FicWad

Chapter 54: Doomsday

It was early in the morning, 7:50 to be exact. Gerard hadn’t been able to sleep the whole night, and he was just making himself a second pot of coffee. His hands were shaking so bad that he nearly dropped the coffee pot twice.

After he had miraculously managed to fill the cup with hot coffee, there was a knock on the door.

“Hi I need to borrow some sugar,” Mikey said when Gerard opened the door.

Raising an eyebrow, but too tired to suspect anything, Gerard let his brother in. But soon it became apparent that Mikey wasn’t there for the sugar. He seemed nearly as nervous as his brother, and sat down by the kitchen table, emptying the cut of coffee Gerard made for himself.

Gerard shrugged, and after fixing himself a new cup of hot coffee, there was another knock at the door.

“Could you borrow me your curling iron?” Ray asked, and Gerard let him in despite the fact that he didn’t own a curling iron, and Ray definitely didn’t need one.

Same thing happened again. Ray went straight to the table and chugged down half of Gerard’s coffee.

Groaning, Gerard started to fill a third cup. But before he was done with it, there was a knock on the door for the third time that morning.

“I think I left my purse here,” Frank announced and then pointed at Bob, who was standing next to him. “Bob is helping me find it.”

“Oh just get in,” Gerard rolled his eyes. “I’ll make more coffee.”

And why was the whole band packed up in Gerard’s crammed kitchen, drinking coffee like some coffeeholics anonymous meeting gone wrong?

It was Gia’s first day of high school.

“So… Did we miss it?” Frank asked.

“No, she’s getting dressed.”

“I should probably go help her then…”

Just as Frank stood up to go upstairs, Gia appeared at the kitchen door. Everyone just stared at her, and she wasn’t sure what to do. Even standing proved to be too much for her. Even though she had spent the last hour getting ready, and she looked very together, they could see how nervous she was.

“Oh for God’s sake, stop staring at me,” she finally said, and immediately everyone turned their attention to the table.

“Are you hungry? I could make you breakfast,” Gerard asked, but he hoped she would decline. In his current state of mind he’d probably torch the house.

“No thanks. I don’t think I could keep anything in.” Gia sat down by the table, and instantly she felt Mikey’s hand on her back.

“You’ll be fine,” he assured her, but she just snorted as a response.

“Oh come on! With the way you guys have been talking about high school, there’s no way I’ll believe I’ll be fine.”

“High school’s not all that bad,” Ray said, trying his best to sound convincing.

“Yeah, if we all survived it, so will you,” Frank said, but then he quickly glanced at the others and continued with a lower voice: “But one word of advice… If you get shoved into a locker, wait until they leave before you get out. They’ll just shove you right back in, twice as hard.”

“It’s best if you find a group of people that are unpopular enough to take you in, but popular enough so that you don’t get messed with.”

“Oh god,” Gia gasped, her face now completely white. “It’s like a jungle. I have no survival skills, I’m going to die!”

“Stop making her nervous!” Gerard said, but really, he was more concerned if he was going to get through the day.

Gia would be fine, she wasn’t like he had been in high school. Gia was normal. No one would pick her from the crowd and start picking on her. But still, if there was even the remotest possibility for that to happen, then he will worry. And he did.

“I should go, I don’t want to be late,” Gia said and got up from her seat.

“I’ll drive you. You’ve got your cell phone? Call me and I’ll pick you up too,” Gerard immediately said with a panicky voice.

“Yeah I’ve got it,” she answered and the five of them followed her to the front door.

Gia wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to survive through the day. She had no idea what to do. If Lucas had been there with her, then she’d have someone to share this day of doom with, but since he was all the way in California, Gia was all alone.

When Gerard’s car pulled up to the school parking lot and Gia was supposed to get out, she found it very difficult to open the door. She watched other kids get out of the cars, some looked older, some were her age, but only a few of them looked even remotely nervous. Gia found that strange. This was kind of a big deal.

“So remember, call me after you get off and I’ll pick you up,” Gerard said, and got a nod as a response. “You okay?” he asked after they just sat there in the silence for a while.

“Yeah.”

That was a lie, and they both knew it.

