FicWad

A/N: God, I’m so, so sorry about how long this has taken. I’m also sorry for the slightly dramatic note I posted- I was just in a seriously bad place. I want to thank each and every one of you who left such lovely, supportive reviews- you honestly have no idea how much they mean to me. Honestly- I just can't put it into words. I really hope this chapter makes up for the wait...I'm not too sure about it yet- it was a bit of a risk :L Love you all so much, honestly- you're the best readers a writer could ask for.

Oh, and a quick message to the person who rated my note down? Sure, no one likes authors notes, but if you read this story and like it, I think that’s a really shitty thing to do. I work so, so hard to keep updating for you guys, and I think that’s a totally crap way of repaying me for my effort. It’s happened a lot lately, and I don’t think it’s a troll. Whoever it is, no offence, but you’re not really the kinda person I want reading the story I put so much work into no matter how awful I feel. I know I can’t really stop you reading it, and I know that yes, authors notes are tedious and not exactly part of a story, but this story is part of me- without me, it’d be nothing, so show a little respect, yeah? You don’t have to read the notes if they piss you off that much. I’d really like to know what your issue is, so please, instead of rating down, email me: cosmiczombie@hotmail.co.uk. I’m not gunna hate on you or anything, I’d just like to know why you think it’s okay to do that.

Sorry about that, everyone else! So, onwards to the chapter :D


Chapter Twenty Four


I’m only halfway down the dingy stairwell, Converse trainers squeaking in distress as my feet blunder frantically down the waxy, yellow stairs, when the bell for break drills uncompromisingly through the silence. Like a rumble of human thunder, the instant aftermath of the bell resounds through the grotty building in an ominous symphony of scraping chairs, as students and teachers alike pour out into the deserted corridors, clouding everything in their masses.

Instinctive panic jolts down my spine, and I stumble more hastily still down the music block staircase, not quite sure whether I’m running away from something or running towards it. The winter rain is battering relentlessly against the smeary windows, liquid and dark-grey and howling, storming out the rhythm of my fevered heartbeat; throwing itself so furiously against the building that the strip-lights overhead flicker ominously, threatening to whimper and fade.

“Frank!” Mr. Hallow’s shout echoes after me down the staircase, but it’s just a phantom that barely makes it into my mind, barely audible above my echoing footsteps and the increasing winter storm stripping at the fibre of the school.

My mind is focused solely on one thing- something so pure and simple, yet something that’s so easy to make the most complicated, agonising thing in the world.

But right now, I don’t care about complicated or not. All I care about is finding it.

“Frank?” It’s Eric’s voice this time.

My feet are flying, clattering so frantically down the greasy stairs that they’re nothing but a blur of black and rubber and desperation beneath me. My guitar case clunks bruisingly at my spine and ricochets off the chipped walls that run the race of inescapable time beside me. My frantic footsteps are so loud and slapdash on the grotty stairs that- even against the December storm crashing and buffeting against the music block and making the lights flicker weakly- they’re all I can hear, matching the fevered pound pound pound of my heart and my pulse and my blood. Breath tugs at my chest, burning me, choking me, and adrenaline spikes up my spine like sour sweat as I plummet faster still down the grotty staircase, the sole thing in my mind so precarious, so beautiful, yet so devastatingly violent, just waiting to be shattered.

Gerard. Impassive Gerard. Sarcastic Gerard. Arrogant Gerard. Bleeding, Vomiting, Crying, Gerard. Almost-Alive Gerard…Broken truths stitched up in perfect lips, glossed-over lies, perfect skin, rebellious black leather and fragile, trembling emerald glimmers. The boy with the such skilfully worn mask who was thrown, unwanted, into my life- and who is suddenly consuming every inch of me as if, instead of being something I loathe, he’s actually the most important thing in this faux-temperate fracture that’s reality.

“FRANK!” Mr. Hallow’s voice echoes loudly down the stairwell again, louder and more urgent this time, invading my tangled-up thoughts antagonised with the patronising beat of my heart.

