Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Soul Purpose
It’s Just The Hardest Part Of Living
8 reviewsHeh, here you go with another one =) When I have time, my creative juices like flowing!
5Moving
34. It’s Just The Hardest Part Of Living
"And for the last night I lie
Could I lie with you?"
The Jet Set Life Is Going To kill You - My Chemical Romance
He switched his weight from one leg to another exactly four times in the three seconds it took for the door to be swung open.
“Gerard?” suddenly fell into the silence, in a surprised tone from the blonde guitarist’s lips.
“Yeah,” breathed Gerard, slapping one hand to his face absently, averting his eyes in a moment of anxiety. “Hey,” he tried to begin a conversation once again but his mind couldn’t work properly. He needed sleep but hadn’t been able to get any. It had been a long night. Probably the longest since that notorious one three years ago. He had been on the verge of killing himself, that night. But he had been saved. He had been strong enough to hang onto the last bits of hope he had been given.
And last night, he felt like dying once again. He felt like someone had tied a block of concrete to this… thing in his chest and he was sinking sinking sinking but never landing on anything. At some point, he needed to hit the bottom, rock bottom, he knew that. But that point never seemed to come. And so, he thought. He thought and thought until he couldn’t decipher where one thought finished and the other started. He played with his thoughts like a cat with a ball of wool and still he couldn’t find a way out.
He needed to talk to her. He had figured where she was coming from and couldn’t help but empathize. But she didn’t need to. They could beat this together. He knew it. They were stronger than this.
“Hey,” he said one more time, his voice raspy with the night-old thoughts dry on his tongue, words struggling to free themselves from the tight knot that was his throat. “Is… Is D-Defne in here?”
As he waited for a reply, he felt like throwing up. His stomach kept doing something extremely weird and made him gasp for a deep breath. He feared he would turn himself inside out if he didn’t take that breath. The unbearable warmth in the pit of his stomach threatened to fling the organ upwards through his esophagus. The tremors, the terrors, in his muscles threatened to make them give out and let him slide down to the floor. The tears threatened to come but somehow wouldn’t come, at the same time. In a moment of clarity, he wondered if he had run out of tears. Was that even possible?
He didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or sob; a shaking, shrinking mess of a man long gone.
“Yeah,” spilled from the lips of the taller man and it sounded like a choir of angels calling out his name. His digestive fluids started to calm down with the aid of a cool breeze. His face began to light up like a jack-o’-lantern slowly being illuminated from the inside out by the shivering flame of a little candle.
A spark getting brighter with each passing moment.
Then suddenly, it shriveled and died.
“… just fell asleep. She was up all night, man, I don’t think you should wake her.”
“But I-I n-need to talk to her,” he heard himself beg.
Zack extended an arm towards him and put it on his hunched shoulder in a friendly gesture. “Look, Gerard. You’ll have time to talk to her, don’t worry… You, you don’t look very well yourself. You should just… Go try to get some rest now, okay? You have a show tonight.”
He only half registered the meaning of the guitarist’s words.
“Can’t I at least see her for a moment?”
Zack didn’t know if the obnoxiously loud crack! he heard came from his or Gerard’s heart. So he nodded silently and held the door open for the singer to enter the room. Gerard moved like a ghost as he passed the threshold. His feet made absolutely no noise on the hotel carpet and Zack could have sworn the air didn’t move as his body slashed through it. He was so far gone… so that the guitarist felt like the front-man would vanish into thin air if he looked away only for a second. It hurt his chest to see the man who had such a strong presence reduced into this weak, haunted shell.
Gerard wasn’t tall or big or bulky; he didn’t usually loom over anyone. He didn’t have a threatening physical presence, at all. He could actually be considered delicate for a man. But when he stepped on stage, there was no denying the grandeur of his presence. When he was doing his own thing on that stage, where he was extremely comfortable, wrapped in that infinite bravado he instantly pulled out from somewhere, there was no saying that he was little or tiny. But now… he could suddenly disappear; out of sight with a poof!, and no one would notice.
Zack didn’t understand how it was possible to be reduced into something so little in a matter of only hours. On the other hand, he had watched Defne shake with both wet and dry sobs all night long. He had listened her voice croak out primeval sounds of agony. He had seen her suddenly stripped off that strong, stubborn and dangerous aura. Had seen the little, miserable girl inside. Had held the woman who had had to choose between her dreams as she shook with bitter sobs. He had realized it wasn’t her body, which was actually petite and gracefully soft-looking, which made her look defiant, head held high at all circumstances. It was the attitude inside, the force beneath her steps, the fire in her eyes. But last night, she was just an ordinary little girl in her pajamas, grieving for the loss of her love. And she was one of the strongest people he had ever known.
He vaguely wondered if he had been like that when he and Catherine had… He didn’t even want to think about it. It must have been bad. He didn’t even want to remember. He shook himself out of thoughts that would only bring agony and saw that Gerard was now standing beside his bed. Where Defne was curled on her side with a pillow tight in her grasp, her cheeks red with tight, dry skin sensitized with salty water. The singer made a sudden, jerky gesture as if to brush a knuckle against her cheek but stopped himself at the last moment.
“Did she cry a lot?” he whispered suddenly.
