Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Soul Purpose
Through All This, My Sanity Struggles To Survive
10 reviewsWell, if anyone still remembers and wants to read. Sorry it took me long to update again but Ive been living in hell so...
2Ambiance
33. Through All This, My Sanity Struggles To Survive
She panted hard as they approached the end of their set for the night. Every square inch of her body was covered with sweat – and some water from that one bottle Devon had decided to empty all over her face in the middle of the show; she had made him scream like a scared little girl when she jumped on his back unexpectedly for payback.
She flicked her hair out of her face as she approached the mic stand for the last time that night, her heart sinking heavily on top of her stomach with the words she knew she was going to sing in about a moment. They were a late addition to the song, actually. Kind of an improvisation. The first time she would ever sing them. Because she felt like singing them.
Feeling the unbearable burden of what they meant and what she had decided to do, she leaned in towards the microphone and her voice rang clear in the venue:
“If we could have loved without fear
tell me, would we have been here?
If we only knew how to love
would we have saved ourselves?”
Her breath sounded ragged at the end of the question but she let it out forcibly, trying to keep her face straight. Two more shows and the tour was going to be over. She had to talk to Gerard. And she had to do it soon. Tonight. She had finally decided and gathered up the courage to talk to him after My Chemical Romance’s set. He deserved an explanation and explanations took time.
The crowd erupted with cheers and she smiled at the excited faces of the fans in front of her. It was so close to a dream. Her dream. And she knew, in her mind that her decision was the right thing to do. To be able to live out her dreams. To be able to reach that wonderful weightless feeling of being understood, adored, loved by so many different people. To be able to give all of them something beautiful, shiny and tangible to think of. To be able to make them jump and writhe and thrash and to do all of those together with them. To feed the burning fire of energy deep inside her chest. That fire that sometimes shrunk into the tiniest spark but still managed to keep her a little sane at least, under the maddening pressure of studying engineering.
She knew she had to make a sacrifice. And she knew she had to do it fast. Or she feared she would never be able to do it at all. But then, that would mean her forcing herself and her hard-working bandmates into the shadows for all time.
She couldn’t afford that.
But the thought of hurting him… Gerard. She sometimes thought that would hurt much more than never being able to catch up with her dreams. She shook her head to help her mind float up to the level of cognition and took a deep breath.
“Thank you, everyone!” she yelled into the mic. “Thanks for being here tonight and sharing all this with us.” She paused to catch her breath for a second before continuing with a tight smile on her lips. “Thanks for making this night amazing. We love you… And hope to see you again soon. Bye!”
With that she waved at the audience with both hands one last time and started to jog her way across the stage towards the backstage entrance. Her bandmates quickly caught up with her, their excited conversations and laughter filled up her head, distracting her from her thoughts for a few moments. Matt was teasing Devon for screaming like a girl and the bassist was retorting back with a giggly “You almost took that poor kid’s eye out with your stick, dude. You can’t even throw your sticks at the audience without the risk of dismembering them. You idiot…” And Defne remembered only a while ago, Matt would probably find something to tease her about, too. Probably some witty remark about the expression on her face when the whole water bottle was emptied down her head but things were different now, apparently. She hadn’t really talked to the drummer about their spat and kinda hoped that everything would be fine. But it wasn’t. And they were slowly drifting apart, she could feel it. What kind of a band would they be if they couldn’t communicate inside their own circle?
She just wanted to go back to the good times. All this was too mentally and emotionally frustrating.
As if to add to her massive load of self-frustration, Gerard met her with a giant smile and open arms backstage. “What were those last lines about?” he asked innocently, having noticed the difference in the song.
She just shrugged, carefully keeping her body from stepping up into the circle of his protective arms. “I dunno,” she said, averting her eyes and generally trying to look tired but not sad, “Just felt like making an addition, I guess.”
“Well, I kinda liked how they sounded,” Gerard continued, seemingly not having realized Defne’s retreated self. “They click with the rest of the song, somehow.”
“Yeah?” she asked, trying so hard to speak so that she could keep her throat from tightening.
Gerard nodded in response and took the few steps she should have taken earlier to touch her face with gentle fingertips. “Yeah,” he started, suddenly distracted and frowning, “But… you okay? You look a bit –”
She nodded hastily. “Oh, I’m fine. Just… really tired. The tour’s finally started to wear me out, I guess.”