Gia took a deep breath and opened the door. When it slammed shut, and Gia started to walk away, Gerard couldn’t help but feel a bit sad. He sat there for a long while even after she’d disappeared, dwelling in his memories. He truly hoped that her experiences in this damned place would be bit less traumatic and dark than his had been.

Gia was very aware of the looks some of the people gave her. Most of the other students ignored her completely, and to them she was just another face in the crowd. But some looked at her like she had eaten their lunch or something. It made her very uncomfortable.

When she entered the school building, she was faced with a very serious problem.

When she had picked up her timetable during summer, the building had been empty, so she had no problem finding her way. There were signs to the office, after all. But now the place was packed with people, and that alone was enough to make her lose all sense of direction.

Gia was happy that she had memorized the map she was given, because that way she didn’t have to look at it. No one else seemed to have it with them so she figured it would’ve been embarrassing to use it.

Stopping to stand in the middle of the hallway was a bad idea. Gia realized that when she was nearly pushed down by someone. They just turned to look at her with a very evil glare, which made Gia nearly have a heart attack. She had never wanted to go home more.

Eventually she managed to sail her way through the mass of students to the classroom which she at least thought was her homeroom. The bell had rang a long time ago, but there were still people swarming on the corridors, and the classroom as only half full when she went in and took a seat in the middle row next to the window.

There was a pack of three, very loud girls sitting on front of her, talking about their summer. And behind Gia, all the way in the back row, was a boy with black mop of hair hanging in front of his eyes. On the other side of the classroom were two nerdy looking boys who were staring at the three giggly girls and talking quietly.

Slowly Gia’s gaze found the teacher who was already sitting behind his desk in the front of the room. He was a young man, probably in his 30’s, with curly dark hair. If the situation wasn’t so stressing, Gia would’ve been blushing like crazy.

After the rest of the students had found their way to the classroom, the teacher stood up and smiled to everyone.

“Hello, my name is Daniel Gates, you can all call me Daniel, and I will be your homeroom teacher hopefully for the next four years. Welcome to Belleville High, everyone. I hope you have all had a good start here, and that the four years you spend here will be just as –“

The teacher’s speech was interrupted when a girl knocked on the door and peeked in.

“Sorry I’m late, I was at the office,” she apologized.

“That’s okay. Pick a seat and sit down.”

No one had sat down next to Gia yet, and there were two available seats left. Gia sighed in relief when the girl didn’t choose the seat next to her.

Daniel continued his speech after the girl had sat down. “So as I was saying, I hope you will all enjoy these four years. I teach biology and geology at this school, so we will probably meet each other there too.”

There was another knock at the door, this one not as excited. This girl apologized for being late because she was at the office too, and Daniel told her to take a seat. Now the spot next to Gia was filled too. Great. At least she didn’t seem to have any interest in her, which definitely was a plus.

“Alright, let’s get to the boring stuff then, shall we?” Daniel said with a smile and quickly went over the school rules. Strangely everyone was listening. Well, apart from the three gigging girls in front of Gia.

The teacher let them go after a while of talking. Gia waited for everyone else to hurry out of the room before leaving as well. She didn’t like big crowds.

And then, the next challenge. Her first real class in high school. Thankfully it was health education, which she was good at, and the classroom was easy to find.

The teacher wasn’t there yet but since there were a few students sitting in the room, Gia figured it was okay to go in. She chose a seat by the window again, this time in almost in the front. The back rows had already been occupied by a group of girls who all had their cell phones out. A few seats behind Gia there were two boys throwing a football to each other. None of them seemed to have noticed her.

When the teacher came into the room, Gia’s eyes widened. The woman’s skin seemed to be thin as paper, her thin white hair was up in a bun and her frail body was crouched up. But the look on her face was one that got the message through to every student: do not mess with this teacher. She will give you hell if you defy her.

“Everybody quiet down! Cell phones off! And I will take that ball away if you don’t put it down right now!” the teacher shouted, and everyone did as they were told without another thought. Gia thought it was amazing how one small person could have such an impact on a room full of what seemed like untrained monkeys.