Zack nodded in response then blurted another “Yeah,” as he realized Gerard couldn’t see him with his back turned towards him.
Gerard didn’t say anything.
Zack couldn’t stand the silence.
“I… When I woke up in the morning, I realized that she, uhh, she hadn’t even slept so… I kinda nagged her into taking a shower. Thought it could help her relax.”
Gerard nodded silently, his eyes locked on the troubled expression on the face of the sleeping girl. She was frowning in her sleep.
“Look, man… She’s like… the little sister I never had. And I’d never want her to hurt at all, let alone this much. But,” Zack paused a moment to gather his thoughts into neat bundles to be packed up into sentences. “From what I understood, she’s pretty determined. About this whole thing. And I, umm, usually trust her judgments, you know? This might be for the best… I know she’d never want this. She’d never want to hurt you bu –”
“I know,” Gerard cut him off softly. He trailed one finger through Defne’s dark bangs. “I kinda understand…”
Zack let out a careful breath and his body stopped releasing adrenalin: Gerard understood.
A phantom slid across the room as Zack watched and the last words he spoke as he left the room were “I just don’t know if I could have been so strong to do the same thing… It only makes me adore her even more… And that hurts even worse.”
*
“I knew this was gonna happen,” Frank told her, making her jump in her seat at the booth in the little kitchenette area of the bus. She raised her eyes from her empty glass of water and met his gaze. The tiny guitarist looked miserable. And more serious than she had ever seen him before.
“It’s just… I had… For some time there, I thought this was all gonna end well. I guess I can’t blame Gerard for thinking so, too.”
She blinked up at him fervently, refusing to let her eyes well up.
“I didn’t want it to be like this. It’s not fun for me, either,” she replied bitterly. She was already feeling bad enough without outer intervention. She’d rather not have any of this.
“I believe you,” the guitarist stated merely, then added almost as an afterthought: “I really think you’re different. I just hope…” He stopped talking abruptly and scratched the back of his head. “Never mind.”
She silently watched him disappear down the hall to the bunks and sighed as Mikey walked past her with an awkward nod of recognition.
*
Gerard found her, or found the courage to find her, two days later when they were on the road towards the last town on their touring schedule.
Suddenly, the curtains of her bunk were swept aside and a mess of dark hair had filled her vision. She couldn’t keep the smile that formed on her face. It was too much like the countless times he had visited her bunk. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and pull him in, laughing as he rolled her over her back. A continuous ache at the blind spot in her chest reminded her traitorous mind that he was not hers to hold anymore. She had made sure of that.
“Hey,” he called softly, “Can we talk?”
She nodded soundlessly, putting away the book she had been staring at blankly for the past hour and a half. He carefully climbed into her bunk and sat next to her, leaning against the wall just like her; yet their bodies several inches apart.
Gerard took a deep breath, trying to settle down his stomach. “I’ve been thinking.”
It was Defne’s turn to take a deep breath. “Hmmph?” was the only sound she succeeded to make, in the end. Her heart had her throat in a merciless squeeze of its tight fist; she couldn’t talk. And she had probably developed tachycardia in the last few days.
“Uhhh,” Gerard breathed, staring at the curtains in front his vision. “I understand you.”
“You do?” she asked, surprised, sad and hopeful all at once.
“Yeah,” he said and gulped through the knot in his throat, trying desperately to keep his stomach from sending its contents upwards. “I understand why you have to… leave… me.” This time when he paused, it was to take a shaky breath and to swallow down the sobs. “I… I-I just wish you didn’t have to.”
She sniffed as a hot drop of tear made its way down her round cheek. “Thank you.”
His hand suddenly cupped around hers in one swift motion. “I just… refuse to let you go.”
Her eyes opened huge and she stared. “What?”
“I just want you,” he continued, “And… if you’re not ready for me… then I’m gonna wait for you.”
She shook her head fervently, trying to dismiss the notion with the sheer force of her head-shake. “No!” she whisper-shouted, not able to fathom how exactly she lost her voice suddenly.
“Yes.”
“No, Gerard, I can’t ask that of you. It’s… it’s… it’s outright c-cruel.”
Gerard turned towards her and faced her, frowning stubbornly. Hot tears shining in his caramel candies.
“No, it’s not,” he said with conviction, “You’re not asking anything of me. I decided upon that myself. Just like you decided upon this break-up yourself.”
“Oh,” she scoffed with a bitter choke of breath, “So this is payback?!” She couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice even now; that was her problem.
“No…” Gerard mumbled, suddenly looking crestfallen, alone, discarded like an old, broken doll. “It’s just… me… merely me wanting to wait for you.”
“But I can’t let you do that…”
Gerard raised his head to look into her eyes and she saw something glint in the hazel depths of his orbs. “I’m not asking for your permission. I’m just saying it. Because I don’t want anyone els –”
“Shut up!” she exclaimed, “Don’t promise anything! How do you know you’re not gonna find someone amazing, someone special?”
“Because I don’t want to find anyone else! I’m sick of meeting new people and getting disappointed every single time. It never works with me. It never does. And I’m tired of trying. I’m like a kid given a piece of candy. They let me lick it once or twice and then they take it away. As if to torture me! Well, you know what? I’m not gonna let them do that anymore. I want to finish my candy, okay? Or not have any, at all!”