The oblivious front-man smiled down at her affectionately, stroking her cheek. “Maybe you shouldn’t spend such an insane amount of energy on stage, then, huh?” he muttered softly, “I don’t want you to get sick again.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay,” he agreed good-naturedly, so psyched up for the stage that he didn’t question her for more information about the state she was in. Then he cupped one of her cheeks and grasped her other arm lightly, leaning in for a kiss but she leaned her head away from his in a moment of panic. He frowned again and gave her a puzzled stare.
“Hey, what… What’s wrong Defne?”
She bit her lower lip, her whole body filled with anxiety. She couldn’t kiss him. Not and two hours later tell him that she wanted to break up with him. She opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She tried a couple more times as he held onto her and stared.
“I…” she started, “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I just… ‘m all sweaty and really gross. You wouldn’t wanna –”
He chuckled sweetly at her stammered explanation. He had bought it.
“That’s never stopped me before,” he murmured in her ear seductively, “’Cause I don’t care. You know that.”
Then he crushed his lips against hers suddenly, not giving her time to move away and wrapped his arms around her waist. She suddenly felt like drowning. Drowning in him and then hitting rock bottom. She returned the kiss with passion and she couldn’t breathe. She was dying. Dying. Dying inside him…
She wanted to curl up inside of him and be dead in there forever.
When Gerard finally broke the kiss, their limbs were entangled in the most intimate way and he was desperately gasping for breath. As she was mourning his loss and only gasping for more of him.
“Wow,” he panted, his forehead resting against hers as their chests did big up and down motions of breathlessness. “I knew I had a good reason for loving sweaty, gross kisses.”
She made a sound between a scoff and a chuckle, kinda like her breath hitching.
He leaned in and kissed her one last time, his hands sliding into her rich dark hair. When the overwhelming pressure of his lips left hers, she felt locks of her hair falling at her face and realized that Gerard had untied the purple cloth she had on as a head band to help get her locks away from her face faster when she head banged. He shot her a devastating smile as he turned back on his way to the stage, inhaling her scent from the purple fabric.
“I love you,” he mouthed to her as he tried to tie the cloth around his right (microphone-holding) hand and wrist so that he could smell her all the time while he was on stage.
She smiled at him like a broken doll and watched his retreating back until he disappeared around the corner.
Only when Zack came and asked her what was wrong, did she realize she had salt on her tongue and watercolors in her vision. She shook her head and ran as far as she could.
*
Gerard sat on the double bed and waited patiently for Defne to come out of the bathroom. He still had her head band wrapped around his hand and would sniff at it every few moments. He had been overwhelmed by her scent all night long and now he needed her so bad. He knew she was tired. And yes he was horny, but it wasn’t like they had to have sex. It would have been good – no, wonderful – if they did, of course. But he actually thought she needed her rest. She looked so down tonight. And he only wanted to be close to her. To have the real thing right beside him instead of only a fragrance or a reflection.
When she finally stepped out of the bathroom, looking all fresh and clean and soft, his heart swelled and he could have sworn he feared for the safety of his sternum at that moment. The fist-sized organ inside his chest was about ready to burst out of his body if given the slightest acceleration forward.
His lips parted and lifted upwards to show a row of tiny white teeth and Defne came to a halt a few feets before him. She took a deep breath, trying to separate her heart from her stomach and let out an unnecessarily loud “I need to talk to you about something.”
Gerard blinked at her in confusion. He was surprised by the sudden loud volume of her voice.
“Okay,” he muttered and then asked cautiously, “What do you wanna talk about?”
She nervously bit her lip and clutched at her abdomen unconsciously. Her insides were twisting and turning around in the confined space, making her feel such unbearable pain and heat, for some reason. Gerard’s eyes traveled from her troubled expression to where her hands rested firmly. He blinked a few times and directed his gaze to her face once more, trying to read it but then his eyes were pulled down to her belly again, as if by invisible strings. If invisible strings can pull someone’s gaze towards a specific direction, that is.
