears hitting my head like rain as he patted my back.
“It’s gonna be okay, Frank,” he murmured gently.
Disbelief shot through me. “How in hell do you think it’s gonna be okay?!”
He lifted my chin again, staring at me intently. I could see the tears clinging to his eyelashes.
I didn’t even know it had happened until it was happening.
Suddenly his lips were on mine, saying what words could never have begun to express. I was kissing him back, feeling his soft skin and lips. We broke apart to just gape at each other, before attacking again. His Chapstick was definitely mint-flavored. His hair, skin, mouth…everything about him was perfect. How was I lucky enough for this?
After a few minutes, we pulled apart, gasping for breath. My beacon gazed into my eyes, and I counted the number of brown flecks in them. There were twenty.
“You have to stand up for yourself.”
I nodded, smiling so hard it hurt my face.
~*~
“Leah?”
My mom turned to me. “Yeah, Frank?”
“Can we talk?” I motioned for us to sit on the kitchen table.
I sighed. “Can we please get rid of Dad?”
Her mask broke. She looked at me with fright. “How did you know?”
I rubbed my eyes. Think of Gerard, I told myself. Think of how proud Gerard would be of you. “Mom, I’ve known for a really long time.”
She took a very deep breath. “I…I’ve been trying to work up the courage to confront him for…many years.” She buried her face in the pillow. “Why are you only asking now?” She turned and met my eyes. “If you’ve known for so long.”
“Leah…” I closed my eyes. “I have something to tell you.”
Her arm wrapped around my shoulders. “What, sweetheart?”
Just do it, I thought. Just say it. For Gerard.
“I’m gay.”
But before she could respond, a boom of laughter rang from the other room.
Shit. I didn’t know he was here.
He appeared at the doorway, looking even more intoxicated than last night. “So,” he slurred, lumbering toward Leah and me. “I have a fag son.”
“Frank, stop!” Leah said, standing in front of me. His expression changed from drunken amusement to fury.
“MOVE, woman!” He slammed his bottle into the side of her head.
My mother seemed to fall to the ground in slow-motion, graceful as a bird shot from the sky. She did not even twitch.
“LEAH!”
He grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me toward him.
“How faggy are ya, Frank?”
He licked the side of my face and began roughly pulling down my jeans.
No. This is not going to happen.
I wrestled out of his grip, seeing Gerard’s face every time I blinked. I yanked open a drawer and pulled out the sharpest knife.
“This is for LEAH!” I screamed, shoving the blade into his stomach.
He stopped dead in his tracks. Crimson began to spread rapidly throughout his stained wife-beater.
“This is for all the money you wasted on ALCOHOL!” I stabbed him again. Blood trickled from his mouth.
“And this,” I began, pulling the knife out, “is for ME!” I plunged it into his chest.
I kicked him to the ground and stared at my handiwork. Sirens screamed in the distance. Red pooled on the kitchen floor. And I was free.
No matter what happened to the world after this, Frank Sr. would not be part of it.
~*~
YAAYYY DEPRESSING
Fun Fact: I actually turned this in for a grade. The original title of this was "The Beacon." Frank's name was Paul Foster, because of Paul from the Bible. Gerard was Jimmy St. Croix, whose name should be obvious to anyone who has seen Green Day's American Idiot. And it was, obviously, more censored.
-A
Disclaimer: don't own MCR or anything. Credit for how Frank and Gerard meet in this story goes to benzedrine_barbie, and I probably should have asked permission first. Please go read her story because it's a hell of a lot less depressing (and generally better) than this shit. Frerard...isn't...r-r-ea-........................................lly the combination of Gerard and his brother Fred.
Frank's POV
~*~
“TOUCHDOWN SAINTS!” the announcer shouted as the wide receiver caught the Hail Mary pass just as time expired. My hands flew up in the air as my mom got up and started doing a victory dance. The white walls of our tiny house looked almost like snow against the black sky through the window (which meant it was far past my bedtime, but my mom and I were too busy screaming to notice).
Mother and I had just started to tango out of sheer, simple joy, when we heard the front door fly open. We froze, listening hard to the thunk, thunk, thunk of someone lumbering up the stairs. My anxious eyes flew to my mother as my mind constructed a scene of what was approaching toward us; I pictured a burglar, at the very least. But what came through the door of Mother’s bedroom wasn’t a burglar.
