Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Don't Hold Your Breath
A/NChapter 3 up!! I haven't forgotten about this, I'm just one of those lucky fuckers who's sitting exams in two weeks. Yay... =.= Hopefully this is acceptable. By the way, I'm abandoning naming each chapter. Since I've planned to do quite a few, it's easier for me not to name them all. Not that you care:)
Aaaanyway...Here it is, enjoy!
R xo
Chapter 3
And that’s how it started. From then on, you couldn’t find one of us without the other. Except for the occasional lesson when we’d be forced apart. It was always Gerard and Frank, or Frank and Gerard. As I got to know the boy over the following 2 months, I realized my first assumptions of him were wrong. He’s not just like everyone else. But then again, he’s not like me either. It’s hard to explain, but he has this positive natured spirit inside him, one that occasionally rears its head and fuels his ability to get on with people. I don’t have that; mine must have been replaced with one that hates everyone. True, he dislikes most of the people he meets, but he doesn’t always show it. I’m the only one who can tell when he’s putting on an act to avoid drawing attention to himself. It’s not like he’s popular or anything, he hangs with me. Like I said, social suicide.
But he’s not invincible; he gets the crap beaten out of him just like I do. Most of the time, it’s because he tries to stand up for me. And most of the time, it just gets us both simultaneous beatings followed by being crammed into lockers. Fortunately my small frame helps me get out of these situations with less damage, but yanking Gerard out of a small space takes more effort and he normally whacks his head on the top shelf of the locker in an attempt to free himself, even though he isn’t much taller than me. But Gerard doesn’t complain much. I make up for it though. Not sure why he tolerates it bu-
“You wanna come over, Frank? Mom left the number to order pizzas on the fridge. Mikey’s gonna order in.”
The sound of Gerard’s voice drags me back from my nostalgic thoughts. Peering up at his face from under my hood, I see him looking down at me expectantly, the corners of his lips curled up slightly in a friendly smile.
“Well, my mom’s working late tonight; Friday’s are always busy for her, so I doubt she’ll even notice I’m gone.” I’ll stick a note to the mirror in the hallway to let her know where I am.
I look back at my feet to avoid I tripping on the uneven pavement slabs as we continue to walk at a steady pace to the bus stop.
“I’ll grab some stuff from my place and head over at about four.”
**
I slipped the key carefully into the lock on the front door and twisted slowly – this had become a routine ever since I snapped my key in it a few weeks back in a moment of rage. Mom had to pay to change the lock and still won’t let me forget about it. After throwing my key on the window sill in the hallway, I ran up the stairs to my room and turned my bag upside down, spilling its contents in an uneven pile in the middle of the floor. Glancing at the wall clock told me I had 15 minutes to get ready and walk to the Way brothers house. Plenty of time. I kicked through the pile of clothes on the floor and unearthed a pair of clean black pyjamas that I threw into the bag along with my phone, toothbrush and a surprise I had for Gerard before heading for the stairs. In a moment of immaturity, I felt the need to skid down on my arse. Probably not the best idea. I cringed as I got up, friction burn radiating through my jeans.
Swallowing against the discomfort, I crammed my feet back into my muddy converse and reached for the door handle. A glimpse of my reflection in the mirror made me stop and run my fingers through my messy mop of hair. It flopped lifelessly to the side of my face, tousled by the walk in the wind on the way home. I briefly considered eyeliner, but decided against it, not wanting Gerard to think I’d made a real effort with my appearance. I rolled my eyes to myself and dismissed the thought. He doesn’t care, neither do you, I told myself. Remembering about the note for mom, I scrawled what I hoped was a legible message on the back of a bus ticket I found and tucked it under the frame around the mirror. Finally accepting I was ready, I gripped the door handle and tugged it slightly. The house phone rang just as I was about to step outside. On the off chance it was mom, I trudged back to answer it, sighing heavily.
“Hello?” I spoke into the receiver. The only response I got was an ominous crackle that probably meant whoever was calling had a bad signal. The caller ID wasn’t one I recognized, so I figured maybe it was a work call for mom.
“Anyone there?” I wasn’t sure at first, but if I listened carefully, I was sure I could hear quiet breathing. Then, silence.