She cast her eyes away in embarrassment. “It’s not fair to you,” she muttered almost inaudibly.
Gerard only shrugged in response, looking a bit spent after his sudden outburst.
They stayed in peaceful silence for a few minutes until Gerard spoke up again.
“I wanna ask you something.”
She nodded.
“Tonight… It’s gonna be. I mean, it’s. The last night.”
“Yeah,” she breathed and her voice broke at the end of the word.
“Can we… stay. For this last night, can we?” he asked, his chest rising and falling rapidly with the force it took to choke out the words.
She looked at him a bit puzzled and he had to clarify: “I mean, can we stay together tonight? We don’t have to… I mean, I don’t want anything. I just… wanna be close.”
She stared at him with her mouth open in a little “o”, breath leaving her lungs with the forceful blow of surprise. Time seemed to slow down enough to let her take him in all at once. His beautiful hair, his wonderful color-variant eyes, his little pixie-nose, his thin lips, his high cheek-bones, his long, elegant artist fingers… It hurt less to just look at him and take in his appearance, the physical features of him that she loved. If she thought about losing him completely; the incredibly complicated maze that was his mind, the antagonistic bricks that made him up: His cynicism and his innocence, his experience and his naivety, his misery and his glee… His open-mindedness, his creativity, his geekiness… Everything that she had always wanted from someone to love.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think we can do that,” she whispered before burying her face in her hands, her shoulders tensing in order to prevent the shaking that was about to come.
“Thank you.”
*
Gerard took the last few steps towards the bed and after an encouraging-looking half-smile from Defne, sank down into the mattress next to her sitting, tense body. He took care not to sit too close even though he didn’t want anything more than being close to her at the moment. After everything they’d been through, he’d never imagine they could be awkward around each other. But here they were. And it was all because of his stupid request.
Suddenly, Defne interrupted his brooding with a deep, desperate and tried sigh:
“So… it’s over, huh?”
He didn’t know if she was talking about the tour or the two of them. The former seemed to be easier to handle:
“Yeah,” he murmured, looking away, “’s the end of another tour.”
She nodded beside him in a continuous, monotonic motion. “Yep. It sure was exhausting.”
“Hmm-hmm.”
She sighed again and scooted closer unconsciously, leaning forwards to catch a glance of his face. “Are you…?” she stared but cut herself off with “I-I didn’t… I never,” Frowning, she changed her mind again with an exasperated release of breath: “I don’t know what to say.”
He turned to face her and gave her a tight smile. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“But I do!” she protested.
“No,” he muttered, shaking his head lightly with a bitter smile on his lips. He suddenly looked up at an afterthought and opened his mouth to ask something. Then closed it before any sound came out of it. He bowed his head and examined her fingers spread over the mattress next to her hip. The black polish was mostly chipped. The flesh at the base of several of her nails were mostly torn off. She had apparently been gnawing on them for a while. It looked painful. His right hand planted itself next to hers without his consent. His fingers spread on the mattress but stopped short of touching hers.
“Do you regret this?” he asked all of a sudden.
He couldn’t ask “Do you regret us?” – it simply was too painful to voice that nagging thought. But she understood. He somehow knew she would.
“No,” she told him, “Never. Not what we had. It’s too… p-precious to me. I. I-I could never r-regret it.”
He let out a breath, nodding slowly to himself. Then she asked “You?” in return. He caught his head in mid-nod and started shaking it from one side to another fervently.
“Me neither,” he whispered, exhausted.
She gave a sharp chuckle. “We sound like such fools…” Her hand moved a fraction of an inch towards his. She didn’t seem to notice. “You understand though, right?”
He kept his hand firmly planted on its spot before replying “Yes. I, I kinda do… You don’t deserve this.”
“Thanks…” she said absently, her mind lost in the position of his fingers on the mattress. She suddenly got repetitive flashes of his fingers in that exact position:
Gerard planting his hand on a green circle, huffing and puffing in stress to keep his body from touching the Twister mat.
In the middle of the show, Gerard noticing her at the edge of the stage and smiling at her, holding up his hand to wave.
In Six Flags, Gerard raising his hand upwards to show her where exactly he is in the middle of the sea of people.
In a dressing room, Gerard leaning against her as she leant against the wall at her back and him raising his hand to entwine their fingers.
Gerard placing his hand carefully on her bare belly, pressing down softly just to add to the pleasure she’s feeling.
She shook herself out of the memories. It was always the same position his hand was in. Fingers spread wide in every direction, yet the pinky spread wider than the others somehow. Independent, rebellious and alone. The cutest sight she had ever seen.
“I love it when you do that…” she murmured silently.
“Huh?” Gerard asked, surprised.
She looked up at him with wide eyes, thinking for a way to explain. To lie, to say it was nothing; she was just talking to herself. But the look on his face told her that he had heard her, just didn’t understand what she meant.
“Your hand,” she sighed, defeated, “It’s your finger… The pinky. It kinda always does that separate thing from the others when you spread your fingers wide… It’s cute.”
Gerard looked down at his hand and knew what she meant in an instant. Then looked up just to catch her bat her bangs away from her face, frustrated, and put her hair up on her head in a messy bun.
