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Plane Crash Kills Six, Including Frank Iero of Alternative Rock Band My Chemical Romance
A plane traveling from Los Angeles to New York City went down yesterday over Ohio at around eleven in the evening. The cause has been said to be engine failure and lack of training to the pilot, whose name is unreleased. Six were killed, one being a member of the band My Chemical Romance, Frank Iero. He had been traveling home to visit family after working on the band's new album, to be released in September. Four others were injured, seven left unscathed. There will be a service on Sunday to mourn the loss of the six.


My mind is blank. I can't feel. My eyes fly across the paragraph, reading and re-reading, unable to process any of it. Not Frankie, not our Frankie. Why hadn't I been told about this? Why am I learning about this through the newspaper? We were best friends. Didn't anybody care to tell me? I feel like I've been punched in the stomach, my throat is tightening and tears are forming. I'm trying to steady my breathing. My breathing won't let me, I'm losing control of my own body.

Suddenly I let out a sob, though I try to hold it in, and my wife appears in the doorway to the kitchen. "Gerard?" she says quietly, eyebrows furrowed in worry. She hurries toward me with arms outstretched.

"Frank, he..." I try to explain. My cries are too much to speak.

She puts her arms around me in comfort, but they're not the arms I want to feel.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, as if she already knew. I push her away to look her over. "I was waiting for the right time to tell you..." She told me apoligetically.

I'm aghast. "There is no right time for this, why didn't you just tell me when you knew!" I yell, more hurt. I turn from her to leave. Our baby is crying in the other room.

"Gerard," she says, trying to stop me. I hold up a hand to silence her.

"Please," I say, angry. "I'm leaving. I don't know when I'll be back."

I walk out and slam the door behind me, unsure whether to cry or punch in the wall, or both. I don't know what to do. I feel lost. I feel like being sick right on my front steps. Part of me doesn't want to believe it, like this is a dream, a mean prank... anything but truth. I find myself praying to God for this to be a lie. I'm making deals with him; if Frank's alright, I will quit smoking. If you let this be a lie, I will donate more money, I will help more in the comunity, I will be a better man. Please, just let Frank be alright. I will do anything, as long as when I call Frank's parents right now, they don't know what I'm talking about.

I pull out my phone and stare at the buttons. I type in the number, it's ringing, his father answers solumnly.

"Mr. Iero," I force myself to say.

"Yes Gerard?" his voice is almost inaudible, full of sorrow.

My voice cracks, "Is Frank...?"

There's a sad sigh at the other end and he says, "The news is true-" at the end of his sentance I hear him begin to cry, and I start to again, too.

"I'm so sorry," I say, wiping the tears. We are silent. I say, "I have to go. Tell Mrs. Iero I'm sorry."

"Goodbye, Gerard."

I hang up and am filled with all of this sadness and hate that I throw my phone onto the tar and watch it shatter. I pull out my keys, get in my car, and leave this place. My tears come and go, making the road blurry at times.

Soon I am at my destination. The sign outside the store flickers /Budweiser/. If anything could make me somewhat numb, it would be a massive amount of this shit. I don't care how long I've been sober. The world has come to an end, anyway.

I grab as much as I can carry and set it on the counter. The cashier is a young girl with teased black hair and a nose ring. She looks at me as if she knows who I am. I can almost hear her thinking, Is this him? Nah. He doesn't drink.

I pay. I'm out. I'm cracking open the bottle before I pull out, and then I'm literally drinking and driving, but I don't care what happens to me.

I stop at the beach. At the swingset, where Frankie always used to mess around and do stupid shit, where him and I would sit and look out at the dunegrass and the crashing waves and talk about old times, before marriage and before kids. As in old times, when the things we did to eachother onstage meant more than just things we did onstage.

There's a case of beer in my hand and I set it next to the swing that I'm sitting in. As I chug it down, I begin to move back and forth, looking out beyond the ocean's shapeless form. If only I could see him. If only he was here, laughing about the time he kicked me in the balls, or about the time he tried to climb into the coffin on the set of Helena.

I move on to the next beer and the old farmiliar feeling washes over me. I feel guilty, I feel like I'm letting down Lyndsay, and the baby, and the rest of the band. But most of all, like I'm letting down Frank, because he was the one that has supported me the most through everything.

My chin does that stupid wobbly thing, but I don't want to cry. I want to pretend that he really is here, like nothing ever changed.

"Frank," I say.

Frank looks at me from his spot on the swing.

"Remember the time we first met?"

"Of course I do."