“Okay, well I’m hanging up in three, two, on-”
I was cut off when the silence was shattered by a scream. Not just a little scream, a full fledged, bloodcurdling scream that pierced my eardrums and stopped my heart for a second. The scream ended almost as abruptly as it had begun, cut off as the line went dead. The phone buzzed in my ear, telling me that the person on the other end had hung up. The phone slipped from my hand and fell to the floor, the buzz ending when the battery pack dislodged from the back, disconnecting it. I stepped away, slowly, wishing I had imagined the whole thing. But I hadn’t. I didn’t want to think about who that might have been. No, who that was. There’s only one person I know that would be sick enough to do that. Well, one person I knew. Nausea swept over me like a tsunami, the walls began to close in on me as I ran to the door and threw myself out of it, hunched over and gasping on the front path. I must have been stooped over like that for a few moments, trying to pull myself together, that I hadn’t even realized it was raining. I straightened up, brushed a nervous hand through my hair and slammed the door shut behind me.
He was gone. He couldn’t get to me anymore.
I recited those lines in my mind as I walked to Gerard’s house, pretty sure they would be etched into my brain by the time I got there. Reaching forward, I buzzed the doorbell. Gerard answered, his face puzzled when he saw me. I looked down at myself, realizing I was practically dripping wet from the rain.
“Do you want a towel?”
I half forced a grin in response, hoping my face wouldn’t betray me.
“And a beer.” Gerard smirked at me as I stepped through the door and closed the door shut. When I turned around, Gerard was gone. I figured he’d sloped off to grab me a towel, so I kicked off my converse and stood, dripping on the linoleum floor until he returned with a pale fuchsia towel and, to my delight, two cans of Budweiser. After briefly raking the towel over my body, I deemed myself dry enough and reached for the beer in Gerard’s hand. He shook his head and grinned at me.
“You can’t have this until your dry.”
My face distorted into a look of shock which only made Gerard laugh as I rubbed the towel over myself vigorously. He caught me off guard when he leaned forward and took the towel from my hands and brought it to my face, gently rubbing it over my head to dry my hair out. I snuck a peak at his face between the folds of fuchsia, his forehead creased and his eyebrows pulling together to form a frown. The expression melted when his eyes met mine, and he ruffled the towel on my head, messing my hair up even more. It was only when Gerard pulled the towel away and burst into peals of laughter that I realized my hair was sticking out in all directions, static from being rubbed down with a towel. I laughed at the thought of it, and Gerard’s contagious giggle relieved the tension. I pushed all thoughts of earlier to the back of my mind, and focused on now. Here, with Gerard. I could worry later. I snatched my beer from his hand while he was distracted, opened it and took a deep gulp. The cool liquid was soothing.
Mikey came thundering down the stairs, the laughter alerting him of my arrival.
“Fucking finally! I thought you weren’t coming, I was this close to sneaking the phone upstairs and ordering without you.” He held his fingers up and made a gap about a centimeter wide to emphasize his point.
“Sorry Mikes, I got held up.”
After displaying his annoyance with my late coming, Mikey took our orders and went into the kitchen to call the pizza place. We all sat in the living room, sprawled out on the couches waiting for the pizza and watching TV. When the doorbell rang, I jumped slightly. Gerard looked round at me, and I shrugged like it was nothing. He frowned but nodded in response.
**
It’s pretty impressive watching Mikey eat. How he packs away so much food is honestly beyond me. In the space that Gerard and I had eaten a few slices each, Mikey had somehow managed to demolish half an 18 inch pizza by himself. I’m starting to wonder if his bellybutton is the gateway to Narnia.
After we ate, Mikey lined up a list of gory films for us to watch. I’d downed three beers so far and was on my fourth, feeling pretty relaxed. When Gerard came back into the room with popcorn before Mikey started the second film, I swung me feet round into his lap and laid down in the chair. Gerard seemed unfazed by this, but by the time the third film was half way through, I noticed he’d started to absent mindedly draw circles with his finger around my ankle bone. It was past twelve when the last film ended and Mikey slouched upstairs, muttering about being tired. Gerard took this as our queue to set up the camp bed in his room. I followed him upstairs and collapsed on his bed while he set mine up.
“Aren’t you going to help, Frank? Last time I did this for you I got my finger caught in the latch.”
