FicWad

“Gerard!” I yell out. I mean theres no way Bob called and said he was in jail last night and Gerard didn’t tell me. Just left him sitting there all night while we made love.

“What?” He yelled back sounding generally confused, I don’t think he heard me before...

“Where’s Bob?!” I demand once again.

“I don’t fucking know.” He says and I make a face at him.

“What do you mean you don’t fucking know?” I repeat back to him loudly. “How could you not know! You're suppose to know these things” I cried out a little hysterically.

“Elle, I'm not his fucking keeper.” He tells me and I frown.

“Well where was he when he called last night?” I ask and Gerard shrugged.

“I don’t know he didn’t say.” Gerard tells me and I could tell he was telling me the truth…

“You should've asked.” I said softly and he sighed a little pulling out his cigarettes.

“Elle, I'm sure he's fine, okay. He was fine last night when I talked to him.” He says and I just looked at him nervously. “Look baby, just go get dressed. I’ll call him now.” He says and I just stood there. “Go head.” He encourages me. “I gotta call Frankie anyway to let him know I ain’t giving him a ride to school.” He tells me and I reluctantly go into the bathroom to get changed…

When I came out, I kinda caught the tail end of Gerard's conversation on the phone. He was saying something like ‘yeah if you wanna it’s not a problem’ or something like that.

“So, Bob’s gonna come with us?” I ask him as he hangs up and he shakes his head no.

“That was Frankie.” He tells me and I look at him totally lost. “Frankie’s gonna come with us.” He says and I just stared at him.

“He is?” I ask a little confused. Why would Frankie want to go to Samantha Hunters funeral?

“Yeah, its okay right?” Gerard asks me and I shrug.

“Yeah, no, its fine.” I tell him. I mean it was a little weird but I'm not gonna be the one to tell him no… “And Bob?” I ask and Gerard shrugs. “You called him right?”

“Yeah.” He tells me plainly.

“And?” I ask and I guess Gerard could tell I was getting worried.

“He said he’ll call you later.” He tells me and I frowned a little… I mean I didn’t think Gerard was lying to me. It was more cause I got the feeling that Bob was trying to avoid me…And I wasn’t sure why. I mean I was still a little pissed at the way he tricked me yesterday, but I don’t know…

“So we’re gonna go pick up Frankie now?” I ask and Gerard shook his head a little.

“Naw Bob’s gonna drop him by your house on the way to school.” He says and I nodded.

“All right then, lets go.” I say hurrying him out of the room. I didn’t want to miss Bob dropping Frankie off… I know Gerard kept saying he was fine, but I wasn’t gonna believe it until I saw it with my own two eyes…

Gerard ignored my protests to hurry to the house and stopped for coffee on the way. He bought me some too but I was too anxious to drink it. Plus I couldn’t drink it in the moving car anyway and I wasn’t about to make him stop and waste anymore time then we had already lost…

We pulled up in front of my house and it didn’t look like Frankie was there yet. I mean all the windows were shut, the doors were shut, and all the lights were all out too. I went to get out and Gerard kinda stopped me.

“Why don’t you drink that before it gets cold?” He says glancing around a little.

“Id rather drink it inside.” I tell him and he smiles.

“Yeah we’ll go in a minute.” He tells me looking past me a little at the traffic coming down the road. I just shrugged and didn’t say anything back. I mean I knew what he was doing… He was waiting for Frankie and Bob… I guess he wanted to go in and check around the house first but he didn’t want me to come. And he certainly didn’t want to leave me outside alone…But I don’t know. I mean he saw how well leaving me and Frankie alone together went yesterday, so I don’t know why he’d want to do that again today…

But before I could even ask him what he was thinking Bob pulled up and I breathed a sigh of relief, he wasn’t in jail, he wasn’t dead and he didn’t appear to be injured…Gerard jogged over to the car and said something to them, but I couldn’t hear what. I downed the rest of the coffee in my cup and then went over and tossed it into the trashcan. As I put the lid back on the pail I remembered today was garbage day, so I grabbed the pail and started dragging it up the driveway.

Gerard kinda made a face at me like I shouldn’t be doing that. I mean what the fuck! I'm not fucking helpless. I've been living here alone now for quite sometime and even before my papa died, he wasn’t able to do much around the house…

“Elle, let me.” He says and I shake my head no.