“Uhhhh…” was the only sound that came from her mouth as his eyes continued to oscillate between her face and her abdomen. “I mean… I, ummm… I need to…” she faltered, looking down and rubbing at her aching belly some more and suddenly a sharp intake of breath from Gerard’s direction turned her attention back to him.
“Oh…” he let out in a soft yet loud voice, his eyes as big as ping pong balls with sudden realization of something shining inside them. “Oh my… Does that mean…?” he trailed off and gave a half amazed, half incredulous chuckle. “I mean, are you…?”
She frowned and followed the path of his gaze down to her stomach. She stared for a few moments at the protective position of her hands, then looked up to see the light in his eyes as he looked at her belly in amazement. And she finally realized what he had realized.
“No!” she cried out suddenly, making the front-man jump on his seat at the edge of the bed. “I’m not… I mean, if you think I was trying to tell you I’m… that I’m p-pregnant or something, I’m not.”
“You’re not?” Gerard asked with huge eyes, the light inside them suddenly disappearing like the candles on a birthday cake being huffed out.
She shook her head hastily. “No, I’m not.”
Gerard cast his eyes downwards and examined his clasped hands in his lap for a moment, twiddling and twisting his fingers. “You’re not…” he muttered, more to himself than to Defne. “Okay,” he nodded as he finally digested his false realization. “So, what were you trying to tell me, then?”
Defne took another deep breath, knowing there was no going back after this.
“I…” she started hesitantly, “You know, the tour’s gonna be over soon… And I… I’ve been thinking seriously for a few days now that –”
“I know!” Gerard exclaimed suddenly, cutting her off. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I think that’s why I want to be near you so much more these days. I mean –”
“You have?” she asked incredulously. He, too, had been thinking about breaking up with her. And she was worried about hurting him. She suddenly felt like such a fool.
“Yeah,” Gerard responded, “The tour’s gonna be over in about four days and then we’re gonna have to go to Europe and you’re gonna have to lock yourselves in the studio to record the new album. We’re gonna be apart for some time but I don’t wanna be away from you.”
Defne whipped her up to look at his face suddenly, hating herself for thinking even for a moment that Gerard would hurt her. Only she could be so heartless and cruel to think about things that would hurt him.
“It sounds really childish when you say it but I don’t want this tour to ever end, you know?” he added sheepishly, looking up at her from under his impossibly thick eyelashes. It was that moment she realized he probably had two rows of lashes instead of only one for them to be so thick and fluttery and perfect. And then his words finally sank in. And the world was back in watercolors.
“Oh, baby… Don’t do that,” Gerard mumbled, standing up and walking over to where she was standing, trying to swallow back her tears. Right when he was about to put his arms around her, she shook her head and scrambled away from him. “I’m sorry,” she choked out with noticeable effort.
“Hey, c’mon, don’t…”
She stepped back until she was at a considerably safe distance from him and repeated: “I’m sorry.”
Gerard stood in his place and looked at her dumbly, not getting why she kept saying she was sorry.
“What?” he asked at last.
“I… I can’t do this anymore, Gerard,” she whispered, her tears finally agreeing to lessen and let her see him. But it hurt even worse when she could see him clearly. When she could acknowledge the shocked expression on his face, the sudden realization of the meaning of her words making his heart sink.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered, frowning, still confused.
“I can’t take it anymore,” she said this time, her voice a bit stronger.
“You can’t take what?” he asked desperately.
“All this,” she said with a vague motion of her hand around the air. “It’s too much… I… I don’t want it to be like this. I never did.”
“You never wanted it to be like what?” This time he sounded more agitated.
She made an impatient noise at the back of her throat and scoffed in frustration, grabbing her hair and pulling at it. “Like, like all this… these things that keep happening,” she cried, “People liking or hating me or my band simply because I’m with you. People wanting to talk to me about our relationship. People not caring about Defne from Soul Purpose but Defne – Gerard Way’s girlfriend. All these fucking people not caring about what I do but instead about who I’m with!”
Gerard took a few unbalanced steps back as if she had hit him and caught him off guard. “People talk shit…” he shouted desperately.
“Yeah, they do. But it affects us!” she said, lowering her voice so that she won’t yell at him again. She didn’t want to fight.
