FicWad

Right, so it's been ages but I'm back with another chapter... Hope you guys haven't given up on the story! Rate and review, please?





"Do not forget to leave in your assignments by the end of the week. The course has come to its end and the assignments will determine more than fifty percent of the final grade you will receive. Have fun."

I gathered my pens and notebooks and was, as usual, the first student to barge out of the lecture hall. I believe it was a habit I'd developed in high school - always leave class before the teacher calls out saying there was something they needed to talk to you about. It meant being in trouble for sure.

The hallways were packed with students, hurrying past me and buzzing about the upcoming exams. I didn't have much to fuss about there, the courses I'd been taking mostly ended with assignments, not exams, for which I was very grateful.

I sat alone at lunch. Whenever Gerard wasn't there to bother me, no one ever really paid attention to my presence whatsoever - college was different from high school like that. For some reason, all these kids had, despite not really having grown up, a very different agenda than a year or two ago. The friendless loner outcasts were mainly ignored, being treated like air was their only punishment for not fitting in, when in high school the punches and scowls you received spoke very clearly of the state of your social status. The indifference that wallowed in the air was both peaceful and strangely disturbing. I couldn't decide whether everyone had just realized you couldn't kick whatever made a person different out of her, or if they'd just declared you weren't even worth the violence.
You were just kind of there.

That's when, for the first time in my existence, inspiration slapped me and called me a bitch.
That's what I would write about for the assignment I had to finish for a course that circled around thoughts of modern art and art as a form of molding the community. I hadn't given the whole thing a lot of thought despite the endless hours I'd spent sitting in the classroom listening to some exceptionally opinionated students exchange their thoughts on the subject, but now there was definitely something I had to say about it. Things that just were kind of there. Coincidences. The way that things could evolve and change when you decided to change the way you looked at them, all the things that went unseen under the gaze of unperceptive eyes. I could take pictures, too... Photograph examples of things that went unnoticed, how the lack of observance had brought the world to this indifferent state, and how art could be used as a weapon against ignorance.

I started writing things down, making damn sure that I would get every bit of this epiphany on black and white before the moment would be over and my brain would shut itself off again, or turn into a very simple, primitive device that was only capable of producing thoughts of coffee and self-destruction.
This must've been the first time in my college career my pen had actually gotten any action. I was surprised the smoke detectors hadn't gone off.

Folding my notes into my bag, I glanced at the cafeteria clock and hurried to catch my last class. After that, I would be taking off to Comic Networks to fill the place of the staple girl. I really really hoped it would be as simple as they had made it sound. A no-brainer, something with minimum requiries yet the capability of paying my bills.


In the afternoon, I found myself being shown around the office by a slightly plump, nice-smelling lady who, for some reason, wore slippers to work. I followed her through corridor after corridor as she went ahead and opened doors for me so I could peek into the rooms and declare the space exactly what she had told me it was. Boss's office. Restrooms. Staff lounge. Storage.
This went on for a good twenty minutes after which I was just as lost as I'd been before the grand tour.

"Right, so basically what you oughta take care of is seeing that the artists have the supplies they need, while also keeping the watercooler and the coffeemaker ready and set. You'll find everything you need in the storage rooms - supplies in the shelves in the far back, refreshments in the locker by the door. Questions?"

"Eh-"

"Great!" She beamed. I had a hard time wiping the stupified expression off my face.

"Now here's your beeper." She handed me a palm-sized black object with a shiny led screen.

"I have a beeper?" I repeated, staring at at the gadget as if it was going to explode any second now.

She gave me a look which told me that yes, of course you have a beeper you simple little child.

"Darla, hun, mind beeping the trainee?" She called out to the woman in her mid thirties sitting right across from where we stood.

The gadget beeped twice while vibrating in a way that made me uncomfortable. The led screen blinked with numbers.

"First digit is the number of the floor, the second the hall or office in question."

"And these?" I asked, pointing at the series of numbers at the other end of the screen.

"Number of the desk."

"You have a shitload of desks, don't ya.." I murmured. Darla was apparently working at desk number 457.