I should’ve known, even then, that it was something worse.
My father burst into the room, looking livid.
At age five, I didn’t understand why his eyes were so red. I didn’t know the reason he smelled like urine and alcohol. I couldn’t comprehend why my mother’s expression grew more frightened, or why she said, “Frank, I want you to go to your room and lock the door.”
“But mom, the Saints just—”
“Now, Frank!” Her voice quavered only slightly.
Sulking, I trudged down the stairs to my room, pulling a random comic book off the shelf. Within minutes, I was smiling again, giggling so much at the asinine characters that I failed to hear the screeches of Mother, nor the loud moans of my drunken father.
~*~
I walked very slowly up the steps to our pitiful house, turning the test over in my hands. The red ink reading 58% F is not going to go over well with my father. He’s probably going to kill me.
When I say, “Dad’s going to kill me,” I mean it differently than other people. Others, when they say that, they mean that their father is going to lecture them and take their phone away for a week.
I wish a cell phone ban was the least of my father problems.
As I pushed open the peeling front door, a feeling of dread built up inside me. There was Frank Sr., sitting on the stained brown recliner, holding a bottle of God knows what. “What’s that in your hand?” he asked, his words slurring together slightly.
Without looking away from those bloodshot, hate-filled black eyes, I handed him my test. He squinted at it for a bit, trying to comprehend the spiky red letters. “An F?” he spat. “You expect to get a job with an F?!” He stood up, wobbling a little, and came right up to my face. I flinched at the smell of his breath.
“How are we supposed to pay for stuff when you’re failing all your tests and shit?!” He raised his hand and smacked me across the face. I had no time to recover before a blow to my groin brought me to my knees. I cried out in agony, but he just kicked my forehead. “You think that hurts?!” he screeched. “Try not having any money, that’s what’s gonna hurt you!”
He’s just drunk, I thought. He has no idea what he’s saying. I slowly picked myself up off the floor. “Have we learned a little lesson today?” he sneered at me. I didn’t answer.
He grabbed my black side fringe and pulled up my head. My nose was bleeding. “Look me in the eye and answer me!”
Breathing heavily, I murmured weakly, “Yes…”
“And are you gonna study for your next test?”
Defeated, I replied, “Yes…”
“Good. Now get outta my sight. GET THE FUCK OUT!!”
He threw me on the floor. Scrambling up, I hurried to my room, away from his gaze.
Once inside my sanctuary, I flopped on my bed and, holding a tissue to my nose to try and stop the gushing blood, I turned on my iPod (a secret gift from Leah). It shuffled to “Broken Home” by Papa Roach as I stared up at the place where Drew Brees’s poster used to hang on my wall, right in the center of the black-painted wall.
Examining my bruises, I found that the ones from last week had finally started turning a mild yellow. By tomorrow, I would have at least two new ones.
This was my life, my nightmare, my Hell on Earth.
I fell asleep without finishing my homework, too early to see my mother come home from work, always there with a smile, however weary. She woke me up at three in the morning with her usual screams that left me just as sleepless as she.
~*~
The next day, I wore long pants and a hoodie to cover my new bruises.
I trudged down the halls of the hellhole known to man as High School. Right as the bell rings, though, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and yank me violently back. The raspy voice of Lucas, the spawn of Satan himself, whisper in my ear, “You’re dead next period, fag.” Ben’s moronic chuckle came from farther behind. Lucas snickered at me before shoving me toward my homeroom.
“I’m not…gay…” I tried to call after them, but they were already gone. I pushed the thought of them out of my mind.
Bored in homeroom, I started randomly devising plots to get away with listening to my iPod in class.
I had just started discreetly threading my right headphone through the sleeve of my hoodie when the door opened. In walked a guy with long raven hair that curtained his face. He wore all black.
When he looked up, I could see that he had the face of an angel, with hazel green eyes the exact same shade as mine. He walked swiftly to the empty desk at the back without waiting for the teacher’s introduction: “This is Gerard Way . He’ll be joining our class.”
I found myself sneaking peeks at him until the bell rang.