"Remember the first time we kissed?"

"I was drunk out of my mind, but I remember."

"Was it all just for show, Frank?"

/He is silent/.

"Frank?" I gulp down more beer. I don't push the subject too much. I let the wind play with my hair instead.

There is warmth on my lips, not from the bottle because it is in my hand by my side. I'm unsure how to explain it. It's farmiliar. My heart is pounding like everytime before and I feel comforted, I feel like I can breathe. I can breathe because he really is here, here with me.

As soon as it comes, it's gone, and the tears a forcing themselves out again. I feel panicked, "Frank, don't leave me again."

"I don't want to leave, but I can't stay."

"No," My body shudders, "No, stay right here. We never have to go."

"I'm sorry."

"But, Frank... Frank," I'm crying again, I drop the bottle and stand.

Again, there's warmth on my lips and this time, my face tingles.

"I always loved you. I never had the guts to tell you."

"I have always loved you, too," I cry out, wiping the tears. More quietly, I repeat myself, "I have always loved you, too."

"Bye, Gerard.

I don't want to speak. I don't want to say goodbye, because it means forever.

A gust of wind comes, stronger than the others, and a very large wave crashes on the beach. I sit back on the swing and cry into my hands, knowing that he was now officially gone.


*

"Hey Frank, man, this is the finished product," Ray says, giving a CD case over the table to his fellow guitar player.

Frank smiles, "Dude, I can't believe how fast that went by. The finished fucking thing." He looks over the tracklisting.

"Yeah, it'll be out in, like, mid-September. That's what Brian told me, atleast," Ray tells him.

"Cool," Frank says, nodding. I smile.

"Listen, I'm going home to Jersey for a while to visit my family," Frank tells us.

"But we are your family!" Bob whines. Something arises in me.

Fear. Dread. Nausea.

"Well relax. I know you guys love me so much, but I'll be back within a week." Frank informs us.

I burst out, "You can't go." This was fucking freaky.

Frank smiles, weirded out, "Alright, Gerard. You can come if you want to."

"No, I mean you can't go."

"Is there a no Frank rule with planes...?"

My heart is racing. This was too much like last night. I knew what would lead up to, I saw it in my dream. I lean into him and whisper, "Seriously, Frank, I have a bad feeling about it. You can go tomorrow. Just don't get on that plane tonight."

"Relax," he says, reassuringly, and I almost do. If only this wasn't so much like I had dreamt. It was deffinetly freaking me out. "It's fine. Now I have to kind of be there, like, now, so if someone could give me a ride, that would be great."

My jaw drops and I feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins, I know I have to stop him. As he stands, I grab his arm and say, "Frank, I'm serious, this isn't a good flight to get on."

I can tell that my urgency is freaking him out, too. I see in his eyes that, for a second, he's about to change his mind. But then Ray says, "Alright man, let's go, I'll drive you."

"I'll see you guys," Frank says, smiling. He gives everyone a hug but me.

I stand and look in his eyes.

"You going to hug me or what, Gee?" Frank says, almost jokingly.

"Last time I'm going to say it. Don't get on that plane."

Frank sighs and wraps his arms around me in a hug, "I will be fine. Trust me." I hug back, hoping that my dream was just that; nothing more.

"Bye Frank," I say sadly, fearing what would happen in the hours to come.


*

It's 10:57. Still no word on a plane crash. I'm sitting on the couch, leaning forward into the TV, watching CNN. Any minute now.

At 11:06, still nothing.

At 11:11, I wish that it doesn't happen.

At 11: 21, plane crash. Three confirmed dead. No word on the cause. I lay on the couch, I cry myself to sleep, not knowing what else to do. He got on that plane.


*

Ring... ring... ring...

"Hello?" I croak, still half asleep.

"Dude, what the fuck is your secret?" A voice practically shouts on the other line. I rememeber the night before; Now Frank's dead, just like in my dream.

"Hm?" I say tiredly, sitting up, about to cry.

"You knew it was going to crash. You scared the shit out of me, so I didn't go... How could you have known? ...I hope you didn't fucking bomb the thing."

"F-Frank?"

"Yeah?"

This time I'm crying, out of relief.

"Gee, you going to be alright, man?"

"Frank, I love you," I blurt out.

He gives out an awkward laugh, "Yeah, love you too, man. You're like the big brother I never had. Now really, how did you know?"



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I wrote this after watching this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvKrcKHzZco
because it seems like the kind of thing that they'd show at like, franks funeral...
rate/reveiw when you finish reading please... :) :) :)