Again with the look.

"Now when someone beeps you, you drop everything and hurry to their desk and get them whatever it is that they need. Unless it's food or drinks, those are only to be consumed in the staff lounge. Clear?" The lady went from intimidating to sweet in less than two seconds.

I nodded, and just as she turned on her heels to hurry back to her station, the beeper went off and for the first time I realized that I would actually have to find room number 54 all on my own. I was on the right floor, so it should be a fairly simple quest to start with. I stared at the corridors that reminded me of the scary scenes in The Shining.
27 on the left, 28 on the right. Okay. After a much too long time I found the room and the desk only to be bluntly told by some creepy bearded guy to go get him more stensils, so I hurried back and turned the storage room upside down while thinking to myself that I had honestly no fucking idea what a stensil was or what it looked like.
By the time I was running past door number 34, the beeper went off again.

By coffee break, I was dead beat.


Two days later I was no less tired.
It felt like, despite the recent lack of drug abuse, I had never been as depressed.
I suddenly felt like every little thing I had spent my entire life running away from had at last caught up and were more than happy to rub it in my face. The school and trying my hardest to catch up for all the hours I'd spent partying or at home mending my hangover while everyone else had been sitting in lecture halls studying, the new work I had that felt much like a nine-to-fiver for a job that was actually part-time and had shifts that started in the afternoon.

The very average, sawdust-dull life was, instead of motivating, suffocating me in worse ways than I thought it ever could. And with my circle of friends as disheveled and shattered as it had become, everything felt out of place and wrong.

My life started to feel like someone else's, and I didn't even have Frank there to convince me that this was still me and I was still awesome.
Or more like, he was there, even more prominently than before, but I felt unable to reach out and be the friends we'd always been. There was big junk of something unpleasant in the way, like a huge pile of dirty laundry neither of us wanted to sort out. Frank had, at first, but even he couldn't beat me in means of willpower - if I wanted distance, there was going to be some goddamned distance whether he liked it or not.
I took running away from things very seriously, and to very great and ridiculous lenghts.

Even Gerard had stayed conveniently out of my sight, despite going to the same school and workplace. One could begin to think he was avoiding me, too.

"Water's out." The voice snapped me back to reality - the reality where I was at work on my first and only coffee break, the reality where most of my school assignments where due to the day after tomorrow and I'd only managed a paragraph or two, the reality where my coffee was stale and cold, and someone needed me three and a half minutes before the break was officially over.

I stood up but stopped midway when I got a good look at the guy.
The dude was semi-butch, not big and bulky like a boxer, but the kind of muscly that meant him being much more capable of lifting the insanely heavy water containers than I.
I was learning to shut up here at work, to not talk back and just get it over with without a word, but you know, I was really rather pissed about the three and a half minutes.

"Cool, so you wanna make the chick do all the heavy lifting, huh?"

The dude looked a bit caught off guard. Maybe he wasn't as bossy as he'd first come off.

"Well it is your job, isn't it?" Nope. He was bossy.

I sighed loudly and headed towards the storage room. The guy trailed behind me.

"What, you like to watch too?" I snapped.

A familiar chuckle echoed in the hallway, and another pair of footsteps joined the line.
Think of the devil and the devil shall appear... I bit my lower lip and thought of all the moments that would've been a hell of lot better than this one. I was on my last nerve as it was.

"Gerard." I greeted without turning around, fumbling tiredly with the door handle.

"Em, as polite as ever." His voice was light and playful, and surprisingly, not in the irritating way. The door remained closed despite my best effort.

"Doing OK there?"

I felt my cheeks flush, mostly due to frustration, and for some reason that I would call stress if I'd have to explain myself, tears sprung to my eyes.
I was sick of school, sick of work though I'd only been here for three damn days, sick of this boring busy life that didn't include sleeping and so very sick of not having Frank around, and Gerard was just a great big reminder of it all.

