FicWad

"So what do you think?" I trailed Grace in the narrow aisles of a convenience store attached to a gas station that had definitely seen better days.

"I think.. You three just re-defined the meaning of a love triangle." She spoke with slight amusement. How she could take everything I'd told her so lightly, I could not fathom.

I'd been pouring it all out down to the gory little details and all she'd done so far was give me a couple bemused looks and continued to browse the stands she had no real interest in. I'd tried to corner her by the slushie machines to get a proper response, but she'd ever so swiftly dodged my attempts and carried on with the indifference. I was starting to look a lot like a lost little puppy trying to keep up with an owner who had long ago gone past the phase of being affected by poor little creatures with tragic tales.

I sighed and pocketed a pack of blueberry bubblegum that promised to color your tongue a poisonous black.

"You know," She chuckled. "I never really grasped the concept of the phrase love triangle to begin with." I saw a Milky Way bar go up her sleeve. The clerk didn't. "Make no mistake, I'm no mathematician, but the traditional setting looks a lot more like a V-formation to me."

"Grace.." I grunted. If there had been anyone else in the entire universe I could've gone to with my problems today, I would've, for this sole reason.

"But this," She nodded with approval. "This is a proper triangle."

"If you love it so much why don't you go ahead and make one yourself and then laugh about it." I muttered.

She exited the store and I followed anxiously. I had a bad feeling that if I got left alone right now, my brain would simply explode and disintegrate into microscopic fragments. I would go mental.

"You don't seem shocked, though." I pointed out, fishing for any sort of reaction besides vague monologues of formations.

"When did I ever seem shocked about anything?"

She sped up her pace until I started getting winded just trying to keep up with her.
Did I imagine things or was it discomfort I suddenly sensed? Some sort of vibe definitely radiated off of her now, a kind that I wasn't used to feeling with her.

"Wait up!" I called out and jogged to close the few feet gap between us.
To my surprise, she actually came to a halt and waited for me to catch up.
I studied her face for a meaningful three seconds and decided that I knew that look - that look you get when you just know you're being scrutinized and don't want to give anything away. I'd worn that look multiple times myself.
The smoke detectors in my head went off.

"You knew!" I gasped. "Didn't you? All this time you knew!"

She tapped her foot against the pavement in a restless manner and eventually breathed out an impatient sigh.

"Yeah." She amended. "Yeah, I did."

"Why the hell didn't you say anything?" My voice had gradually started to evolve into a shriek.

"Why the hell should I?" She yelled back. "And to be honest, everyone knew. Ain't my fault you're so goddamned thick."

"I'm thick for having been left out and lied to?" As an impulsive act of frustration, I unwrapped the pack of gums and threw one at her, missing the target quite horribly.

"Nobody ever lied about anything. Frank really thought his time had come after the hilarity of your so-called relationship with that Italian god was starting to reach levels previously unknown in the genre of comedy. If anyone, Frank's the one that shoulda said something." She shrugged.

I threw another one. "You could've prevented all this messy shit from ever taking place!"

"That-" She glared at me with pure annoyance. "I think, was out of anybody's hands from the start. You can't help it - you're a disaster." An unapologetic chuckle was added and then her back was turned against me once more. She was walking away. I started throwing the gums in twos and threes.

"And for the love of God, will you stop throwing bubblegum at me? What are you, twelve?" She snapped while marching on.

I stood there like an idiot, having only realized that I'd been the April's fool for the past fuck knows how long and nobody ever said a word to at least give me a damn hint to unhook the lines.

"Yeah on a scale of one to ten, you stinky skank!" I shouted, ignoring the snickering audience I now had.
A boy with a purple bicycle and a posse of equally irritating snot-faces was staring at me with the kind of a smirk that elementary school bullies wore, and a woman in beige heels walked past me and shot a look of pity my way.

"Fucktards." I cursed under my breath and started towards the opposite direction.

I wasn't spending another night at Grace's flat, that was for sure. For all I cared, she could crawl into that obnoxious cramped space she called home and die. Even then I wouldn't bother to show up, unless it was to steal her CD's and smash that stupid beloved egg boiler of hers as an act of revenge.

Why would I have to be the one giving up my earned place in Mikey's and my shared apartment, anyway? What had I been thinking volunteering to become a refugee to begin with? Had I done anything to deserve the role of the homeless person living off her backpack and sleeping on someone else's ancient, creaky couch - no.

I shook my head but learned that it was a bad idea since the headache from last night was still pretty prominently there. Thinking about last night made my head hurt even more, and I tried to push away the thoughts as far as I could.