After introducing herself as Mrs. Figgins, the teacher got straight to the point. “My way of doing things is to not stall. I don’t talk, I act. And I require you all to do the same thing in my class. On the teaching plan the first thing I’m supposed to teach you is how to eat healthy. BUT! I want to talk about something you kids very often mistake as something you should be doing! YOU! Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Gia’s eyes widened and she could hardly breathe when the woman pointed a shaky finger at her. “Um…. Drugs?”

“What’s your name girl?”

“Gia.”

“Well, Gia, YOU ARE WRONG! What I am talking about is a million times worse than any kind of drug you know of! This unspeakable sin will ruin your life! Permanently!” She said the word ‘permanently’ like it was some disgusting ball of hair that a cat coughed up. “I am talking about sex.”

Gia glanced at the other students, and they seemed to be just as confused as she was.

“The official school policy is abstinence. Remember that! If you have sex, you will die! And then you will be expelled from school and you will become uneducated slobs that no one wants to hire. So, to teach you of the consequences of sex, we will be starting a project.”

Just when Gia thought it couldn’t get any worse, Mrs. Figgins pulled out a plastic baby from a closet next to the blackboard.

“This will be your project.” Almost the whole class groaned at that. “You will all pair up, girl and boy pairs, and you will get a baby to take care of.”

She explained that the plastic babies had to be fed, the diapers had to be changed, and they will cry in the middle of the night. And because of the built-in censors the teacher WILL find out how the babies have been treated.

Gia glanced around the room again. None of the boys looked like someone she would’ve wanted to pair up. Then again, at first she had been afraid of Lucas as well, and he turned out to be… kind of alright. In a way.

When Mrs. Figgins started to call out the names of the pairs, Gia waited in horror of her name being mentioned. When she did hear her name being called, and saw the boy she would be paired up with, Gia felt paralyzed.

The boy, whose name according to the teacher was Ryan, had a bright red mohawk and at least five piercings on his face, and that’s not even counting the ears. When he realized that Gia wasn’t going to move, he got up from his seat and slumped down on the empty seat next to her while she just sat there awkwardly.

“What’s up,” the guy said, and Gia wasn’t exactly sure if it was a greeting or an actual question, so she didn’t answer.

“Alright, now that you have all teamed up, go choose a baby from the closet,” Mrs. Figgins said.

Gia glanced at her partner, but when he didn’t show any interest in getting up again, she figured she’ll have to get the plastic baby. After everyone else had gotten their babies, Gia got up to get theirs. Only a few were left, and all of them looked pretty pathetic. Some had lost limbs even, but Gia chose the one that was missing an eye and had some very rude words written on its body.

Their assignment was to take care of the baby for two weeks, and during those two weeks write an essay about it. Ryan didn’t seem to be too excited about it, so Gia figured that she will be a single parent.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, but the health education class was enough to convince Gia of the fact that high school really was as horrible as her dad had said. She wondered how she was going to survive.

______________________

At home, Gerard was slowly but surely losing his mind. All he wanted to do was smoke, because if he didn’t smoke, he’d be even more nervous. And of course smoking required him to be outside because Lindsey was inside, and being outside meant that there was the danger of Tina spotting him. Lucas may have left, but as long as they lived there, Tina was still a constant threat.

So, Gerard resorted to sitting on the backyard with a pack of cigarettes and watch Jersey dig holes on the ground to bury his treasures.

The last time he was this freaked out was when Gia ran off with Lucas. And before that, when Gia started first grade. Before that, when Gia fell off of the tree and broke her arm… Gerard realized that the reason he was ever worried was Gia. How more of a father could anyone be?

“Gerard?”

He jumped in surprise when he heard Lindsey’s gentle voice, and then butted the cigarette and frantically started to scatter the smoke in the air. “What are you doing? You can’t be out here!”

“Oh please, a little smoke has never turned anyone’s baby into a mutant with six heads,” Lindsey laughed, even though she was quite sure if the subject was really something to laugh about. “As long as I’m not around smoke all the time, we should be fine.”

“You sure? I mean, I’ll love the kid even if he has six heads, but god, he’ll really be bullied on the playground.”

Lindsey sat down next to him on the porch steps and Jersey came to greet her and wag his tail happily. His paws and head were all dirty and muddy, but Lindsey didn’t care that he got mud on her clothes.