But I continue to ignore his call- and thunder as fast as I can down towards the cloakroom, flinging myself so fast, so frantically, so pulse-shriekingly down the remaining flight of stairs that my feet are completely blur; fumbling, unravelling, falling….

The scraping feeling of falling scratches sickeningly up the soles of my feet, making my stomach plummet, freefalling before I’ve even hit the ground.

I try and cling to something- anything- but it’s all in vain. I come tumbling, as helpless as a pulseless body, down the remaining stairs to the colourless linoleum flooring of the steamy locker rooms below. Luckily, I miss colliding with any of the congregated break-time crowds, but I land in an undignified heap at the bottom of the stairs, my face smushed uncomfortably into the grungy floor that smells of bitter mud and cheap shoe polish and my own shame.

Loud, callous laughter rings humiliatingly in my ears, splintering through the dull, throbbing pain ebbing through my crumpled body. My cheeks are burning with shame as the mocking laughter crowds in on me, but I haven’t got time to think about things like humiliation- before I’ve even quite come to terms with the fact I’ve fallen over, I’m picking myself up off the floor, stumbling, and angrily shoving my way through the throng of preppy looking sixth years laughing condescendingly at me. Desperation temporarily blocks all self-hatred from my mind, and for once in my life, I barely care that my injured face is probably on full display, screaming out my truths.

The sixth formers suddenly look decidedly less amused as I shove through them, and I remember that my eye is still blackened and bloodied from the run-in with Danny this morning. However, I barely give their prying eyes a chance to gawp shamelessly at my injuries, because I’m hurtling off down the crowded corridor, burling into lockers, bashing into people so as they turn round angrily, but I don’t take any notice, although I’m pretty sure I’ll end up paying for it later.

I continue ploughing determinedly through the masses suddenly flooding the dingily lit cloakrooms, heart gritted as bodies buffet and bustle against my small one. Soon I’m swallowed up completely by the thick-skinned crowd, unable to see anything but the obtuse accumulation of peers swamping my small, broken body in their rain-soaked black and nylon and hairspray. Panic floods everything, shooting adrenaline and fear for someone else splintering, shrieking, screaming through every bone and vein in my body.

It’s strange how much more frantic a feeling fear for someone else is- I’m almost beside myself with desperation to escape the throng of people choking me into their turbulent crush of cheap body-spray and testosterone. Escape so as I can find him.

Eventually, I manage to force myself to the edge of the tide, squeezing expertly through the last gangly mob and shooting off down the dank, artificially-lit corridor that’s dotted with various groups of kids my age huddled on the old-fashioned radiators. They’re laughing, smiling, sharing homework and hot chocolates from the crappy coffee machine together, and something a whole lot like jealously squirms through me as I look at them and swallow, ducking my head and carrying on down the busy corridor. Why is it you always feel most alone when you’re surrounded by other people?

I hurriedly push the feeling of jealousy aside, because now is not the time to feel- and anyway, if I don’t have anyone to share my break-time with, it’s all my own fucking fault because I’m always so damn horrible to anyone who even tries approaching me- let alone anyone mistaken enough to attempt being kind to me. I think of Mikey. I think of Mr. Hallow. I clench my fists and eclipse thoughts with actions.

It takes me a little over five minutes to comb the steamy, human-clogged corridors and adjoining cloakrooms that are so noisy the storm howling on outside goes unheard- and find no sign of Gerard whatsoever. The knot of anxiety in my gut twists and tightens uncomfortably at the thought of him with his lips pressed tightly shut, trying to keep it all together as Danny taunts and torments him so skilfully- in blood and in words. I can’t give up now, because nothing’s ever been clearer to me before- I need to find Gerard. I need to find him and help him, because in this raw moment, I can’t do petty little selfish things like pretending I don’t care.