I had subtly fled from the scene right after Frank's confession and had sent silent prayers all throughout the walk back to Grace's that he wouldn't have the heart to follow me.
Everything had gone so epicly wrong, and never in million years would I have thought that I'd be waking up one morning undeniably in love with a man who loved my best friend, who in return had somehow managed to develop feelings for me that I'd had no idea of.
It all seemed like an episode of a bad TV drama series that nobody ever watched unless they were sixteen and had no other way of learning how to cry without getting your make up all smudged up or wake up with freshly ironed sheets and a flawless perm.

I had no idea what to do about anything, so heading home for the first time in weeks and claiming my bed mine again seemed like a reasonable thing to start with - and come to think of it, trying to return things to the way they were before felt like a very appealing idea in general. Now if I could only fit Gerard into that idea, preferably straight and in love with me and make Frank see the sister in me again and switch his feelings towards me back into the purely platonic kind... Hm.

I would have to see what I could do about restoring the normality, first.


I unlocked the front door and stomped in with some sort of fake determination that I clung onto to keep myself together.

"Mikester! I'm home!"

His stern, red face appeared out of nowhere, making me jump back a little.

"What the hell is this bullshit, Em?"
His eyes bore into mine with such intensity that I was immediately taken aback. He was furious, that was clear. But with me? I mean, why is it always me?

"Er.." The uneasy chuckle wasn't supposed to get out of my mouth. "What bullshit in particular?"

"The bullshit I'm hearing about this twisted, godawful tangle of affairs and unrequited feelings that you are, unsurprisingly, in the middle of!"
I don't think I've ever seen the guy this angry before. The droplets of spit on my face and the way the vein on his temple pulsed unhealthily were solid evidence toward that.

"It's not my fault Frank's gotten his head mixed up!" I defended myself, I wasn't entirely sure which part of this 'tangle of affairs' was the one he had gotten so worked up about, not being a part of them himself, so I just started with the first thing I could think of that definitely was not my fault.

"You shouldn't have let it go that far in the first place!" He poked me on he chest with his index finger. Poked me. With his finger.

"Ow..." I objected.

"You're not even taking this seriously.." He ran an idle hand through his hair and scowled, his breathing uneven and ragged.

"Why don't you go yell at Frank for causing this? Or at Gerard for having the hots for Frank? Why I'm I the only one being yelled at? And how is it even any of your damn business?" I shrieked while kicking off my boots. Mikey followed me into the kitchen, so I kept roaming on to the living room, but my walking away stunt didn't seem to have the same kind of discouraging effect that Grace's did.

"So you think it's a coincidence that whenever the shit hits the fan, you're standing there with a recently emptied bucket in your hands?" He challenged.

"Don't be stupid, I don't even own no damn bucket." I snorted. "And no, it might not be a coincidence but it doesn't make me the bad guy, either. I'm sick of being blamed for stuff I didn't cause so-"

I headed towards my bedroom door. It, at least, had a lock on it that I could bolt and get rid of Mikey.

"-If you wanna blame someone, blame you fucking brother - if he hadn't fucked me, I would never even have started to-" Shit. I suppose he didn't know that part.

Not even though apparently the story had gotten out pretty quick after I'd left the party.

The next thing I felt was Mikey's rough palm colliding with my cheek as the slapping sound echoed in the vacant room. My head jerked slightly to the left, but I didn't even feel the sting. What I felt was disbelief beyond anything I'd experienced in a long while.

His voice was, simultaneously, both scaringly calm and controlled but also nerve-wreckingly strained with the weight of emotions. His hand shook.

"Now, I'm sorry if that hurt, but-" He started in a quieter tone,

"It didn't." I cut off just as calmly. "You hit like a girl."

I closed the door behind me and collapsed on the bed. It wasn't even dark yet but I would so let sleep have me. My phone buzzed again, like it had been doing every half an hour or so for the entire day, but I chose to keep on ignoring it. Nothing great had come out of communicating with people today.

I felt a thick cloud of depression downing on me. It was Sunday today, and tomorrow I'd have to go back to school, back to reality, back to endless amounts of things to bore myself with and after that, I would have to go through with my first day at work. With Gerard there.
I briefly wondered if it would prove to be too theatrical to end my misery with the stapler or by drowning myself in the water cooler, or if I should go for something more traditional like hanging myself in the bathroom.
The bright side was, I had four lessons and a lunch break on me to figure that out.


My body wasn't quite as ready to drift into sweet unconsciousness as my mind was, and I found myself staring at the ceiling for an undetermined amount of time before pulling up my phone and deciding that I would have to read through all the messages sometime anyway. I'd felt the thing vibrate in my pocket since dawn but hadn't even bothered to find out who missed me so bad. I had a fairly good idea about who it was anyway.

There were three missed calls and as many messages left to voice mail. Those I gave myself permission to skip entirely.
As I'd suspected, all five of the unread texts were from Frank, and I played with the thought of erasing each one before reading. I was afraid of how they would make me feel. I didn't want to face it just yet, the pity I knew would be flowing through me like a drug when thinking about his sorrow became inevitable. The sad part was that I knew precisely how he felt, and had more than enough trouble trying to cope with my own emotions to be bothered with his.