“You won’t do it again, you said it hurt.”
“Well I didn’t exactly do it by choice.” He grunted as he pushed the last spring out, flattening out the camp bed. “Done. Now get the fuck off my bed.”
I felt him tugging at my ankles to haul me on the floor.
“Noooo Gee, I’m comfy here.” I slurred slightly, but it was hardly noticeable. Gerard yanked again, this time pulling me off the bed so only my torso was on it. This attempt had made my shirt ride up, revealing part of my stomach. I was too tired to bother to pull it back down. One final pull had me on the floor. Luckily, my butt took most of the impact, and the fall wasn’t exactly a big one.
“Fuck you.” I mumbled, rolling over and dragging myself to the camp bed. The fall had broken me out of my slightly drunken haze, just enough to be able to think clearly.
“Gerard, can I tell you something?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
Even with my face buried into my pillow, I knew he was watching me. His eyes burned into the back of my head and I guessed he was pulling that adorable confused face of his.
“When I was about to leave home earlier, I-”
An ounce of common sense trickled into my head and I held my tongue before any more words could slip out. I could not tell anyone about what happened. Especially not Gerard, he was the first friend I’d made since it all happened.
“You what, Frank?” Gerard tried to encourage me to continue, his voice soft and calm, but I knew I was sober enough not to say something stupid.
“I…uh…I decided I…um. I want to go on the school ski trip in summer.” Nice save, Frank. Nice save.
Gerard was silent for a minute. I thought he’d seen through my cover up, so I rolled over to check. He smiled at me, clearly thinking about what I’d said.
“Actually, I kind of wanted to go to that too. I didn’t say anything because I figured it didn’t matter.”
His response shocked me a little; he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who was into that sort of thing. Well, neither did I. I didn’t respond, just smiled back at him.
“I’ll ask my parents if you ask yours. Deal?” Oh crap, I’d landed myself in it now. He really wanted to go; I could hear the enthusiasm in his voice. But, if it would make him happy, I had nothing to lose by asking.
“Deal.”
With this response, he turned over in his bed and burrowed into the covers, pulling them high up by his chin to keep the warmth in. I turned over on the camp bed and did the same, getting one last glimpse of the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling before closing my eyes, blocking out the world. Only one thing broke that barrier before I succumbed to sleep.
“Night, Frank.”
Aaaanyway...Here it is, enjoy!
R xo
Chapter 3
And that’s how it started. From then on, you couldn’t find one of us without the other. Except for the occasional lesson when we’d be forced apart. It was always Gerard and Frank, or Frank and Gerard. As I got to know the boy over the following 2 months, I realized my first assumptions of him were wrong. He’s not just like everyone else. But then again, he’s not like me either. It’s hard to explain, but he has this positive natured spirit inside him, one that occasionally rears its head and fuels his ability to get on with people. I don’t have that; mine must have been replaced with one that hates everyone. True, he dislikes most of the people he meets, but he doesn’t always show it. I’m the only one who can tell when he’s putting on an act to avoid drawing attention to himself. It’s not like he’s popular or anything, he hangs with me. Like I said, social suicide.
But he’s not invincible; he gets the crap beaten out of him just like I do. Most of the time, it’s because he tries to stand up for me. And most of the time, it just gets us both simultaneous beatings followed by being crammed into lockers. Fortunately my small frame helps me get out of these situations with less damage, but yanking Gerard out of a small space takes more effort and he normally whacks his head on the top shelf of the locker in an attempt to free himself, even though he isn’t much taller than me. But Gerard doesn’t complain much. I make up for it though. Not sure why he tolerates it bu-
“You wanna come over, Frank? Mom left the number to order pizzas on the fridge. Mikey’s gonna order in.”
The sound of Gerard’s voice drags me back from my nostalgic thoughts. Peering up at his face from under my hood, I see him looking down at me expectantly, the corners of his lips curled up slightly in a friendly smile.
“Well, my mom’s working late tonight; Friday’s are always busy for her, so I doubt she’ll even notice I’m gone.” I’ll stick a note to the mirror in the hallway to let her know where I am.
I look back at my feet to avoid I tripping on the uneven pavement slabs as we continue to walk at a steady pace to the bus stop.
“I’ll grab some stuff from my place and head over at about four.”