For what feels like the hundredth time, my frantic eyes sweep the hiving corridor, my lip clamped under my teeth, nails digging into my sweaty palms as my fists clench anxiously, scanning the crowds. I can’t see Danny either- or his cronies. Which is a seriously bad sign, because break-time is prime pick-on-the-lonely-kids time, and Danny is usually gliding malevolently down the halls, eyes dead as they search out the weakest kid to taunt.

Each heartbeat seems to thud out Ger-ard Ger-ard Ger-ard as I rake a shaking, slightly damp hand through my hair, quickly shaking it back across my face before anyone can see my injured eye or my scar. I need not bother, though- the crowds hoarding up the corridor are loud and raucous and oblivious. To them, I might as well be grey dust particles floating, misguided, through the stagnant air.

One last time, I stand up on tiptoes, eyes peering through the masses trying to see to the end of the hallway- and then suddenly, the crowds are parting, and none other than Gerard himself is sauntering carelessly though the irrelevant hordes, hips swinging, lips stitched brutally into a seductive, sleek smirk that looks so agonised; so Frankenstein-like, so… wrong it makes me feel physically sick to my stomach.

He might not be under the mercy of Danny’s fists or equally powerful words.

He might not be broken or bleeding.

He might not be alone and crying.

He’s surrounded by admirers, his arm slung casually around the orange-haired scene chick’s waist, laughing and flirting arrogantly yet alluringly as he struts sexily down the middle of the corridor as if he has the whole world wrapped round his little finger.

But something is wrong- so, obliteratingly, repulsively wrong. The whole atmosphere is crawling with charred obscenity as he saunters arrogantly closer, all self-satisfied and smirky, the crowds parting to make way for him as the little emo-ish posse behind him hang on his every word like he’s some kind of superficial High-School Jesus. He plays up to it masterfully, yet, somehow, that makes the whole situation seem so much darker, because now that I know Gerard, just a tiny little bit, I know that his confidence isn’t really confidence.

His confidence is a mask, and when he’s appearing to be most confident, he’s in most need of a mask; in most need of somewhere to hide. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so smug, so arrogant as he is now.

It makes me so numb, chilled to my bones as I watch him sauntering closer, suddenly noticing that his hair is uncharacteristically shrouding half his face, all black and sexily tousled, but it’s sort of damp and blacker at one side in a blood-curdling kind of way. Hiding something so much darker than its silken split ends- something that makes my whole gut tangle with nausea. And I can see the slight limp to his saunter; the ashamed clench of his jaw; the way his left arm is stuck, rigid, out an odd angle.

I can see the gagged fear in those superficially empty eyes as I watch him mock-confidently approach me, laughing and flirting easily yet painfully, and suddenly, I feel so small and insignificant- a nobody strangled by a school-tie and his own complexities. What would someone like Gerard want to have to do with such a pointless abyss like me?

But, instead of defeat seeping sludgily through me, I find my heart’s hammering shyly at my ribs as he approaches, and my cheeks feel all hot and embarrassed, burning my scars. Why do I feel so stupid?

He saunters easily past my solitary stance, and I think he hasn’t noticed me- but then his eyes flicker fleetingly to hold my gaze, making my pulse skip a whole, dark-red beat. For a split second, there’s almost a glimmer of some destructively beautiful honesty in those eyes of oblivion; breathtaking and heartbreaking- but then it all shuts down, going dead and cold and empty, as though a tide of elapsed, rotten blood has drowned them.

My breath snags in my chest then, not solely because of the impenetrable coldness, but because now that he’s gliding right past me in an ellipsis of black tobacco and artistic lies, I can see why he’s wearing his hair all over his face- using it to hide.

There’s blood.

“Oi, what you staring at, elf boy?” Gerard’s harsh sneer hacks abruptly through my realisations and I jump guiltily, eyes flickering away from him to the floor and my timid feet. Everyone around him sniggers appreciatively, but Gerard’s eyes continue to search mine oddly, almost as if he’s expecting a real answer.

I open my mouth nervously, feeling everyone’s eyes on me, scorching me with their judgemental flaws, but before I can even think of something to say, Gerard’s curiosity withdraws, shutting down just like his eyes did moments before, and he curls his lip degradingly at me- as if I’m as worthless as someone like Danny.