“But it shouldn’t,” he begged, “You shouldn’t care about what they say…”
“But I do, Gerard,” she said, “I can’t help but care. And neither can my friends. We can’t help it. We’re not so used to it like you are. We don’t know how to cope with it. And because we can’t, we’re slowly falling apart… And it’s… it’s not fair. I can’t do that to my band... Matt still doesn’t talk to me like he used to and even though Zack and Devon are trying, they’re always caught up in the middle and Chris has retreated back into himself and I don’t know what to do. I can’t handle it. I can’t approach my own friends. And I’m always worried about the next thing that’s gonna be thrown in our way and what that’s gonna do to us… I can’t. I can’t let them tear us apart like this. I can’t do that to the guys, to me… I can’t do that to you.”
“You can’t do what to me? Huh? You can’t hurt me? ‘Cause this is not hurting at all…” Gerard asked. His eyes looked glassy even from the other end of the room.
“I can’t blame you,” she muttered, casting her eyes towards the floor. “And I can’t let you blame yourself…”
Gerard didn’t say anything and she couldn’t gather up her thoughts enough to continue for a while. So they stayed like that in the silence, Defne gazing at the floor, Gerard staring at the top of her head and both of them simply standing there like frozen statues.
“I need to end this now,” she started, slicing through the silence, “Because… there’s gonna come a point… that I’m gonna snap, finally. And I know I’m gonna say things, do things I don’t mean. And I don’t wanna fight. I don’t wanna hurt you like that…”
“But you’re hurting me, now,” Gerard stated in a small voice.
“Do you think I like that?” she asked.
“Then why?”
“I don’t expect you to understand right away,” she said, “But I just need you to try to understand me. Try to think about what I say… I want my dreams to come true, Gerard. I want people to see me as me, only me. A woman. Just a strong woman on her two feet. I want them to know me with my music. I want them to know my friends. I want them to care about our band and our musician sides. But I can’t do all that and still be with you. Because, let’s face it. This, what’s happening, is not new. It’s happened before. And right or wrong, people, fans have believed things. News, gossip. And the thing is… I don’t want to be your Yoko. Or your Courtney, or whatever…”
“My Yoko?” Gerard asked incredulously, “But I’m nowhere near John Lennon!”
She shook her head and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. You’re Gerard Way. You’re an amazing person, people adore you. And don’t think I’m jealous or anything when I say this but, I’m always gonna be forced into the shadows. I’m always gonna be considered nothing if it wasn’t for you –”
“No, no you won’t b –”
“Let me finish,” she cut him off with a raised hand, “And if that happens, I won’t be able to stand it. I won’t be able to live with myself after having let Soul Purpose get pushed into the dark. Having disappointed my friends and myself. So I have to pick my battles, you see? I can’t fight to earn people’s attention apart from the amount I gain because of you and still be with you. So… I have to make them see me as someone before I can let them see me with you. I have to work to earn respect and not just wait around for it to hop onto my lap. I have to be someone before I can be with you.”
The front-man just stood in front of her like a puppet that somehow lost its strings; unmoving. And Defne let her gaze drop onto her chucks and slowly started to make her way towards the door of the room.
“But what about me?” Gerard whispered as she passed by. She hesitated and that few seconds of hesitation gave Gerard the chance to touch her hand and ask: “What about…? I. I love you.”
She gently drew her hand away from his and resumed her walk towards the door.
“I love you, too,” she whispered as she closed it behind her.
*
Zack stood up from his place on the bed as a knock sounded on the hotel room door. He looked over to the other bed where Devon had only yet dozed off and wondered who it might be at this time of night.
He opened the door and was met with a mess of dark hair, puffy eyes and a red nose.
Defne raised her head slightly to look at him and murmured weakly as she asked:
“Would you mind if I stayed here tonight?”
With that he ushered her in, placed her on his bed and stroked her hair away from her face as she cried. All night long.
He passed out after some time.
She didn’t.
*
Come morning, Gerard was lying awake on his bed, purple head band close to his nose, squeezed tight in his fist with dried paths of salty water evident on his cheeks.
A/N: Hey. So, I am going to finish this story. No, I'm not going to abandon it. As it looks like =) The updates come between long, shitty time intervals but I guess it's better than nothing if any of you guys are still interested in reading this.