“And I love it when you do that,” he said, raising one hand to tuck the rebellious locks behind her ear properly, not even hesitating to think about it. “You don’t make that famous feminine head-toss unless you’re angry or something. You just fumble with your locks to get them away from your vision. And you don’t care if you ruin your styled-hair, you just put it up on top of your head when it bothers you. It’s kinda practical.”
She chuckled. “Yep. Practical, that’s me. I guess it comes with the engineering education.”
“I don’t think so. I think it was there before.”
They stayed silent until Gerard sighed: “It’s hard… letting you go.”
“I know,” she said, “It’s hard… leaving, too. Just because I know I should leave doesn’t make it any easier. And you insisting on waiting for me to return doesn’t make it any easier, either.”
Gerard just shrugged. He wasn’t discussing this with her.
“And I… You. I mean, I’ve never known someone quite like you. So I’ve always looked… for. For someone. All this time. Then I found it in you. Someone who doesn’t give me all this macho, homophobic bullshit. Someone who isn’t afraid to smile, giggle or cry. Someone who doesn’t limit his own self. Someone who doesn’t try to control me. Someone who isn’t intimidated by my… personality. Someone who’s just… fun. Who listens and talks… Someone who just gets me without needing explanations. Someone who accepts me wholly – the dark and the light all together… And now, now I’ve only yet found you and I have to leave. It really is hard… and draining. Eats away at my insides.”
“And that’s why I keep saying I’m gonna wait for you,” Gerard said, his voice raspy, his throat burning and tears flowing from his eyes. He reached to wipe away her tears and she shook with a silent sob. “Because I was looking for you, too. And if I let you go, that’s because I believe you’re gonna come back to me. Because I understand you and I really get it when you say that this is for the best. But you’re the one who gets me, too. You’re the one who makes me laugh, who makes me feel safe and warm. You’re the one I cherish. The one I adore. You’re the one who can protect me and whom I can protect. Whom I can trust. We’re… equals. I think I’ve just wanted that, all this time. And I think… when you’re done, when you’re ready, you’ll come back.”
“What if I don’t come back?” she whispered, “Wouldn’t that hurt more than simply letting me go?”
He shook his head in denial. “You say you still love me. Why wouldn’t you come back?”
She shrugged. What did he want? Did he want her to tell him she didn’t love him anymore?
“But love… it. It needs nurturing. It needs being together, you know that. We could… like… run out of it after some time. And then, if you have to keep your promise, it would hurt more. I don’t want you to hurt so much. Please…”
“We won’t run out of it unless we want to. Unless we try to,” he said and closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her. She hung onto him tightly.
Sometime around the night, they ended up lying on the bed properly, safely wrapped in each others’ arms. Defne cried into Gerard’s chest, soaking his t-shirt with her salty tears. And Gerard emptied his tears on her silky dark locks. He ducked his head slowly just when she was about to fall asleep.
“Can I kiss you?” he whispered silently, his “s”s ringing out in Defne’s ears. She opened her eyes and looked into his, slowly nodding.
Their eyes fell wide shut and their lips entwined for one last time in the dim of the room.
*
When Defne woke in the morning, Gerard wasn’t there. Instead, there was a note on the pillow next to her head.
“Never say goodbye
because saying goodbye means going away
and going away means forgetting.”
She knew the words belonged to Peter Pan. With a bitter smile, she remembered the afternoon Gerard told her about him playing Peter Pan. She let out a ragged breath and folded the paper, noticing there was something on the other side of the page, too.
Don’t worry about me.
*
They said their goodbyes to Mikey, Frank, Ray, Bob and rest of the crew half an hour later. When Mikey asked her where Gerard was, she told him she didn’t know and saw the worry in his eyes. Then she told him that he left her a note saying not to worry about him. She knew the words were useless, that the younger Way would still worry for his big brother but she needed to say it. She felt as if Gerard would want her to say it. So he wouldn’t have to say it himself.
There were no evident bitter feelings. Just an empty awkwardness hung in the air as she hugged the guys goodbye.
Then the five of them, Defne, Zack, Devon, Chris and Matt, all walked out of the hotel and hopped onto the van Abigail had arranged for them to come back home. It wasn’t going to be a long journey. Comfort wasn’t their highest priority.
Defne sat in the passenger seat, the guys not giving her trouble for doing that without calling shotgun, for the first time.
As the vehicle made its way through the empty morning roads of the city, she gazed out of the window silently, thinking. Then suddenly, her vision filled up with his profile and she took a sharp breath. He didn’t see her. He was gazing in front of him mindlessly, his fingers wrapped around a big mug.
She stared at him, one hand planted against the window in an unconscious attempt to break the barrier, until the green light shone and the van started moving once again.
First Gerard, then the coffeehouse slowly slipped out of her peripheral vision.
She let her temple rest against the window and closed her eyes.
It was over.
A/N: Okay, now I officially broke them up. Gahhh, don't be mad at me!
Thank you all very much for the reviews. I was really motivated by them and that leaded to me writing this chapter soon. So, thanks again!
And about the Peter Pan quote, I honestly don't remember it. I don't know if it's from the book, the play or one of the moviesand I tried to find it in the internet. but the damn thing just won't give information about the origins of the quote. So, here it is: Just a quote.