“No…You.” I say pointing over to Bob.

“Me?” He replies a little caught off guard.

“Yeah you Bobby.” I say waving my finger at him. “Come here.” I tell him and he smirked a little as he flicked his cigarette butt into the street. Gerard kinda nodded at him and Bob nodded back before turning his attention on to me.

“What's the matter honey?” He says shoving his hands into his pockets and I can see Gerard and Frankie, out of the corner of my eye, heading up the steps to go inside now.

“Lemme see your hands.” I tell him and he grins.

“What?” He says a little amused.

“Let. Me. See your hands.” I repeat a little slower.

“For what?” He says and I can’t help but smile at him.

“I just wanna see.” I tell him and he just stood there looking down at me. He knew why I wanted to see them. I wanted to see if they were bruised from fighting. “Come on Bob.” I tell him and he sighed a little as he pulled them from his pockets. They were a little bruised but I couldn’t really tell if they were fresh bruises or not…

“I didn’t hit him.” He says like he was reading my mind, and I sighed a little relieved. “Not with my hands at least.” He adds and I looked up at his face and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

“Bob?!” I gasp and he pulled his hands back from mine. “Tell me you're kidding.” I say and he diverted his eyes from mine and reached into his pocket once more.

“I got you something.” He says ignoring my question and I frown.

“Bobby answer me.” I say folding my arms on my chest.

“Ah so you don’t want this…” He says pulling a chocolate bar from his pocket and waving it in the air tauntingly…I tried not to smile looking at it.

“I do.” I say reaching for it. “But I'm still mad at you.” I say and he snatches it back from me.

“Nu-uh. You take it, you can’t be mad.” He says holding it up out of my reach.

“Bob” I whine as he shakes his head no. I pouted my lip out and stamped my foot and he just smiled.

“You don’t want it?” He taunts me.

“You know I do.” I say and he holds it out for me again and right before I took it from him he pulled it back once again.

“Tell me.” He says and I paused a moment. Suddenly having a flashback of Gerard saying those words to me last night…

“Tell you what?” I say a little confused.

“That you're not mad.” He says and I smile.

“I could never stay mad at you.” I tell him and he smiled. “I love you.” I add and he just stared at me, with a strange look on his face. We were still each holding one end of the candy bar. “Now let go.” I tell him and he shook his head like he was coming out of a trance or something. “You okay?” I ask and he nodded.

“You better go in, Gerard's probably waiting.” He tells me and I frown unwrapping my chocolate bar.

“You're not coming in?” I ask and he shakes his head no.

“I cant miss anymore school.” He says and I shrug. I mean honestly I probably shouldn’t miss any more school either, but I was going to the funeral… no matter what…

“You don’t wanna come to the funeral?” I ask nibbling on my chocolate bar and he looked down at the floor a little.

“Naw, I didn’t really know Oliver.” He says and I make a face.

“Oliver?” I say a little confused. “I'm not going to Olivers funeral.” I tell him and now he makes a face.

“You're not?” He says and I shake my head a little.

“Well, I am but its not today.” I tell him and he just looked at me a little skeptically. “I think its tomorrow. I’d really have to call Paul” I tell him and he frowned. “Yeah I better run that by Gerard first huh?” I ask and he nodded a little.

“So where the hell are you going then?” He asked me.

“Oh um, to Samantha Hunters.” I tell him and he scoffed a little.

“Elle.” He says disapprovingly.

“What?” I say like I didn’t give a shit and I really didn’t… I was going, no matter what anyone had to say. “Bobby please don’t.” I tell him holding my hand up to stop the protests that I knew were gonna be coming…”Gerard already said he’d take me.” I tell him and he shook his head a little like he didn’t believe it. “You wanna come, you can come too.” I offer him.

“No I can’t I'm already failing too many classes as it is.” He tells me sighing a little.

“Then go.” I tell him nodding towards his car. He was gonna be late if he didn’t leave soon…”You call me later hmm?” I tell him and I reached up and kissed his cheek, and pushed him towards his car. He kinda laughed as he got in and promised me that he would…

I turned back around and Gerard was kinda standing on the steps watching me... I dont know how long he was standing there for...