It certainly wasn't the first time my appeal for all things forbidden was biting me where it hurt, but that wasn't more than a fragment of the reasons I couldn't get Gerard out of my mind.

Now that I'd allowed myself to think about it, I had a hard time trying to figure out how I hadn't understood it before.. In some ways, my subconscious had started to form feelings for the guy long before the sex appeal even entered the scene. I couldn't believe my luck - this was the first time I actually saw something in a man, something beyond things like personal profit or physical attraction, so how convenient was it for this sole person to be a perfect impossibility for me to ever have?

Having him not like me would be another thing entirely. I'd still have some sort of hope, like a persistent maybe that I could hang onto until I'd be ready to move on. Him being gay didn't include that luxury. He was far beyond reach. Dreaming of him was much like planning on marrying Sid Vicious, except that this time I wasn't ten years old and hadn't been deluded by Frank into thinking I still had a chance with someone who died decades before I was born.

Sighing loudly, I turned my focus back onto the phone.
Here we go..

Always running off! Call me. Frnk.

It was sent half an hour after I'd left him standing on that lawn with clouded eyes and and an aura that spoke of things I was unfortunately drowning in myself.

It doesn't have to be like this Em. We can still talk. Don't be like this. Call me. Frnk.

I pushed the delete button and embraced myself for the third one.

Call me. Frnk.

Right, so he was taking that approach. Self-repetition to the point of causing extreme irritation.
Delete.

The fourth one had been sent an hour ago.

You know I'm going to hunt you down unless you reply. Frnk.

He was probably right about that, if there was anything Frank did not do well, it was staying patient. I could hardly claim to have mastered the talent myself, but Frank simply hated not being replied to whether it was during an actual live conversation or via phones.
I knew that seeing him was rather inevitable, but I was going to procrastinate it for as long as I could. If I could only keep him away for today, tomorrow I'd be busy with school and work and I highly doubted he'd have the balls to show up at either of those places.
Delete.

I'm coming over. Frnk.

Sent ten minutes ago. I groaned loudly and squeezed my eyes shut while burying my face in the blankets. Soon enough the doorbell rang, and the only thing I was able to do was press my face further into the fabric, nearly suffocating myself in the process.
He was here, but that didn't mean I was going to communicate. I could still postpone facing this even if he was standing right next to me. I gripped the edges of the blanket, ready to fight for my right to stay covered in bed just as I'd done a million times before.

I lifted my head just a little as I heard words being exchanged somewhere in the apartment. They sounded awfully edgy, which I was sort of glad for - I'd had enough of being the only one being told off all the time.

The volume increased rapidly as I listened in, and I could make out some of the words. Man, were they getting worked up. The voice that I immediately recognized as Frank's told Mikey to shut the fuck up, the order being followed by a set of footsteps clearly nearing my door.
Uh-oh.

"Em! Frank wants to talk to you!" Mikey's aggravated tone shot through the door.

"I'm not here.." I whined. I suddenly longed for the Mikey I used to know, the utter and complete pushover who, while acting extremely disapproving of the following, usually agreed to any kind of requests I had for him that included acting as my partner in crime or covering up for me in tricky situations.

He never liked it, but he always ended up doing it nevertheless. He would tell people I wasn't home when my intention was to stay undisturbed and lie in order to stick to the various stories I made up whenever I didn't want to get caught having done something I should not. This grown up Mikey did none of these things, though it seemed like such a short time ago that I was still able to rely on his involuntary help.

Clearly, that was not the case these days, and I didn't have to ask myself twice how I'd ended up on his bad side. A lot had changed since last summer.

"She says she's not there. I'm off to work." He stated bluntly as another set of footsteps approached my hearing range.

Oh please just leave me be.
Just as I heard the front door being opened, an idea struck me. A very, very inappropriate one, but one that I knew would get Frank out of the house and spare me from whatever he had to say.

"Frank? Did you guys fight? Did Mikey tell you he hit me?" I called out from under the blanket.
There was two seconds of deadly silence and then a roaring sound as Mikey's name was being called a fragment of a moment after the guy had exited the apartment.
I could hear Frank rushing through the space to catch up with the bugger, and I smiled in spite of myself.

There. I was alone, and Mikey would certainly be hoping he'd just wished me welcome home and asked me if I wanted a cup of fresh coffee while he prepared me a bowl of banana split, instead of lashing out and looking at me the way you look at a piece of dirt stuck in the bottom of your shoe.
Pleased with my exceptional way of dealing with issues thrown at me from every angle, I switched my phone off and was finally claimed by sleep.






Thoughts, opinions, ideas, feedback, a sudden urge to speak out? Reviewing helps!