I'd be really glad if you could rate and/or review as usual. It makes my day and I usually need that =)
"And for the last night I lie
Could I lie with you?"
The Jet Set Life Is Going To kill You - My Chemical Romance
He switched his weight from one leg to another exactly four times in the three seconds it took for the door to be swung open.
“Gerard?” suddenly fell into the silence, in a surprised tone from the blonde guitarist’s lips.
“Yeah,” breathed Gerard, slapping one hand to his face absently, averting his eyes in a moment of anxiety. “Hey,” he tried to begin a conversation once again but his mind couldn’t work properly. He needed sleep but hadn’t been able to get any. It had been a long night. Probably the longest since that notorious one three years ago. He had been on the verge of killing himself, that night. But he had been saved. He had been strong enough to hang onto the last bits of hope he had been given.
And last night, he felt like dying once again. He felt like someone had tied a block of concrete to this… thing in his chest and he was sinking sinking sinking but never landing on anything. At some point, he needed to hit the bottom, rock bottom, he knew that. But that point never seemed to come. And so, he thought. He thought and thought until he couldn’t decipher where one thought finished and the other started. He played with his thoughts like a cat with a ball of wool and still he couldn’t find a way out.
He needed to talk to her. He had figured where she was coming from and couldn’t help but empathize. But she didn’t need to. They could beat this together. He knew it. They were stronger than this.
“Hey,” he said one more time, his voice raspy with the night-old thoughts dry on his tongue, words struggling to free themselves from the tight knot that was his throat. “Is… Is D-Defne in here?”
As he waited for a reply, he felt like throwing up. His stomach kept doing something extremely weird and made him gasp for a deep breath. He feared he would turn himself inside out if he didn’t take that breath. The unbearable warmth in the pit of his stomach threatened to fling the organ upwards through his esophagus. The tremors, the terrors, in his muscles threatened to make them give out and let him slide down to the floor. The tears threatened to come but somehow wouldn’t come, at the same time. In a moment of clarity, he wondered if he had run out of tears. Was that even possible?
He didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or sob; a shaking, shrinking mess of a man long gone.
“Yeah,” spilled from the lips of the taller man and it sounded like a choir of angels calling out his name. His digestive fluids started to calm down with the aid of a cool breeze. His face began to light up like a jack-o’-lantern slowly being illuminated from the inside out by the shivering flame of a little candle.
A spark getting brighter with each passing moment.
Then suddenly, it shriveled and died.
“… just fell asleep. She was up all night, man, I don’t think you should wake her.”
“But I-I n-need to talk to her,” he heard himself beg.
Zack extended an arm towards him and put it on his hunched shoulder in a friendly gesture. “Look, Gerard. You’ll have time to talk to her, don’t worry… You, you don’t look very well yourself. You should just… Go try to get some rest now, okay? You have a show tonight.”
He only half registered the meaning of the guitarist’s words.
“Can’t I at least see her for a moment?”
Zack didn’t know if the obnoxiously loud crack! he heard came from his or Gerard’s heart. So he nodded silently and held the door open for the singer to enter the room. Gerard moved like a ghost as he passed the threshold. His feet made absolutely no noise on the hotel carpet and Zack could have sworn the air didn’t move as his body slashed through it. He was so far gone… so that the guitarist felt like the front-man would vanish into thin air if he looked away only for a second. It hurt his chest to see the man who had such a strong presence reduced into this weak, haunted shell.
Gerard wasn’t tall or big or bulky; he didn’t usually loom over anyone. He didn’t have a threatening physical presence, at all. He could actually be considered delicate for a man. But when he stepped on stage, there was no denying the grandeur of his presence. When he was doing his own thing on that stage, where he was extremely comfortable, wrapped in that infinite bravado he instantly pulled out from somewhere, there was no saying that he was little or tiny. But now… he could suddenly disappear; out of sight with a poof!, and no one would notice.
Zack didn’t understand how it was possible to be reduced into something so little in a matter of only hours. On the other hand, he had watched Defne shake with both wet and dry sobs all night long. He had listened her voice croak out primeval sounds of agony. He had seen her suddenly stripped off that strong, stubborn and dangerous aura. Had seen the little, miserable girl inside. Had held the woman who had had to choose between her dreams as she shook with bitter sobs. He had realized it wasn’t her body, which was actually petite and gracefully soft-looking, which made her look defiant, head held high at all circumstances. It was the attitude inside, the force beneath her steps, the fire in her eyes. But last night, she was just an ordinary little girl in her pajamas, grieving for the loss of her love. And she was one of the strongest people he had ever known.
He vaguely wondered if he had been like that when he and Catherine had… He didn’t even want to think about it. It must have been bad. He didn’t even want to remember. He shook himself out of thoughts that would only bring agony and saw that Gerard was now standing beside his bed. Where Defne was curled on her side with a pillow tight in her grasp, her cheeks red with tight, dry skin sensitized with salty water. The singer made a sudden, jerky gesture as if to brush a knuckle against her cheek but stopped himself at the last moment.
“Did she cry a lot?” he whispered suddenly.
Zack nodded in response then blurted another “Yeah,” as he realized Gerard couldn’t see him with his back turned towards him.
Gerard didn’t say anything.
