FicWad

Everybody knew about Frank Iero; he was that kind of guy. The human whirlwind with dyed dreadlocks and multiple ear and facial piercings. I didn’t actually know him personally until I was seventeen, when he came crashing down into my colourless, mundane life like a speeding out of control race car, but I already had heard plenty about him. He was the kind of guy you either loved to death, or hated with a passion, and I`ll bet that even his haters secretly were just a tiny little bit in awe of him. That goes for the boys as well as the girls.
Frank Iero was bad news.
And in the brief time I knew him, he managed to flip my ordinary life upside down, drug me to heaven, then hell and back again before our fleeting, fiery romance burned out and collapsed in on itself.
I can`t recall the exact day or time Hurricane Frank first stormed into my life with his artfully torn, skin tight jeans and trademark cocky grin, but it was sometime in the June of 76. A perfectly boring day turned inside out in the space of a few short minutes and my life changed uncontrollably, forever.
I had torn myself away from my room to hunt for my best charcoal pencils, the vague memory of my brother mentioning borrowing them lead me to his ajar bedroom door. I knock once and enter, looking around the dimly lit room briefly, before turning to the unmade bed where my younger, mousy haired brother rarely moved from. His prized possession, an old bass guitar that had been lovingly looked after leaned against the bed, a muddy pair of heavy looking boots with frayed laces dumped carelessly next to it. They didn’t seem like the kind of thing Mikey would buy.
The mystery of the boots was soon solved when the door opened a few seconds later, revealing a short young man with crazily dyed hair and a permanently smug expression. A heavily decorated guitar was slung way down low and he was gently cleaning the strings.
“Hey, Gerard. This is my new friend, Frank-“
“Iero.” I finish his sentence. “I know who he is.” I tell him. “I think everyone knows who you are.”I say this to Frank, and despite having seen him around, and having one or two rather…erotic dreams about him, these were the first words I ever said to him.
Frank laughs, and his melted chocolate coloured eyes gleam. He looks me directly in the eyes and my knees tremble. “You a singer?” he says teasingly, lips curving upwards seductively.
I see Mikey ducking behind his hair. “I may have told Frank about your singing. He came to me wanting a bass player for his new band, and well…”he giggles nervously.
“You are so fucking adorable when you giggle like that, Mikes.” I glare as Frank sashays past me and sits down on the bed, pulling Mikey onto his lap with very little resistance.
He turns to me, grin widening at my red scowling face. “We need a singer, you game?”
And with those six little words, thrown together half teasing, half serious, my life changed beyond recognition. The band, our band named My Chemical Romance played its first gig at a shitty house party two weeks after i met Frank.

Up until I met Frank, I had never shown an interest in anyone, but in the sweaty, teen angst filled summer of 76; my heart was born and subsequently broken shortly after.
Frank was a whirlwind of chaos and destruction, and I fell for him. Hard. I knew he was no good, trouble. Deep down I knew that it would only end in tears, but I wanted him so badly I saw it as worth the risk. And it was.
Our first date is nothing but an alcohol induced blur to me now, but even inexperienced little me knew that something amazing was about to happen. As he led me back to his mangy, rundown flat in the early hours of the morning, giggling and touching, I felt the greatest I ever had. I felt loved, needed. Frank was surprisingly gentle, making me feel so damned good. Under his loving touch I came undone and became this reckless, lust driven creature that craved nothing more than his touch. I loved Frank, I craved him.
It was perfect, but all good things come to an end sooner or later.
I knew Frank was on drugs, we all were. We were young, we were free. We were wild. I knew he was trouble, I knew our love would eventually burn to a cinder. And it did. Frank left me after our first show. I saw him a few months later at a local bar with a new band pissed off his head and high on fuck knows what, lecherously leering at all the pretty young things throwing themselves at him. Shortly after his band got signed and I never saw him again.
Looking back now I know it was nothing more than a teenage fling driven by lust and drugs, not love. When I heard on the news less than five years later that he was found dead in a sleazy hotel drugged up to the eyeballs, it didn’t surprised me, but it still hurt. I had seen it coming a mile off.
He was Frank Iero, a firecracker, a troublemaker. A heartbreaker.
He was bad news.