I was barely out the door before Ben slammed me against the wall. Everything went black for an instant, and when my vision returned, I heard an eerie snap, and I saw crimson dripping from the stone before he lifted me by the shirt and held me a foot above the ground. My consciousness started gradually slipping away as Lucas delivered strike after strike to my head, the sneers and laughs of my peers washing over me. I was sure I was imagining when a voice said, “Put him down. Now.”
My face hit the cold, smooth floor. “That’s right. Back away, nice and slow.”
My vision started shimmering around the edges, but I clearly saw Gerard Way holding out a pocketknife and looking absolutely deadly. He appeared about to say something else, but then my focus slipped, and I fell into darkness.
~*~
My awareness returned suddenly.
There was something sopping wet being pressed to my face.
I started.
“Whoa!” Gerard said, shocked. Then he smiled up at me, showing all of his dazzling teeth. “Hey there, sleepyhead.”
“Whuzzgoinon?” I blinked. I sat on the bathroom counter, the bright lights throwing the graffiti into sharp relief. Soaked brown paper towels lay on either side of me, stained scarlet.
“Well,” Gerard replied, clapping his hands together, “I just saved your life from those sick bastards. And now, I am cleaning you up so you do not look like you bathed in cat blood.” I grinned.
“So,” he continued, “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.” He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Gerard. Failed outta my last school, so now I’m here, apparently as the protector of the innocent.”
I shook his hand. It was incredibly soft. “Frank Iero. Um…shouldn’t we be in class right now?”
He waved his hand. “Eh. As far as I’m concerned, school doesn’t really matter.” He looked at me sideways. “Do you care about school?”
I shrugged. “I don’t, but my dad does.”
“Well, the only conclusion that I can reach is that we shouldn’t be in class right now.” He grabbed my hand. “Come on, let’s go outside.”
~*~
Several hours later, we were sprawled out on the grass, chatting and laughing like we’d known each other for years. We’d discovered that we had completely opposite tastes in food (Meat? Really?), but similar tastes in clothes, and we were arriving on the topic of music.
“Okay, so what’s your favorite band ever?” he asked me.
“Oh, that’s easy.” We said at the exact same time, “Green Day.”
We stared at each other for a moment, and then promptly began freaking out. “Oh my God!! You love them too?!”
The subject of Green Day and Billie Joe Armstrong carried us until the end of the day, and after walking part of the way home together, we parted reluctantly at the intersection of Cemetery Drive and Main Street .
My luck was unbelievable. I had found someone I could be myself with. There was only one other person about whom I could say that.
When I arrived at my driveway, I saw that her car had pulled up to the house.
Without pausing to think, I rushed in the house to her room. There she sat, looking worn out, but a real smile crept onto her face when she saw me.
“Leah!” I squealed, running into my mother’s arms.
“Hi, Frank,” she murmured into my hair.
“Why are you home so early?” I asked.
“Eh. I felt like taking a day off.” I pulled away so I could look in her face. “You look happy. Did something happen at school today?”
“Well,” I began, took a deep breath, and continued, “I have a friend.”
Her grin expanded. “That’s wonderful, Frank!” She hugged me again.
It sure is, I thought.
~*~
From then on, Gerard Way and Frank Iero were inseparable. We had all of our classes together, so you never saw one of us without the other. Lucas and Ben never came near us. My grades started increasing, even though I spent as much time skiving as I did in class. My father had fewer reasons to beat me.
He was the yin to my yang, the Pop to my Tart. He was hope, the beacon in the dark, stormy night. He was everything.
One night, before Leah arrived from work, I dug through the piles of crap in my bedroom. It was a challenge Gerard had given me: “When I moved, I found all sorts of stuff that I had totally forgotten about.”
Suddenly, I felt a sharp sting in my index finger. I withdrew it to find a thin scarlet line across the tip: A paper cut.
I searched more cautiously this time, and I carefully extracted a poster.
It was Drew Brees.
I gazed at it mutely for a time, forgetting Gerard, forgetting the past 12 years of my life, recalling those days when this man was my only concern. A tear landed on his face.
My door creaked open.
My head whipped around so quickly I cricked my neck, and I saw Frank Sr., looking very wasted and in desperate need of a punching bag.
I would not awaken until the next morning.
~*~
I drew my hood over my head, feeling wretched as I dragged myself to school. I didn’t bother to wait for Gerard, nor did I slow down when I heard him calling after me.