Defeat oozes blackly, stickily, through my adrenaline-fused body; soul-tar that makes me truly feel what his look insinuated.

Nothing.

I stoop weakly behind my hair from the world that I hate so much, shuffling back against the wall as if I’m trying to melt into its shadows.

Gerard strides arrogantly past, right arm slung round the scene chick’s waist, all sexy and careless and something clawed and barbed digs deep into my chest, drawing all the blood and adrenaline from me. My grip on my guitar case slackens; I suddenly just want to slide to the floor and never have to get up and face the hard, cold slap of reality again. But as I watch him retreating in his sexy, would-be-casual way, I can’t but help thinking it looks less like a walk of careless victory than someone retreating from a battlefield, defeated.

“Frank?” A polished voice in my ear, closer than the general noise of the hall, makes me start and my eyes dart up anxiously from under my hair to see who’s accosting me. To my minor relief, it’s only Eric, looking earnest and concerned.

“What?” My slightly snappish mutter is accompanied by a sigh as I look back down at my turned-in feet and the greasy floor.

“A-are you…Alright?” Eric asks loudly over the surrounding chatter.

“Yes. Life’s one big fucking party, isn’t it?” I spit, rather more bitterly than I’d intended. My fists clench angrily, and Eric skitters back a little, looking apprehensive.

“I gather that means you’re not alright?” He probes unwisely.

“Look…” I sigh, swallowing the blistering heat of spikes and thorns clawing their way up my throat furiously. “I know you mean well, Eric, but please just leave me alone. Please. I’ll see you at guitar soon.”

“But I’m worried about you,” Eric blurts out. “I don’t know you well, Frank, but I know how much guitar means to you, and-”

“Please,” I shake my head frantically. “Just leave me alone. I’m sorry.”

“Why-”

“Please.” My voice breaks a little then, because I suddenly get the vivid image of Gerard saying that in the dark, begging me to sing so that the monsters clouding his mind couldn’t get him. I swallow, but it suddenly feels as though there’s something lodged there, preventing me from speaking.

“Is…is it someone at school?”

I shake my head, struggling.

“Are…are you having problems at home?”

I shake my head again.

“Are you in love?”

“What the fuck is this, twenty questions?!” I snap, voice breaking, grabbing my guitar case and facing Eric, silently seething. I can feel the heat blistering at my throat and behind my eyes, and I need to get out of here.

“I just wanted to make sure you are alright,” Eric says, looking affronted.

“I’m fine!” I spit more forcefully than I’d meant to.

“Are you sure?”

“No,” I say bleakly, because there isn’t anything I’m sure of anymore. It’s as if I’m slowly being churned into cold infinity in this black-hole of unanswered, unasked questions. I wish I could breathe. “No, I’m not sure.”

Eric opens his mouth, but I cut across him somewhat desperately.

“Look,” I manage, swallowing desperately and hiding behind my hair so as he can’t see my eyes. “Please- just leave me alone. I appreciate your concern, but it’s for the best. I’m best alone, Eric.” I mumble.

“Bu-”

Without waiting to hear Eric’s response, I haul my guitar case onto my back and melt away into the crowds like a shadow of no one at all, merging with the dark of everyone else, alone. People laugh at me and push me, but it all feels so far away. All I can feel is the lonely path my feet are wending out of the light and the wound bleeding in my chest, gouged by some weapon I’m yet to pinpoint.

Half-numb, I shuffle, unnoticed, out of the peeling cloakroom doors, away from the flickering, grungy yellow lights and into the raw, darkly battering winter rain that slams icily into the grey ground so hard it bounces dustily. It howls in my ears and strips my skin raw, as if every black raindrop is a razorblade that knows just where to cut the deepest.

I let my eyes flicker shut and the brutally cold rain drench me; soaking through my bloodstained school shirt and my scarred skin, spurting down my cheeks like tears of a dead soul, cold, so cold that after a while, I can barely feel my own skin. The rain caresses me and cuts me at the same time, healing me and breaking me, telling me my lies and telling me the truth.