**
I slipped the key carefully into the lock on the front door and twisted slowly – this had become a routine ever since I snapped my key in it a few weeks back in a moment of rage. Mom had to pay to change the lock and still won’t let me forget about it. After throwing my key on the window sill in the hallway, I ran up the stairs to my room and turned my bag upside down, spilling its contents in an uneven pile in the middle of the floor. Glancing at the wall clock told me I had 15 minutes to get ready and walk to the Way brothers house. Plenty of time. I kicked through the pile of clothes on the floor and unearthed a pair of clean black pyjamas that I threw into the bag along with my phone, toothbrush and a surprise I had for Gerard before heading for the stairs. In a moment of immaturity, I felt the need to skid down on my arse. Probably not the best idea. I cringed as I got up, friction burn radiating through my jeans.
Swallowing against the discomfort, I crammed my feet back into my muddy converse and reached for the door handle. A glimpse of my reflection in the mirror made me stop and run my fingers through my messy mop of hair. It flopped lifelessly to the side of my face, tousled by the walk in the wind on the way home. I briefly considered eyeliner, but decided against it, not wanting Gerard to think I’d made a real effort with my appearance. I rolled my eyes to myself and dismissed the thought. He doesn’t care, neither do you, I told myself. Remembering about the note for mom, I scrawled what I hoped was a legible message on the back of a bus ticket I found and tucked it under the frame around the mirror. Finally accepting I was ready, I gripped the door handle and tugged it slightly. The house phone rang just as I was about to step outside. On the off chance it was mom, I trudged back to answer it, sighing heavily.
“Hello?” I spoke into the receiver. The only response I got was an ominous crackle that probably meant whoever was calling had a bad signal. The caller ID wasn’t one I recognized, so I figured maybe it was a work call for mom.
“Anyone there?” I wasn’t sure at first, but if I listened carefully, I was sure I could hear quiet breathing. Then, silence.
“Okay, well I’m hanging up in three, two, on-”
I was cut off when the silence was shattered by a scream. Not just a little scream, a full fledged, bloodcurdling scream that pierced my eardrums and stopped my heart for a second. The scream ended almost as abruptly as it had begun, cut off as the line went dead. The phone buzzed in my ear, telling me that the person on the other end had hung up. The phone slipped from my hand and fell to the floor, the buzz ending when the battery pack dislodged from the back, disconnecting it. I stepped away, slowly, wishing I had imagined the whole thing. But I hadn’t. I didn’t want to think about who that might have been. No, who that was. There’s only one person I know that would be sick enough to do that. Well, one person I knew. Nausea swept over me like a tsunami, the walls began to close in on me as I ran to the door and threw myself out of it, hunched over and gasping on the front path. I must have been stooped over like that for a few moments, trying to pull myself together, that I hadn’t even realized it was raining. I straightened up, brushed a nervous hand through my hair and slammed the door shut behind me.
He was gone. He couldn’t get to me anymore.
I recited those lines in my mind as I walked to Gerard’s house, pretty sure they would be etched into my brain by the time I got there. Reaching forward, I buzzed the doorbell. Gerard answered, his face puzzled when he saw me. I looked down at myself, realizing I was practically dripping wet from the rain.
“Do you want a towel?”
I half forced a grin in response, hoping my face wouldn’t betray me.
“And a beer.” Gerard smirked at me as I stepped through the door and closed the door shut. When I turned around, Gerard was gone. I figured he’d sloped off to grab me a towel, so I kicked off my converse and stood, dripping on the linoleum floor until he returned with a pale fuchsia towel and, to my delight, two cans of Budweiser. After briefly raking the towel over my body, I deemed myself dry enough and reached for the beer in Gerard’s hand. He shook his head and grinned at me.
“You can’t have this until your dry.”
My face distorted into a look of shock which only made Gerard laugh as I rubbed the towel over myself vigorously. He caught me off guard when he leaned forward and took the towel from my hands and brought it to my face, gently rubbing it over my head to dry my hair out. I snuck a peak at his face between the folds of fuchsia, his forehead creased and his eyebrows pulling together to form a frown. The expression melted when his eyes met mine, and he ruffled the towel on my head, messing my hair up even more. It was only when Gerard pulled the towel away and burst into peals of laughter that I realized my hair was sticking out in all directions, static from being rubbed down with a towel. I laughed at the thought of it, and Gerard’s contagious giggle relieved the tension. I pushed all thoughts of earlier to the back of my mind, and focused on now. Here, with Gerard. I could worry later. I snatched my beer from his hand while he was distracted, opened it and took a deep gulp. The cool liquid was soothing.