So, please take the time to review and/or rate if you've read this. It makes me think and write more when I have the time. Because, times are not good and like I said, I've never had so much to worry about.
Bye.
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She panted hard as they approached the end of their set for the night. Every square inch of her body was covered with sweat – and some water from that one bottle Devon had decided to empty all over her face in the middle of the show; she had made him scream like a scared little girl when she jumped on his back unexpectedly for payback.
She flicked her hair out of her face as she approached the mic stand for the last time that night, her heart sinking heavily on top of her stomach with the words she knew she was going to sing in about a moment. They were a late addition to the song, actually. Kind of an improvisation. The first time she would ever sing them. Because she felt like singing them.
Feeling the unbearable burden of what they meant and what she had decided to do, she leaned in towards the microphone and her voice rang clear in the venue:
“If we could have loved without fear
tell me, would we have been here?
If we only knew how to love
would we have saved ourselves?”
Her breath sounded ragged at the end of the question but she let it out forcibly, trying to keep her face straight. Two more shows and the tour was going to be over. She had to talk to Gerard. And she had to do it soon. Tonight. She had finally decided and gathered up the courage to talk to him after My Chemical Romance’s set. He deserved an explanation and explanations took time.
The crowd erupted with cheers and she smiled at the excited faces of the fans in front of her. It was so close to a dream. Her dream. And she knew, in her mind that her decision was the right thing to do. To be able to live out her dreams. To be able to reach that wonderful weightless feeling of being understood, adored, loved by so many different people. To be able to give all of them something beautiful, shiny and tangible to think of. To be able to make them jump and writhe and thrash and to do all of those together with them. To feed the burning fire of energy deep inside her chest. That fire that sometimes shrunk into the tiniest spark but still managed to keep her a little sane at least, under the maddening pressure of studying engineering.
She knew she had to make a sacrifice. And she knew she had to do it fast. Or she feared she would never be able to do it at all. But then, that would mean her forcing herself and her hard-working bandmates into the shadows for all time.
She couldn’t afford that.
But the thought of hurting him… Gerard. She sometimes thought that would hurt much more than never being able to catch up with her dreams. She shook her head to help her mind float up to the level of cognition and took a deep breath.
“Thank you, everyone!” she yelled into the mic. “Thanks for being here tonight and sharing all this with us.” She paused to catch her breath for a second before continuing with a tight smile on her lips. “Thanks for making this night amazing. We love you… And hope to see you again soon. Bye!”
With that she waved at the audience with both hands one last time and started to jog her way across the stage towards the backstage entrance. Her bandmates quickly caught up with her, their excited conversations and laughter filled up her head, distracting her from her thoughts for a few moments. Matt was teasing Devon for screaming like a girl and the bassist was retorting back with a giggly “You almost took that poor kid’s eye out with your stick, dude. You can’t even throw your sticks at the audience without the risk of dismembering them. You idiot…” And Defne remembered only a while ago, Matt would probably find something to tease her about, too. Probably some witty remark about the expression on her face when the whole water bottle was emptied down her head but things were different now, apparently. She hadn’t really talked to the drummer about their spat and kinda hoped that everything would be fine. But it wasn’t. And they were slowly drifting apart, she could feel it. What kind of a band would they be if they couldn’t communicate inside their own circle?
She just wanted to go back to the good times. All this was too mentally and emotionally frustrating.
As if to add to her massive load of self-frustration, Gerard met her with a giant smile and open arms backstage. “What were those last lines about?” he asked innocently, having noticed the difference in the song.
She just shrugged, carefully keeping her body from stepping up into the circle of his protective arms. “I dunno,” she said, averting her eyes and generally trying to look tired but not sad, “Just felt like making an addition, I guess.”
“Well, I kinda liked how they sounded,” Gerard continued, seemingly not having realized Defne’s retreated self. “They click with the rest of the song, somehow.”
“Yeah?” she asked, trying so hard to speak so that she could keep her throat from tightening.
Gerard nodded in response and took the few steps she should have taken earlier to touch her face with gentle fingertips. “Yeah,” he started, suddenly distracted and frowning, “But… you okay? You look a bit –”
She nodded hastily. “Oh, I’m fine. Just… really tired. The tour’s finally started to wear me out, I guess.”