"What?" I ask and he shrugged a little and didn’t say anything, just held the door open for me as I went in.

“What are you doing Elle?” He says lowering his voice and I look at him a little confused.

“What do you mean? I'm gonna go see what I can save from my room.” I tell him and he grinned a little. “You know you don’t have to help.” I tell him and he reached over and took my hand in his.

“Naw baby, I’ll help.” He tells me squeezing my hand slightly and I smiled as we went down the hall.

We went into my room, well what was left of my room and I kinda kicked through some stuff on the floor… the whole thing was just so depressing… I didn’t even know where to start…

“I need like a box., or um some hefty bags.” I tell Gerard and he looked at me blankly. “There should be some in the garage.” I tell him.

“I’ll get it.” Frankie says startling me… I didn’t realize he was standing in the doorway…well, he was in the doorway, he darted off so fast…

“Or in the basement!” I called out after him. Damn, you know that was bothering me still…I mean what the fuck was Mr Samuel doing in my basement? It was like Gerard was reading my mind too…

“Elle what the fuck you think Mr Samuel was looking for?” He says and I shook my head a little as I sat on the floor and tried to sort through some of the mess…

“I don’t know Gerard. I told you the only thing he seems to want from me is Bow-Bow” I tell him and he nods. “But I have not a fucking clue why.” I tossed my hands up.

“It doesn’t make any sense though.” He stared at the ceiling for a moment lost in thought. “Its just a fucking bear… an ugly fucking bear no less.” He added and I lightly punched him in the stomach.

“Hey watch it.” I took offense. Gerard reached over and picked Bow-Bow up off the floor. He had survived the fire thankfully. I mean he was filthy as fuck but still in one piece.

“Its nothing but stuffing.” He seemed to sigh as he looked down at it in his hand. “I know I fucking tore it apart.” He mumbled and I tensed up at the memory.

“Ok lets not go through that again.” I winced taking Bow-Bow from him and he shrugged.

Suddenly Frankie appeared in the doorway with a few boxes. I handed one to Gerard and one back to Frankie he just looked at me.

“Well start filling it.” I tell him and he looked a little confused.

“With what?” Frankie says and I roll my eyes at him.

“With anything that’s not destroyed.” I snap at him and he made a face but reluctantly started helping. “You know this is all your fault.” I tell him after we were sorting for what seemed like forever.

“My fault?” Frankie laughs back. “Elle you should've put the fire out!” He tells me and I rolled my eyes again.

“I tried!” I tell him and he kept laughing. “I mean I told it to stop.” I say a little flustered at the memories…

“You keep saying that!” Frankie laughs. “What the fuck does that mean Elle?!” He says and I paused a moment…I suddenly realized how fucked up I was…

“Leave her alone.” Gerard tells him but Frankie wouldn’t let up.

“You told it to stop…” He mumbles to himself. “Like stop drop and roll?” He says and I must've blushed a little cause Frankie cries out “Aw shit you did!”

Gerard kinda looked over at me and I looked away…

“Elle?” He says and I shrugged.

“I was real fucked up Gerard.” I tell him softly.

“It was SO your fault!” Frankie points at me.

“No!” I argue back.

“You were fucking wasted!” He laughs.

“That’s why you were suppose to be watching me!” I tell him and he smirked. “You shouldn’t have left me alone.” I tell him and he shook his head at me in disbelief.

“What the fuck was I suppose to do?” He argues and I shrug.

“Just cut it out, both of you all right.” Gerard scolds us as he gets up. I kinda shrugged a little and Frankie didn’t say anything… Gerard kinda lifted up what was left of my nightstand and shook it a little.

“Aw my moms rosary!” I cry out scooping it up from the pile and clutching it in my hand tightly. Gerard kinda smiled a little as I slipped it over my head. I would’ve put it in my pocket, but I didn’t have any pockets…and it kinda made me feel better wearing it… “I cant believe it didn’t get ruined.” I tell Gerard my eyes tearing up a little and he smiled and didn’t say anything…

“I'm gonna go start putting these boxes back in the garage.” He says and I nod as he walks out. Frankie didn’t say anything… He was still sorting through the crap that came out of my nightstand…I guess he waited until he thought Gerard was far enough away to start taunting me again.