Zack couldn’t stand the silence.
“I… When I woke up in the morning, I realized that she, uhh, she hadn’t even slept so… I kinda nagged her into taking a shower. Thought it could help her relax.”
Gerard nodded silently, his eyes locked on the troubled expression on the face of the sleeping girl. She was frowning in her sleep.
“Look, man… She’s like… the little sister I never had. And I’d never want her to hurt at all, let alone this much. But,” Zack paused a moment to gather his thoughts into neat bundles to be packed up into sentences. “From what I understood, she’s pretty determined. About this whole thing. And I, umm, usually trust her judgments, you know? This might be for the best… I know she’d never want this. She’d never want to hurt you bu –”
“I know,” Gerard cut him off softly. He trailed one finger through Defne’s dark bangs. “I kinda understand…”
Zack let out a careful breath and his body stopped releasing adrenalin: Gerard understood.
A phantom slid across the room as Zack watched and the last words he spoke as he left the room were “I just don’t know if I could have been so strong to do the same thing… It only makes me adore her even more… And that hurts even worse.”
*
“I knew this was gonna happen,” Frank told her, making her jump in her seat at the booth in the little kitchenette area of the bus. She raised her eyes from her empty glass of water and met his gaze. The tiny guitarist looked miserable. And more serious than she had ever seen him before.
“It’s just… I had… For some time there, I thought this was all gonna end well. I guess I can’t blame Gerard for thinking so, too.”
She blinked up at him fervently, refusing to let her eyes well up.
“I didn’t want it to be like this. It’s not fun for me, either,” she replied bitterly. She was already feeling bad enough without outer intervention. She’d rather not have any of this.
“I believe you,” the guitarist stated merely, then added almost as an afterthought: “I really think you’re different. I just hope…” He stopped talking abruptly and scratched the back of his head. “Never mind.”
She silently watched him disappear down the hall to the bunks and sighed as Mikey walked past her with an awkward nod of recognition.
*
Gerard found her, or found the courage to find her, two days later when they were on the road towards the last town on their touring schedule.
Suddenly, the curtains of her bunk were swept aside and a mess of dark hair had filled her vision. She couldn’t keep the smile that formed on her face. It was too much like the countless times he had visited her bunk. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and pull him in, laughing as he rolled her over her back. A continuous ache at the blind spot in her chest reminded her traitorous mind that he was not hers to hold anymore. She had made sure of that.
“Hey,” he called softly, “Can we talk?”
She nodded soundlessly, putting away the book she had been staring at blankly for the past hour and a half. He carefully climbed into her bunk and sat next to her, leaning against the wall just like her; yet their bodies several inches apart.
Gerard took a deep breath, trying to settle down his stomach. “I’ve been thinking.”
It was Defne’s turn to take a deep breath. “Hmmph?” was the only sound she succeeded to make, in the end. Her heart had her throat in a merciless squeeze of its tight fist; she couldn’t talk. And she had probably developed tachycardia in the last few days.
“Uhhh,” Gerard breathed, staring at the curtains in front his vision. “I understand you.”
“You do?” she asked, surprised, sad and hopeful all at once.
“Yeah,” he said and gulped through the knot in his throat, trying desperately to keep his stomach from sending its contents upwards. “I understand why you have to… leave… me.” This time when he paused, it was to take a shaky breath and to swallow down the sobs. “I… I-I just wish you didn’t have to.”
She sniffed as a hot drop of tear made its way down her round cheek. “Thank you.”
His hand suddenly cupped around hers in one swift motion. “I just… refuse to let you go.”
Her eyes opened huge and she stared. “What?”
“I just want you,” he continued, “And… if you’re not ready for me… then I’m gonna wait for you.”
She shook her head fervently, trying to dismiss the notion with the sheer force of her head-shake. “No!” she whisper-shouted, not able to fathom how exactly she lost her voice suddenly.
“Yes.”
“No, Gerard, I can’t ask that of you. It’s… it’s… it’s outright c-cruel.”
Gerard turned towards her and faced her, frowning stubbornly. Hot tears shining in his caramel candies.
“No, it’s not,” he said with conviction, “You’re not asking anything of me. I decided upon that myself. Just like you decided upon this break-up yourself.”
“Oh,” she scoffed with a bitter choke of breath, “So this is payback?!” She couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice even now; that was her problem.
“No…” Gerard mumbled, suddenly looking crestfallen, alone, discarded like an old, broken doll. “It’s just… me… merely me wanting to wait for you.”
“But I can’t let you do that…”
Gerard raised his head to look into her eyes and she saw something glint in the hazel depths of his orbs. “I’m not asking for your permission. I’m just saying it. Because I don’t want anyone els –”
“Shut up!” she exclaimed, “Don’t promise anything! How do you know you’re not gonna find someone amazing, someone special?”
“Because I don’t want to find anyone else! I’m sick of meeting new people and getting disappointed every single time. It never works with me. It never does. And I’m tired of trying. I’m like a kid given a piece of candy. They let me lick it once or twice and then they take it away. As if to torture me! Well, you know what? I’m not gonna let them do that anymore. I want to finish my candy, okay? Or not have any, at all!”
She cast her eyes away in embarrassment. “It’s not fair to you,” she muttered almost inaudibly.