Mikey came thundering down the stairs, the laughter alerting him of my arrival.
“Fucking finally! I thought you weren’t coming, I was this close to sneaking the phone upstairs and ordering without you.” He held his fingers up and made a gap about a centimeter wide to emphasize his point.
“Sorry Mikes, I got held up.”
After displaying his annoyance with my late coming, Mikey took our orders and went into the kitchen to call the pizza place. We all sat in the living room, sprawled out on the couches waiting for the pizza and watching TV. When the doorbell rang, I jumped slightly. Gerard looked round at me, and I shrugged like it was nothing. He frowned but nodded in response.
**
It’s pretty impressive watching Mikey eat. How he packs away so much food is honestly beyond me. In the space that Gerard and I had eaten a few slices each, Mikey had somehow managed to demolish half an 18 inch pizza by himself. I’m starting to wonder if his bellybutton is the gateway to Narnia.
After we ate, Mikey lined up a list of gory films for us to watch. I’d downed three beers so far and was on my fourth, feeling pretty relaxed. When Gerard came back into the room with popcorn before Mikey started the second film, I swung me feet round into his lap and laid down in the chair. Gerard seemed unfazed by this, but by the time the third film was half way through, I noticed he’d started to absent mindedly draw circles with his finger around my ankle bone. It was past twelve when the last film ended and Mikey slouched upstairs, muttering about being tired. Gerard took this as our queue to set up the camp bed in his room. I followed him upstairs and collapsed on his bed while he set mine up.
“Aren’t you going to help, Frank? Last time I did this for you I got my finger caught in the latch.”
“You won’t do it again, you said it hurt.”
“Well I didn’t exactly do it by choice.” He grunted as he pushed the last spring out, flattening out the camp bed. “Done. Now get the fuck off my bed.”
I felt him tugging at my ankles to haul me on the floor.
“Noooo Gee, I’m comfy here.” I slurred slightly, but it was hardly noticeable. Gerard yanked again, this time pulling me off the bed so only my torso was on it. This attempt had made my shirt ride up, revealing part of my stomach. I was too tired to bother to pull it back down. One final pull had me on the floor. Luckily, my butt took most of the impact, and the fall wasn’t exactly a big one.
“Fuck you.” I mumbled, rolling over and dragging myself to the camp bed. The fall had broken me out of my slightly drunken haze, just enough to be able to think clearly.
“Gerard, can I tell you something?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
Even with my face buried into my pillow, I knew he was watching me. His eyes burned into the back of my head and I guessed he was pulling that adorable confused face of his.
“When I was about to leave home earlier, I-”
An ounce of common sense trickled into my head and I held my tongue before any more words could slip out. I could not tell anyone about what happened. Especially not Gerard, he was the first friend I’d made since it all happened.
“You what, Frank?” Gerard tried to encourage me to continue, his voice soft and calm, but I knew I was sober enough not to say something stupid.
“I…uh…I decided I…um. I want to go on the school ski trip in summer.” Nice save, Frank. Nice save.
Gerard was silent for a minute. I thought he’d seen through my cover up, so I rolled over to check. He smiled at me, clearly thinking about what I’d said.
“Actually, I kind of wanted to go to that too. I didn’t say anything because I figured it didn’t matter.”
His response shocked me a little; he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who was into that sort of thing. Well, neither did I. I didn’t respond, just smiled back at him.
“I’ll ask my parents if you ask yours. Deal?” Oh crap, I’d landed myself in it now. He really wanted to go; I could hear the enthusiasm in his voice. But, if it would make him happy, I had nothing to lose by asking.
“Deal.”
With this response, he turned over in his bed and burrowed into the covers, pulling them high up by his chin to keep the warmth in. I turned over on the camp bed and did the same, getting one last glimpse of the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling before closing my eyes, blocking out the world. Only one thing broke that barrier before I succumbed to sleep.
“Night, Frank.”
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