“SO your fault.” He mumbles under his breath and I laughed.

“You should've just fucked me.” I tell him and he grinned. “I mean really Frankie you got the shit kicked out you anyway right?” I tease him and he cocked his head a little like I had a point.

“Yeah but I don’t know if it would’ve been worth it.” He says and I laugh as I stood up.

“Ah trust me Frankie.” I say bending over and picking up a pair of handcuffs that had fallen out of my nightstand. “It would’ve been worth it.” I say dangling them in front of him and he grinned widely at me as I tossed them in my box and walked out.

“Wait can I get a do-over?” He calls out after me and I laughed as I brought my box into the garage…Gerard was just kinda standing there, looking around like he was lost in his thoughts…

“Hey you all right?” I ask him and I guess I startled him.

“Oh uh yeah.” He says but he was obviously flustered at something… I leant over to see what. He was holding a box of underwear, and they weren’t mine. They were Wills. Well not Wills, but Wills collection.

Figures they escaped the fire too. Frankie must not have known what they were and assumed they were mine so he threw some of my crap on top and gave the box to Gerard for the garage.

“Oh that’s nasty Gerard get that out of here. Those are Wills you know” I scrunched my face at him and he just stood there not moving.

“Yeah I know.” He sorta laughed nervously. “I was throwing them out and this was at the bottom.” He tells me and I suddenly saw what had captured his attention.

It was a pink piece of paper at the bottom of the box. The same kinda paper my mom sent me that letter on actually.

I reached in and pulled it out. There was actually another folded paper around it. Like a loose-leaf paper sheet. And it had my name on it. I found myself reading it out loud to Gerard.

“To Michelle. A few years ago your mother asked me to hold this for her in my safe at work. I was sad to see her pass. She was a dear friend and a wonderful woman. She had said if anything was to happen to her to send it to you when the day came. Today is that day. Im sorry I don’t have answers for you. Please do not contact me as this is my final involvement in all this. Stay safe and God bless.- Samantha…”

I looked up at Gerard and he shrugged. So I shifted the papers in my hand and opened the pink one up. Scrawled across the fold on the outside it said ‘the key.’ This one was from my mom. I could tell by the handwriting. I suppose Gerard could too. There was no name on it. No address or signature. On the inside it just simply said

4-1-98

Then underneath it was a list of letters and numbers in a column

N 7
C 5
E 5
W 2
S 2
K 2
J 2

But the last line J 2 was scribbled out and it was corrected to read W 4 now…


“What the fuck is that?” I heard Gerard say and I just stood there with my mouth open a bit but no words coming out. I didn’t know.

He took the paper from me and started pacing a little with it as he read it over again and again and again. Almost like it was going to start to suddenly make sense or something.

“Well todays what March 25th?” I offer and he swallowed a little.

“And April first is what?” He asks me and I blurt out the first thing that came to mind.

“April fools day?” I point out and he smiled but it was more of a sarcastic smile then a sincere one.

“Real fucking funny Elle.” He waved the paper to me. “What your moms got the same sick sense of humor and riddles I suppose.” He smirked when he said it and I felt my temperature rising. I couldn’t stand for anyone to talk bad about her. He knew that too. I don’t know why he would say something like that.

“Fuck you Gerard.” I started to yell at him but then Frankie came in with another box interrupting us.

“Whats up.” He says casually and Gerard shoved the note into his pocket. I didn’t want to discuss it with Frankie and it was apparent he didn’t either…

“Nothing.” Gerard says plainly and Frankie just nodded as he skipped over and placed another box in the pile. I waited for Frankie to go back inside before I spoke to Gerard again.

“I'm sorry Gerard.” I tell him sniffling a little and he pulled me into his arms. “I just… I don’t know. I don’t like you saying shit about her.” I tell him truthfully…

“Its all right baby.” He says soothingly. “We’ll talk about this later okay, we really got to get going today though.” He says and I nod.