Three months ago they found out that Lindsey was pregnant. Now she was four months along, and while she was already showing a bit, it was still easy to hide from Gia. As happy as they were about the baby, they couldn’t share the news with Gia just yet.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to, but they were afraid it would be too much for her. There was always something going on. Either she was too happy, or too sad, there was just never the right moment to drop the news.

“So I was thinking,” Lindsey started, revealing the reason she came out to talk to him. “We can’t keep a secret like this much longer.”

“What? You want to give my daughter a heart attack?!”

“Gerard, be serious!”

“Alright… You’re right. But how do we tell her?” For a moment they were both silent, trying to figure out a way to break out the news, but then Gerard snapped his fingers and said: “I got it! We travel abroad, somewhere far away, and then we send out a carrier pigeon to take the message to Gia. When she gets the message, she will be so happy about the pigeon that she doesn’t even care about the news! Everybody loves pigeons, right?”

Lindsey just smiled to him in a way that could only be described as pitying, and said: “Why don’t we talk about this when you’re sane again, okay?”

She left him alone with his depressing thoughts about pigeons and high school, and went inside. Gerard lit another cigarette and sighed. By the time he goes to pick up Gia, his lungs will be completely collapsed.

______________________

Gia had to admit that she was quite surprised she’d gotten through the entire day. High school was still terrifying, and Gia was on her toes constantly, fearing that something might happen to ruin everything, but so far, it wasn’t so bad.

But at the end of the day, when she was leaving the school building with her plastic baby whom she’d named Edmund, there was another surprise waiting for her.

Ryan, the father of her plastic baby, was waiting for her by the door. Gia was rather shocked to see him come talk to her, but what shocked her even more, was the cigarette he had between his fingers.

“Hey, Gia, right?” he asked once he’d reached her.

“Um, yeah,” Gia answered nervously.

“So about that project thing… How about we take turns and I can take it tomorrow?”

“Him,” Gia corrected quietly.

“What?”

“Him. Not it. His name is Edmund.”

Ryan just stared at her for a moment, which made Gia’s cheeks flush crimson. How more embarrassing could this situation get?

“Right. Anyway, I’ll take him tomorrow okay?”

Gia nodded, and turned to leave, thinking that the conversation was over. But Ryan had one more thing to say.

“Oh and Gia,” he called after her. “No son of mine will be called Edmund. We’ll talk about that tomorrow too.”

Gia smiled to him before turning again and walking away. Little did she know, her dad had seen the whole thing.

When she got into the car and he drove off, the first thing he said was: “So. A baby. Exactly how long were you in there?”

“My health education teacher is crazy. She gave us this assignment that we have to take care of a plastic baby for two weeks so we wouldn’t want to have sex. And that’s why I have Edmund here.”

“Edmund?”

“Yeah, we’re still talking about the name, but I like the name Edmund.”

“So… That guy you were talking to…” he started.

“His name is Ryan. He’s the one I’m doing this assignment with. But you don’t have to worry, he scares me, and besides, he’s completely rude.”

Gerard looked at her like she’d gone mad. “Really? He’s in your grade? He looks like a senior!”

Gia just shrugged. She wasn’t really in the mood to talk about Ryan.

“Okay, so let’s get to the really important stuff,” Gerard then said. “How was your first day in high school? Any bullies? Bitchy cheerleaders? Creepy, brawny guys from the football team?”

“Nope, it was surprisingly tolerable. The only bad things were, well, Edmund here, Ryan, and that health education teacher. She really was terrible.”

“What’s the teacher’s name?”

“Mrs. Figgins.”

Gerard grinned like a madman upon hearing the name. “You’re kidding! She’s still alive?!”

“Yeah?”

“She was my teacher too when I went there. God, Mikey’s not going to believe it. She bullied him so much. Does she still wear that green vest and the brown skirt?”

“Yeah. Gosh, she looks like a hundred years old! I guess that this just proves it.”

“Hey! I’m not that old!”

“Whatever, gramps,” she laughed.

Gerard was just happy for her. If everything goes well, the rest of her high school years will be as enjoyable as this day. He really wished she wouldn’t have to go through the same things he did when he was a kid.