Suddenly, he appeared in front of me, preventing my further walking. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said irritably. He slid his finger underneath my chin and lifted my face so I could look in his eyes, which were about five inches above mine.
After perusing my eyes for less than half a second, his expression morphed from cross to worried. “What’s wrong?” he whispered in an entirely different voice. When I didn’t reply, he picked me up and threw me on his back. He carried me to the grassy field on the school grounds where we were never caught skiving lessons.
“What’s the matter?” he asked again, and his eyes were so full of concern that I had no choice. Slowly, I pulled up my shirt, revealing the brilliant black stamp pad on my stomach. Gerard’s hand covered his mouth. “Oh my fucking God.”
Abruptly, without any warning whatsoever, tears started spilling out of my eyes, and I started wailing with misery. Words were a never-ending waterfall out of my mouth, words telling him what I had never told another living soul. He pulled me into his lap, and I cried into his shirt. I could feel his tears hitting my head like rain as he patted my back.
“It’s gonna be okay, Frank,” he murmured gently.
Disbelief shot through me. “How in hell do you think it’s gonna be okay?!”
He lifted my chin again, staring at me intently. I could see the tears clinging to his eyelashes.
I didn’t even know it had happened until it was happening.
Suddenly his lips were on mine, saying what words could never have begun to express. I was kissing him back, feeling his soft skin and lips. We broke apart to just gape at each other, before attacking again. His Chapstick was definitely mint-flavored. His hair, skin, mouth…everything about him was perfect. How was I lucky enough for this?
After a few minutes, we pulled apart, gasping for breath. My beacon gazed into my eyes, and I counted the number of brown flecks in them. There were twenty.
“You have to stand up for yourself.”
I nodded, smiling so hard it hurt my face.
~*~
“Leah?”
My mom turned to me. “Yeah, Frank?”
“Can we talk?” I motioned for us to sit on the kitchen table.
I sighed. “Can we please get rid of Dad?”
Her mask broke. She looked at me with fright. “How did you know?”
I rubbed my eyes. Think of Gerard, I told myself. Think of how proud Gerard would be of you. “Mom, I’ve known for a really long time.”
She took a very deep breath. “I…I’ve been trying to work up the courage to confront him for…many years.” She buried her face in the pillow. “Why are you only asking now?” She turned and met my eyes. “If you’ve known for so long.”
“Leah…” I closed my eyes. “I have something to tell you.”
Her arm wrapped around my shoulders. “What, sweetheart?”
Just do it, I thought. Just say it. For Gerard.
“I’m gay.”
But before she could respond, a boom of laughter rang from the other room.
Shit. I didn’t know he was here.
He appeared at the doorway, looking even more intoxicated than last night. “So,” he slurred, lumbering toward Leah and me. “I have a fag son.”
“Frank, stop!” Leah said, standing in front of me. His expression changed from drunken amusement to fury.
“MOVE, woman!” He slammed his bottle into the side of her head.
My mother seemed to fall to the ground in slow-motion, graceful as a bird shot from the sky. She did not even twitch.
“LEAH!”
He grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me toward him.
“How faggy are ya, Frank?”
He licked the side of my face and began roughly pulling down my jeans.
No. This is not going to happen.
I wrestled out of his grip, seeing Gerard’s face every time I blinked. I yanked open a drawer and pulled out the sharpest knife.
“This is for LEAH!” I screamed, shoving the blade into his stomach.
He stopped dead in his tracks. Crimson began to spread rapidly throughout his stained wife-beater.
“This is for all the money you wasted on ALCOHOL!” I stabbed him again. Blood trickled from his mouth.
“And this,” I began, pulling the knife out, “is for ME!” I plunged it into his chest.
I kicked him to the ground and stared at my handiwork. Sirens screamed in the distance. Red pooled on the kitchen floor. And I was free.
No matter what happened to the world after this, Frank Sr. would not be part of it.
~*~
YAAYYY DEPRESSING
Fun Fact: I actually turned this in for a grade. The original title of this was "The Beacon." Frank's name was Paul Foster, because of Paul from the Bible. Gerard was Jimmy St. Croix, whose name should be obvious to anyone who has seen Green Day's American Idiot. And it was, obviously, more censored.
-A
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