But I close my ears as well as my eyes, and let the cold, dour darkness of the winter storm swallow me up. It’s all I can feel; the cold, furious tears battering at my numb skin. It’s all I can smell; the salty, iced desperation mingling with grey pollution. It’s all I can hear; the harsh exhale hissing at the concrete beneath my lonely feet.

It’s all I am.

I stand there for longer than I’m sure of, feeling the rain on my hidden skin and wishing, as I have so many times before, that it could wash me away as easily as my blood. It’s only when the rude shatter of the rusty bell drills through the misty rain that my eyes snap open and I sigh heavily, watching my unquenchable angst curling up out into the sky, darker than all the clouds.

I’m about to make for the doors when suddenly, something pure white in the dank, grimy gutter under the veranda catches my eye. Curiosity eclipsing my defeat, I find myself dropping my schoolbag and guitar to the floor as I wander out into the pouring winter rain, letting it plaster my hair to my cheeks and course down my face like the tears I refuse to cry. Heart pumping at my weary bones, I duck under the shelter of the veranda, where the greasy yellow light seeps out into the dark grey rain from the dusty cloakroom window, spilling out into the vicious winter rain.

In the clogged-up, overflowing gutter that’s peeling and scratched with weathered age, there’s a splash of brilliant white in all the mundane grey, flapping, waving, in the razorblade wind and poison rain crescendoing up into a bitter storm.

My hands are raw and red and trembling as I bend down to retrieve this half-soggy, half-dry piece of paper slowly burning in the cold, eyes wide as I unfold it, heart thumping. The rush and chatter of students moving towards second period classes is only the faintest of murmurs, muffled by the battering winter rain howling right through me, and I don’t feel threatened or watched as I fumble with my numb fingers at the paper.

When it finally unfolds to its original A3 size, my whole pulse stumbles. The rain dribbles icily down my neck, my spine, my heart, turning me to stone, because the paper isn’t paper- its art; it’s amazing, talented art.

And it’s me.

On the mud-spattered, half-torn page held between my numb fingertips, flitting feebly in the raw gusts of December, is the most breathtakingly alive drawing of me playing guitar. My eyes are shut and I look beautiful and wrapped up in some Technicolor music world. The pencil is soft and lulling, creating the perfect symphony of angst and peace radiating from my skin and my fingertips and the instrument in my arms. It’s art with a pulse, art so amazing it’s as though I’m holding someone’s soul mingled with mine in my callused, trembling fingers, and it could shatter any moment, crash and burn, obliterated to-

“What are you doing?” A harsh voice makes me start and whirl round, out of the veranda’s shelter and into the merciless rain, the rain instantly soaking my hair to my scarred cheeks, seeping icily through my school uniform.

Gerard is standing before me in the pouring rain, eyes blazing, hair streaked down his cheeks like black paint, school-shirt sodden and clinging to his slim torso so as I can see every jutting bone. Standing there, obsolete, he suddenly looks like a once-beautiful work of art that’s being washed away by its own grief- all the colours are running, dribbling away to just another drab, colourless heartbeat.

His gaze burns me, and I swallow, feeling my cheeks go hot despite the bitter cold. The page I’m holding suddenly seems to scald my numbed fingers. “Uh-”

“Give me that!” he snarls, lunging forward and snatching the drawing from my trembling hands. Without hesitation, he rips it in two, scrunches it up fiercely, and drops it in the overflowing, spluttering gutter, his eyes still blazing as his chest rises and falls sharply in the torrential, dark-grey drizzle.

“But-” I protest, shocked and horrified. The paper melts away to mush before my eyes, burnt by rainwater. “That was-”

“Nothing,” Gerard says flatly, eyes steely. “Nothing. Okay?”

“But that was m-”

“I said Nothing,” he hisses dangerously, sweeping his hair out of his eyes and trying to push past me, but something vivid red and dark stops me like a bloodstained bullet.