“I just wanna see if I can call the insurance company guy, you know, let him know that I cleaned everything up, and then we’ll leave.” I tell him and he nodded a little. So that’s what we did… I called the guy and talked with him for a little bit and then we stopped and grabbed lunch before heading into the city…

I didn’t want to drive. I mean driving in the city is just horrible, I thought we should take the bus, but Gerard said it wasn’t really the ‘city’ where were going… It was like a suburb. I don’t know how, but it seemed to know where it was and he said we’d be fine driving so I had to agree… I mean he was gonna drive not me, so I really didn’t care…

I was trying to explain to Gerard what the guy said on the ride into the city, or the suburb or wherever the fuck were going but he was just being too damn frustrating! It was making me crazy….

I mean I told him how the guy said the whole thing shouldn’t really take more then two or three weeks to be totally completed. And he immediately started up with the whole ‘I should come stay with him bit.’ Which I refused once more… I don't know why he can’t seem to understand why I don't want to stay with him...

Then he said he didn’t like the thought of me in the hotel like that for 3 weeks and I told him it wasn’t gonna be 3 weeks cause the guys said they were gonna start ‘demolition’ tomorrow and that was only gonna be more like one week that I couldn’t technically live there.

That basically I could stay in the hotel, on their tab no less, until next Wednesday but then after that I'd have to pay for it myself, cause once they get the framework back up the house is basically deemed livable and there no reason why I can't be here while they work on the walls and wires and crap…

Gerard kinda made a face at this… I don’t think he liked the idea of me being here alone in that house anymore. But I told him I wasn’t gonna be there ‘alone’… That there was gonna be a whole crew of construction worker guys in the house with me… well, that didn’t seem to make him feel better…In fact the thought of that seemed to upset him even more…

Finally he said that we’d just talk about it later since we were pulling up in front of the funeral home now…He parked the truck in the way back of the lot and grabbed on to his arm as we started up the steps…

“Gerard.” I said freezing up suddenly. “I don’t think I can do this.” I tell him and he pulled me inside the doorway.

“Elle we can go home right now if you want.” He says and I shook my head no.

“No I have to do this.” I tell him my voice shaking. I was starting to freak out and I couldn’t help it…

“Um I'm just gonna go in.” Frankie says obviously trying to give me and Gerard some privacy and Gerard nodded at him.

“Elle are you sure you wanna do this?” Gerard says softly and I nod looking over through the small glass windows on the door. We were right outside the room… It was like a little lobby area I suppose… I could see Frankie going in, He was going up to the coffin now. He looked so out of place too… He didn’t have on a suit or anything, cause I mean really he didn’t even know we were coming… But luckily he was wearing black and gray today, fuck he always wears black and gray… Gerard too…

Frankie leant over the coffin and cocked his head to the side, before turning back around. I tried to see who else was in the room… there was quite a few people… No one I recognized though…I didn’t see Mr. Reefer or Mr. Samuel or that blue-eyed dude or Chris…. Hmm but I don’t know what Chris looks like so it would be hard to pick him out a crowd…I wonder if he would recognize me if he saw me… I mean I look a lot like my mom, so I think he might…

“Okay, fuck it. Let’s just do this.” I tell Gerard and I take a deep breath, gathering my strength up as I opened up the double doors. I stepped into the room nervously, clutching Gerard's hand for dear life… No one seemed to notice… I mean one old lady kinda glanced over at us, but no one said anything like who were we or what the hell were we doing here... I started to take a step forward towards the front and Frankie comes back up the aisle towards us rather quickly…

“Dude.” Frankie hisses at Gerard. “I think were in the wrong place.” He whispers and I shake my head no.

“No this is the address.” I tell him and he shakes his head no.

“There's a chick in that coffin.” He tells me and I roll my eyes a little.

“Well duh Frankie.” I whisper back at him and I shoot Gerard a look like why the fuck did we even bring him.

“Well where’s Oliver?” Frankie asks and I wrinkle my face a little.

“What?” I hiss back at him. He was being way too loud now…”What do you mean where the fuck’s Oliver? This isn’t Oliver’s funeral.” I whisper harshly at him. Frankie’s just looking at me like he doesn’t believe me. I glance over and Gerard's kinda giving me the same look… “What?” I gasp a little. Why the fuck is he looking at me that for?

“Who’s funeral is this then?” Gerard says sternly lowering his voice down.

“It’s Samantha Hunters.”