Gerard only shrugged in response, looking a bit spent after his sudden outburst.
They stayed in peaceful silence for a few minutes until Gerard spoke up again.
“I wanna ask you something.”
She nodded.
“Tonight… It’s gonna be. I mean, it’s. The last night.”
“Yeah,” she breathed and her voice broke at the end of the word.
“Can we… stay. For this last night, can we?” he asked, his chest rising and falling rapidly with the force it took to choke out the words.
She looked at him a bit puzzled and he had to clarify: “I mean, can we stay together tonight? We don’t have to… I mean, I don’t want anything. I just… wanna be close.”
She stared at him with her mouth open in a little “o”, breath leaving her lungs with the forceful blow of surprise. Time seemed to slow down enough to let her take him in all at once. His beautiful hair, his wonderful color-variant eyes, his little pixie-nose, his thin lips, his high cheek-bones, his long, elegant artist fingers… It hurt less to just look at him and take in his appearance, the physical features of him that she loved. If she thought about losing him completely; the incredibly complicated maze that was his mind, the antagonistic bricks that made him up: His cynicism and his innocence, his experience and his naivety, his misery and his glee… His open-mindedness, his creativity, his geekiness… Everything that she had always wanted from someone to love.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think we can do that,” she whispered before burying her face in her hands, her shoulders tensing in order to prevent the shaking that was about to come.
“Thank you.”
*
Gerard took the last few steps towards the bed and after an encouraging-looking half-smile from Defne, sank down into the mattress next to her sitting, tense body. He took care not to sit too close even though he didn’t want anything more than being close to her at the moment. After everything they’d been through, he’d never imagine they could be awkward around each other. But here they were. And it was all because of his stupid request.
Suddenly, Defne interrupted his brooding with a deep, desperate and tried sigh:
“So… it’s over, huh?”
He didn’t know if she was talking about the tour or the two of them. The former seemed to be easier to handle:
“Yeah,” he murmured, looking away, “’s the end of another tour.”
She nodded beside him in a continuous, monotonic motion. “Yep. It sure was exhausting.”
“Hmm-hmm.”
She sighed again and scooted closer unconsciously, leaning forwards to catch a glance of his face. “Are you…?” she stared but cut herself off with “I-I didn’t… I never,” Frowning, she changed her mind again with an exasperated release of breath: “I don’t know what to say.”
He turned to face her and gave her a tight smile. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“But I do!” she protested.
“No,” he muttered, shaking his head lightly with a bitter smile on his lips. He suddenly looked up at an afterthought and opened his mouth to ask something. Then closed it before any sound came out of it. He bowed his head and examined her fingers spread over the mattress next to her hip. The black polish was mostly chipped. The flesh at the base of several of her nails were mostly torn off. She had apparently been gnawing on them for a while. It looked painful. His right hand planted itself next to hers without his consent. His fingers spread on the mattress but stopped short of touching hers.
“Do you regret this?” he asked all of a sudden.
He couldn’t ask “Do you regret us?” – it simply was too painful to voice that nagging thought. But she understood. He somehow knew she would.
“No,” she told him, “Never. Not what we had. It’s too… p-precious to me. I. I-I could never r-regret it.”
He let out a breath, nodding slowly to himself. Then she asked “You?” in return. He caught his head in mid-nod and started shaking it from one side to another fervently.
“Me neither,” he whispered, exhausted.
She gave a sharp chuckle. “We sound like such fools…” Her hand moved a fraction of an inch towards his. She didn’t seem to notice. “You understand though, right?”
He kept his hand firmly planted on its spot before replying “Yes. I, I kinda do… You don’t deserve this.”
“Thanks…” she said absently, her mind lost in the position of his fingers on the mattress. She suddenly got repetitive flashes of his fingers in that exact position:
Gerard planting his hand on a green circle, huffing and puffing in stress to keep his body from touching the Twister mat.
In the middle of the show, Gerard noticing her at the edge of the stage and smiling at her, holding up his hand to wave.
In Six Flags, Gerard raising his hand upwards to show her where exactly he is in the middle of the sea of people.
In a dressing room, Gerard leaning against her as she leant against the wall at her back and him raising his hand to entwine their fingers.
Gerard placing his hand carefully on her bare belly, pressing down softly just to add to the pleasure she’s feeling.
She shook herself out of the memories. It was always the same position his hand was in. Fingers spread wide in every direction, yet the pinky spread wider than the others somehow. Independent, rebellious and alone. The cutest sight she had ever seen.
“I love it when you do that…” she murmured silently.
“Huh?” Gerard asked, surprised.
She looked up at him with wide eyes, thinking for a way to explain. To lie, to say it was nothing; she was just talking to herself. But the look on his face told her that he had heard her, just didn’t understand what she meant.
“Your hand,” she sighed, defeated, “It’s your finger… The pinky. It kinda always does that separate thing from the others when you spread your fingers wide… It’s cute.”
Gerard looked down at his hand and knew what she meant in an instant. Then looked up just to catch her bat her bangs away from her face, frustrated, and put her hair up on her head in a messy bun.