The oblivious front-man smiled down at her affectionately, stroking her cheek. “Maybe you shouldn’t spend such an insane amount of energy on stage, then, huh?” he muttered softly, “I don’t want you to get sick again.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay,” he agreed good-naturedly, so psyched up for the stage that he didn’t question her for more information about the state she was in. Then he cupped one of her cheeks and grasped her other arm lightly, leaning in for a kiss but she leaned her head away from his in a moment of panic. He frowned again and gave her a puzzled stare.
“Hey, what… What’s wrong Defne?”
She bit her lower lip, her whole body filled with anxiety. She couldn’t kiss him. Not and two hours later tell him that she wanted to break up with him. She opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She tried a couple more times as he held onto her and stared.
“I…” she started, “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I just… ‘m all sweaty and really gross. You wouldn’t wanna –”
He chuckled sweetly at her stammered explanation. He had bought it.
“That’s never stopped me before,” he murmured in her ear seductively, “’Cause I don’t care. You know that.”
Then he crushed his lips against hers suddenly, not giving her time to move away and wrapped his arms around her waist. She suddenly felt like drowning. Drowning in him and then hitting rock bottom. She returned the kiss with passion and she couldn’t breathe. She was dying. Dying. Dying inside him…
She wanted to curl up inside of him and be dead in there forever.
When Gerard finally broke the kiss, their limbs were entangled in the most intimate way and he was desperately gasping for breath. As she was mourning his loss and only gasping for more of him.
“Wow,” he panted, his forehead resting against hers as their chests did big up and down motions of breathlessness. “I knew I had a good reason for loving sweaty, gross kisses.”
She made a sound between a scoff and a chuckle, kinda like her breath hitching.
He leaned in and kissed her one last time, his hands sliding into her rich dark hair. When the overwhelming pressure of his lips left hers, she felt locks of her hair falling at her face and realized that Gerard had untied the purple cloth she had on as a head band to help get her locks away from her face faster when she head banged. He shot her a devastating smile as he turned back on his way to the stage, inhaling her scent from the purple fabric.
“I love you,” he mouthed to her as he tried to tie the cloth around his right (microphone-holding) hand and wrist so that he could smell her all the time while he was on stage.
She smiled at him like a broken doll and watched his retreating back until he disappeared around the corner.
Only when Zack came and asked her what was wrong, did she realize she had salt on her tongue and watercolors in her vision. She shook her head and ran as far as she could.
*
Gerard sat on the double bed and waited patiently for Defne to come out of the bathroom. He still had her head band wrapped around his hand and would sniff at it every few moments. He had been overwhelmed by her scent all night long and now he needed her so bad. He knew she was tired. And yes he was horny, but it wasn’t like they had to have sex. It would have been good – no, wonderful – if they did, of course. But he actually thought she needed her rest. She looked so down tonight. And he only wanted to be close to her. To have the real thing right beside him instead of only a fragrance or a reflection.
When she finally stepped out of the bathroom, looking all fresh and clean and soft, his heart swelled and he could have sworn he feared for the safety of his sternum at that moment. The fist-sized organ inside his chest was about ready to burst out of his body if given the slightest acceleration forward.
His lips parted and lifted upwards to show a row of tiny white teeth and Defne came to a halt a few feets before him. She took a deep breath, trying to separate her heart from her stomach and let out an unnecessarily loud “I need to talk to you about something.”
Gerard blinked at her in confusion. He was surprised by the sudden loud volume of her voice.
“Okay,” he muttered and then asked cautiously, “What do you wanna talk about?”
She nervously bit her lip and clutched at her abdomen unconsciously. Her insides were twisting and turning around in the confined space, making her feel such unbearable pain and heat, for some reason. Gerard’s eyes traveled from her troubled expression to where her hands rested firmly. He blinked a few times and directed his gaze to her face once more, trying to read it but then his eyes were pulled down to her belly again, as if by invisible strings. If invisible strings can pull someone’s gaze towards a specific direction, that is.
“Uhhhh…” was the only sound that came from her mouth as his eyes continued to oscillate between her face and her abdomen. “I mean… I, ummm… I need to…” she faltered, looking down and rubbing at her aching belly some more and suddenly a sharp intake of breath from Gerard’s direction turned her attention back to him.