Instinctively, I reach out and grab hold of Gerard’s leather-clad forearm to prevent him escaping, and, almost instantly, he lets out a raw, agonised yelp of pain that howls more loudly than the rain as he tries to wrench his arm from my grasp, eyes swimming with bloodshot anguish.

My eyes widen and I loosen my grip immediately. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine,” he mutters, but he’s struggling, head bowed as the rain crashes down, soaking his raven black hair, trying to drown him as he winces.

“You’re not,” I whisper suddenly, something strong and deep-rooted tugging through me as I watch him standing there, shivering, teeth gritted, looking so lost.

So like me.

“What happened to your face?” My voice trembles.

“What do you mean?” Gerard blusters arrogantly, trying to push past me.

“You know what I mean,” I insist bravely, moving to block his path. I stare determinedly at his bowed head, although inside, my pulse is racing, slamming through my veins more forcefully than the rain slashing viciously on the tarmac at our feet.

After several moments, his eyes flicker to meet mine, tortured green behind the sopping wet black hair, gouging right through me.

“Leave me alone,” he hisses softly, eyes full of unacknowledged pain. “Just fuck off, Midget Boy. I don’t need you.”

“But you need to go to the nurse’s room,” I protest, trying to ignore his jibe.

My stomach plummets sickeningly as I suddenly catch sight properly of the horrible gash stretching from his forehead to his jawline. It’s deep and still bleeding, dark, raw scarlet mixing with the anguished December rain.

“I said,” he spits furiously, not meeting my eye. “I’m fine. Stop stalking me, you little freak.”

That hurts a lot more than it should. I bite my lip, trying to not care.

There’s a horrible silence that the torrential rain hacks through in one endless, angry exhale. I turn away, vulnerable and needing to hide.

As I turn, the sandpaper wind lashes out, whipping my hair out of my face, and then, before I can take another step, there’s a firm hand on my shoulder and Gerard’s whirling me back round to face him, so close in the bucketing winter rain that I can see every droplet clinging to his long, dark lashes, like dew on cobwebs. I can smell ghostly tobacco on his uneven breaths, taste the salt of winter tears and the metallic tang of blood. My heart’s thudding as the rain slices through us and hammers fiendishly at the concrete, dark and twisted with beauty.

Gerard’s eyes are pained, but a different sort of pain this time as his hand reaches up, slowly, softly, shaking slightly as if he’s scared- as if he’s scared he’s going to shatter something precious. I can’t hear anything but my heartbeat and the blood beating in my head, all full of adrenaline and longing.

He’s looking at me, so sincere, so bleakly alive through the veil of grey tears. His hand slides into my rain-drenched hair, slowly, gently, the feel of his icy skin sending thrills of something down my spine as he tucks tendrils of hair behind my ear, eyes clouding blackly, going all haunted and agonised.

I suddenly realise what he’s doing, what he’s seeing, and my heart slides sickeningly down to my gut, the blood rotting and turning black. I’m repulsive and ugly and weak and I just want to run and hide; run so far away from this brokenly beautiful ghost of someone I don’t know, but who is suddenly gazing at me with such empathetic emerald distress.

Panic rising, I try and move, but he still holds onto my face, my hair, my pulse, with those icily soft fingers, and I can’t quite seem to find it within me to move away- even though, right this moment, he’s reading the failures etched on my own flesh in the language of blood; something I’ve never let anyone see fully before. Not anyone- not even Ocean.

I feel sick with disgust at myself, self-loathing writhing up inside of me like bile.

“…Frank?” Gerard sounds all small and scared now, almost as vulnerable as me; just a dusty whisper in the torrential rain. He sounds like someone completely different.

“What?” It comes out snappishly as I try and pull myself free, feeling suffocated.

“What…God…what... what happened?” he whispers, running a cold, icy finger along my bruised, bloody eye, all tender and soft against the raw flesh. I try and duck my head in utter humiliation, hating him seeing me- the real me, but his grip only tightens on my jaw, forcing me to look right back at the clear pain riddled through his emerald eyes. I swallow, gritting my teeth, because this is harder, so much harder than I’d ever imagined it would be- letting someone see the me I don't even let myself look at.