“And I love it when you do that,” he said, raising one hand to tuck the rebellious locks behind her ear properly, not even hesitating to think about it. “You don’t make that famous feminine head-toss unless you’re angry or something. You just fumble with your locks to get them away from your vision. And you don’t care if you ruin your styled-hair, you just put it up on top of your head when it bothers you. It’s kinda practical.”
She chuckled. “Yep. Practical, that’s me. I guess it comes with the engineering education.”
“I don’t think so. I think it was there before.”
They stayed silent until Gerard sighed: “It’s hard… letting you go.”
“I know,” she said, “It’s hard… leaving, too. Just because I know I should leave doesn’t make it any easier. And you insisting on waiting for me to return doesn’t make it any easier, either.”
Gerard just shrugged. He wasn’t discussing this with her.
“And I… You. I mean, I’ve never known someone quite like you. So I’ve always looked… for. For someone. All this time. Then I found it in you. Someone who doesn’t give me all this macho, homophobic bullshit. Someone who isn’t afraid to smile, giggle or cry. Someone who doesn’t limit his own self. Someone who doesn’t try to control me. Someone who isn’t intimidated by my… personality. Someone who’s just… fun. Who listens and talks… Someone who just gets me without needing explanations. Someone who accepts me wholly – the dark and the light all together… And now, now I’ve only yet found you and I have to leave. It really is hard… and draining. Eats away at my insides.”
“And that’s why I keep saying I’m gonna wait for you,” Gerard said, his voice raspy, his throat burning and tears flowing from his eyes. He reached to wipe away her tears and she shook with a silent sob. “Because I was looking for you, too. And if I let you go, that’s because I believe you’re gonna come back to me. Because I understand you and I really get it when you say that this is for the best. But you’re the one who gets me, too. You’re the one who makes me laugh, who makes me feel safe and warm. You’re the one I cherish. The one I adore. You’re the one who can protect me and whom I can protect. Whom I can trust. We’re… equals. I think I’ve just wanted that, all this time. And I think… when you’re done, when you’re ready, you’ll come back.”
“What if I don’t come back?” she whispered, “Wouldn’t that hurt more than simply letting me go?”
He shook his head in denial. “You say you still love me. Why wouldn’t you come back?”
She shrugged. What did he want? Did he want her to tell him she didn’t love him anymore?
“But love… it. It needs nurturing. It needs being together, you know that. We could… like… run out of it after some time. And then, if you have to keep your promise, it would hurt more. I don’t want you to hurt so much. Please…”
“We won’t run out of it unless we want to. Unless we try to,” he said and closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her. She hung onto him tightly.
Sometime around the night, they ended up lying on the bed properly, safely wrapped in each others’ arms. Defne cried into Gerard’s chest, soaking his t-shirt with her salty tears. And Gerard emptied his tears on her silky dark locks. He ducked his head slowly just when she was about to fall asleep.
“Can I kiss you?” he whispered silently, his “s”s ringing out in Defne’s ears. She opened her eyes and looked into his, slowly nodding.
Their eyes fell wide shut and their lips entwined for one last time in the dim of the room.
*
When Defne woke in the morning, Gerard wasn’t there. Instead, there was a note on the pillow next to her head.
“Never say goodbye
because saying goodbye means going away
and going away means forgetting.”
She knew the words belonged to Peter Pan. With a bitter smile, she remembered the afternoon Gerard told her about him playing Peter Pan. She let out a ragged breath and folded the paper, noticing there was something on the other side of the page, too.
Don’t worry about me.
*
They said their goodbyes to Mikey, Frank, Ray, Bob and rest of the crew half an hour later. When Mikey asked her where Gerard was, she told him she didn’t know and saw the worry in his eyes. Then she told him that he left her a note saying not to worry about him. She knew the words were useless, that the younger Way would still worry for his big brother but she needed to say it. She felt as if Gerard would want her to say it. So he wouldn’t have to say it himself.
There were no evident bitter feelings. Just an empty awkwardness hung in the air as she hugged the guys goodbye.
Then the five of them, Defne, Zack, Devon, Chris and Matt, all walked out of the hotel and hopped onto the van Abigail had arranged for them to come back home. It wasn’t going to be a long journey. Comfort wasn’t their highest priority.
Defne sat in the passenger seat, the guys not giving her trouble for doing that without calling shotgun, for the first time.
As the vehicle made its way through the empty morning roads of the city, she gazed out of the window silently, thinking. Then suddenly, her vision filled up with his profile and she took a sharp breath. He didn’t see her. He was gazing in front of him mindlessly, his fingers wrapped around a big mug.
She stared at him, one hand planted against the window in an unconscious attempt to break the barrier, until the green light shone and the van started moving once again.
First Gerard, then the coffeehouse slowly slipped out of her peripheral vision.
She let her temple rest against the window and closed her eyes.
It was over.
A/N: Okay, now I officially broke them up. Gahhh, don't be mad at me!
Thank you all very much for the reviews. I was really motivated by them and that leaded to me writing this chapter soon. So, thanks again!
And about the Peter Pan quote, I honestly don't remember it. I don't know if it's from the book, the play or one of the moviesand I tried to find it in the internet. but the damn thing just won't give information about the origins of the quote. So, here it is: Just a quote.
I'd be really glad if you could rate and/or review as usual. It makes my day and I usually need that =)
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