“Oh…” he let out in a soft yet loud voice, his eyes as big as ping pong balls with sudden realization of something shining inside them. “Oh my… Does that mean…?” he trailed off and gave a half amazed, half incredulous chuckle. “I mean, are you…?”
She frowned and followed the path of his gaze down to her stomach. She stared for a few moments at the protective position of her hands, then looked up to see the light in his eyes as he looked at her belly in amazement. And she finally realized what he had realized.
“No!” she cried out suddenly, making the front-man jump on his seat at the edge of the bed. “I’m not… I mean, if you think I was trying to tell you I’m… that I’m p-pregnant or something, I’m not.”
“You’re not?” Gerard asked with huge eyes, the light inside them suddenly disappearing like the candles on a birthday cake being huffed out.
She shook her head hastily. “No, I’m not.”
Gerard cast his eyes downwards and examined his clasped hands in his lap for a moment, twiddling and twisting his fingers. “You’re not…” he muttered, more to himself than to Defne. “Okay,” he nodded as he finally digested his false realization. “So, what were you trying to tell me, then?”
Defne took another deep breath, knowing there was no going back after this.
“I…” she started hesitantly, “You know, the tour’s gonna be over soon… And I… I’ve been thinking seriously for a few days now that –”
“I know!” Gerard exclaimed suddenly, cutting her off. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I think that’s why I want to be near you so much more these days. I mean –”
“You have?” she asked incredulously. He, too, had been thinking about breaking up with her. And she was worried about hurting him. She suddenly felt like such a fool.
“Yeah,” Gerard responded, “The tour’s gonna be over in about four days and then we’re gonna have to go to Europe and you’re gonna have to lock yourselves in the studio to record the new album. We’re gonna be apart for some time but I don’t wanna be away from you.”
Defne whipped her up to look at his face suddenly, hating herself for thinking even for a moment that Gerard would hurt her. Only she could be so heartless and cruel to think about things that would hurt him.
“It sounds really childish when you say it but I don’t want this tour to ever end, you know?” he added sheepishly, looking up at her from under his impossibly thick eyelashes. It was that moment she realized he probably had two rows of lashes instead of only one for them to be so thick and fluttery and perfect. And then his words finally sank in. And the world was back in watercolors.
“Oh, baby… Don’t do that,” Gerard mumbled, standing up and walking over to where she was standing, trying to swallow back her tears. Right when he was about to put his arms around her, she shook her head and scrambled away from him. “I’m sorry,” she choked out with noticeable effort.
“Hey, c’mon, don’t…”
She stepped back until she was at a considerably safe distance from him and repeated: “I’m sorry.”
Gerard stood in his place and looked at her dumbly, not getting why she kept saying she was sorry.
“What?” he asked at last.
“I… I can’t do this anymore, Gerard,” she whispered, her tears finally agreeing to lessen and let her see him. But it hurt even worse when she could see him clearly. When she could acknowledge the shocked expression on his face, the sudden realization of the meaning of her words making his heart sink.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered, frowning, still confused.
“I can’t take it anymore,” she said this time, her voice a bit stronger.
“You can’t take what?” he asked desperately.
“All this,” she said with a vague motion of her hand around the air. “It’s too much… I… I don’t want it to be like this. I never did.”
“You never wanted it to be like what?” This time he sounded more agitated.
She made an impatient noise at the back of her throat and scoffed in frustration, grabbing her hair and pulling at it. “Like, like all this… these things that keep happening,” she cried, “People liking or hating me or my band simply because I’m with you. People wanting to talk to me about our relationship. People not caring about Defne from Soul Purpose but Defne – Gerard Way’s girlfriend. All these fucking people not caring about what I do but instead about who I’m with!”
Gerard took a few unbalanced steps back as if she had hit him and caught him off guard. “People talk shit…” he shouted desperately.
“Yeah, they do. But it affects us!” she said, lowering her voice so that she won’t yell at him again. She didn’t want to fight.