“Frank.” It’s the first time I’ve heard him say my name properly, and he says it so brokenly, as if it’s a metronome that’s lost its rhythm. “…I…” he swallows, trailing his ghostly fingertips across the scars and the freshly bruised eye again, making me shiver as though a real phantom is touching me. It’s so tender, caressing my vulnerability instead of breaking it. Salt wells up in my throat, and I close my eyes against the burning shame that’s welling up inside of me, far stronger than any rainstorm that soaks you to the bone and turns your soul cold.

“How can you keep all this secret?” he whispers after several torn-up moments listening to the crackle of rain hitting the ground. The rest of the school is silent, lost in second period.

“Please,” I bite my lip, chest aching agonisingly against the sopping wet fabric of my black hoodie. I open my eyes and find the startlingly green eyes that send shivers of intensity all through me as look at him pleadingly, suddenly feeling completely helpless. “Let me go. I don’t like…I don’t like people to see. Let me go, Gerard. Please.” My voice wavers, threatening to crumble.

Gerard grips my face in his hands so fiercely that I can feel his nails digging into my skin as he looks at me so painstakingly, so devastatingly; I can see every fleck of emerald in his jade eyes, the lashes painted with winter, the pale skin, the-

“Who did this?” It’s only his lips that move, all dusty pink in the bleak, December rain that lashes down around us.

“No one,” I snap weakly, dropping my gaze to the puddles collecting in the cracked, grey tarmac. My heart’s shaking, shuddering in my chest.

Gerard’s grip tightens, long, trembling fingers holding me together. “Please. Tell me.” He whispers, index finger tracing along one of the deepest cuts and suddenly, it’s all too much. Self-hatred billows up inside of me, burning, sputtering, blistering, curdling everything.

“Why the hell should I?” I spit angrily, trying to shake him off.

“Because I-”

“No, really,” I sneer sarcastically. “Why? You’re horrible to me.” I hear myself hiss, rather more harshly than I’d intended. I’m shaking as I drag my gaze up to him.

His hair is draped blackly across his pale skin, soaking wet. His eyelashes are weighed down with rain that looks like tears. The gash tainting his face is still bleeding. His eyes glisten with defeat, fragmented emerald in a world of soulless grey.

“Don’t kid me you give a fuck. You just want something else to laugh at me for. Well, you don’t really need anything else, do you? My whole life is a joke,” I choke out.

“What?” Gerard hisses, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Are you actually being serious?”

“Go on, laugh!” I shout wildly, my voice rupturing through the desolate yard. “Laugh at how pathetic I am! Laugh at how ugly and weak and stupid I am! What the fuck do you care?”

Gerard jerks his hand back, eyes flaming as if I’ve burnt him. “I care a hell a lot more than you think, Frank Iero,” he spits, trembling, then he shoves me in the chest so as I go stumbling backwards, slamming into the rain-spattered wall behind me as he streaks off into the rain, leaving me all alone.

Alone with such a bitter hole in my chest.

Alone with the sudden, painstaking realisation that the most important thing in my world might just be someone I hate.

But what is ‘hate’, anyway?
…...

What did you guys think? The plot's really starting to move along now, and the next several chapters are gunna be pretty eventful, especially the one after next. I'm not too sure about this one- I can't tell if it's just 'cause it was a bit of a risk, or 'cause it's kinda crappy :L What did you guys think? If it's bad, I'll delete and re-write, so thoughts are much appreciated... Pretty please R&R? xD It would actually make my day :D Thanks so much for reading, I promise I'll update sooner next time, and seriously, thank you all so, so much again. You're utterly amazing.

Lucy X_O

P.S. Oh, and just a reminder to the person who rates all my notes down: Please send me an email or something. I'm not gunna be unreasonable about it or anything, I just wanna know.