“But it shouldn’t,” he begged, “You shouldn’t care about what they say…”
“But I do, Gerard,” she said, “I can’t help but care. And neither can my friends. We can’t help it. We’re not so used to it like you are. We don’t know how to cope with it. And because we can’t, we’re slowly falling apart… And it’s… it’s not fair. I can’t do that to my band... Matt still doesn’t talk to me like he used to and even though Zack and Devon are trying, they’re always caught up in the middle and Chris has retreated back into himself and I don’t know what to do. I can’t handle it. I can’t approach my own friends. And I’m always worried about the next thing that’s gonna be thrown in our way and what that’s gonna do to us… I can’t. I can’t let them tear us apart like this. I can’t do that to the guys, to me… I can’t do that to you.”
“You can’t do what to me? Huh? You can’t hurt me? ‘Cause this is not hurting at all…” Gerard asked. His eyes looked glassy even from the other end of the room.
“I can’t blame you,” she muttered, casting her eyes towards the floor. “And I can’t let you blame yourself…”
Gerard didn’t say anything and she couldn’t gather up her thoughts enough to continue for a while. So they stayed like that in the silence, Defne gazing at the floor, Gerard staring at the top of her head and both of them simply standing there like frozen statues.
“I need to end this now,” she started, slicing through the silence, “Because… there’s gonna come a point… that I’m gonna snap, finally. And I know I’m gonna say things, do things I don’t mean. And I don’t wanna fight. I don’t wanna hurt you like that…”
“But you’re hurting me, now,” Gerard stated in a small voice.
“Do you think I like that?” she asked.
“Then why?”
“I don’t expect you to understand right away,” she said, “But I just need you to try to understand me. Try to think about what I say… I want my dreams to come true, Gerard. I want people to see me as me, only me. A woman. Just a strong woman on her two feet. I want them to know me with my music. I want them to know my friends. I want them to care about our band and our musician sides. But I can’t do all that and still be with you. Because, let’s face it. This, what’s happening, is not new. It’s happened before. And right or wrong, people, fans have believed things. News, gossip. And the thing is… I don’t want to be your Yoko. Or your Courtney, or whatever…”
“My Yoko?” Gerard asked incredulously, “But I’m nowhere near John Lennon!”
She shook her head and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. You’re Gerard Way. You’re an amazing person, people adore you. And don’t think I’m jealous or anything when I say this but, I’m always gonna be forced into the shadows. I’m always gonna be considered nothing if it wasn’t for you –”
“No, no you won’t b –”
“Let me finish,” she cut him off with a raised hand, “And if that happens, I won’t be able to stand it. I won’t be able to live with myself after having let Soul Purpose get pushed into the dark. Having disappointed my friends and myself. So I have to pick my battles, you see? I can’t fight to earn people’s attention apart from the amount I gain because of you and still be with you. So… I have to make them see me as someone before I can let them see me with you. I have to work to earn respect and not just wait around for it to hop onto my lap. I have to be someone before I can be with you.”
The front-man just stood in front of her like a puppet that somehow lost its strings; unmoving. And Defne let her gaze drop onto her chucks and slowly started to make her way towards the door of the room.
“But what about me?” Gerard whispered as she passed by. She hesitated and that few seconds of hesitation gave Gerard the chance to touch her hand and ask: “What about…? I. I love you.”
She gently drew her hand away from his and resumed her walk towards the door.
“I love you, too,” she whispered as she closed it behind her.
*
Zack stood up from his place on the bed as a knock sounded on the hotel room door. He looked over to the other bed where Devon had only yet dozed off and wondered who it might be at this time of night.
He opened the door and was met with a mess of dark hair, puffy eyes and a red nose.
Defne raised her head slightly to look at him and murmured weakly as she asked:
“Would you mind if I stayed here tonight?”
With that he ushered her in, placed her on his bed and stroked her hair away from her face as she cried. All night long.
He passed out after some time.
She didn’t.
*
Come morning, Gerard was lying awake on his bed, purple head band close to his nose, squeezed tight in his fist with dried paths of salty water evident on his cheeks.
A/N: Hey. So, I am going to finish this story. No, I'm not going to abandon it. As it looks like =) The updates come between long, shitty time intervals but I guess it's better than nothing if any of you guys are still interested in reading this.
So, please take the time to review and/or rate if you've read this. It makes me think and write more when I have the time. Because, times are not good and like I said, I've never had so much to worry about.
Bye.
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