Everything I'd worked so hard to push to the unknown, vacant parts of my mind where things slowly turned into nothing if I managed to ignore them long enough, came back hard and fast just with the sound of his voice.
I stopped abusing the handle and instead, turned around while keeping my head down.

"Door's jammed." My voice sounded even more depressed than I actually felt, which was saying a lot.

"Call the janitor?" He suggested with a shrug. I didn't want to lift my head to meet his eyes. I mean, if his voice was enough to make me feel like a shit, I wasn't going to take my chances with facing him. Plus he was wearing the jeans I liked the most, the worn out black ones that looked like they'd been sown on by a skilled tailor.

"Dude wants water.." I muttered.

"Move over, I'll help you." He lightly pushed me aside as the stupid dude leaned on the wall looking bored, not lifting a finger to help anyone out.

"You know, there is a sink in the lounge so you don't have to die of dehydration." I pointed out, but got no response. After a minute of watching Gerard battle the door, the dude left with a sigh.
The door popped open and I followed Gerard into the room, catching the little smirk on his lips.

"Where are the containers?" He asked.

"Right here behind the-"

I had to close the door to get to the locker next to it.

"Don't close the-!" A strained couch. "...Door..."

It shut with a hopeless click just as I realized what he was trying to tell me.
We stared at each other, too afraid to try the handle because we were both pretty sure that, with our luck, of course the door would return to its previous, jammed state.
After a moment I reached out, tried the handle, and..

"Crap." The door wouldn't budge.

I squeezed my eyes shut, making a face. How was it that I was always the one to make that stupid, fatal move that resulted in something like getting stuck in a storage room with Gerard.
To my surprise, he let out a loud laugh.
At a moment like this, a genuine laugh was the most annoying sound I could think of, but as it went on and on, I couldn't resist its contagious nature and found myself giggling along.
I slouched on the floor and rested my forehead on my knees, giggling uncontrollably, as if providing backup vocals to his musical laughter.

After his fit died out, he spoke my mind.

"I feel like we've been in this situation before.."

"Yeah, only without the door being jammed, but locked by choice. And we had liquor." I pointed out.

"And you kept nudging my ribs with that exceptionally sharp elbow of yours."

I laughed at the memory. "And then you nearly fell down the stairs, taking the buttons of my cardigan with you."

"Sorry about the cardigan, though." He chuckled.

A slightly bittersweet smile was stuck on my features. I remembered that night, I remembered being greatly pissed off at the world and everybody in it just because I'd gotten myself stuck in an unpleasant situation, which seemed like a much nicer one compared to where I was at the moment.

"Mikey was so mad.." I mused.

We stayed silent for a while, the amusement was fading away and the reality was stepping in. We needed to get out. We needed to get out before one of us would start talking. Like really talking.

"Should I knock or yell or something?" I suggested, but too late.

"He misses you, you know." I looked at his serious face, and looked away again.

"He misses you although he would never admit it. You're like a sister to him. I should know, I used to be so jealous of the attention and worry he wasted on your sorry ass instead of mine.." He stated gently.

"Jealous? What do you mean?" I inquired.

"Mikey always worries. It's what he does, he worries about the ones he loves. And for some time, the only one he seemed to worry about was you. It almost felt like he'd already given up on me." He explained softly.

"It feels that way for me, now." I admitted sadly.

"He's got a lot on his plate. We ain't making things easier for him, either." He spoke in a way that made him seem like the mature one, way beyond my years.

"I don't, I don't really.." I didn't really know how to phrase it without getting a load of shit poured on me for saying this. "I don't really understand what's going on with him. To me it looks like he's got it together, you know.. Yet-"

"Ma's trying to get him to see somebody. Depressed, she says. Runs in the blood, I guess."

"Oh." My response sounded like a very lame thing to say after hearing something like this but I didn't know what else to say.

I had never seen Mikey like that. Depression just didn't fit the image I had of him, the annoying, hard-working, worrying Mikester. How was he depressed? What did he have to be depressed about exactly?

"I was on my way to ask you if you wanted a ride home." He spoke.

I looked up. Why would he do that? Something didn't add up. Gerard offering me a ride for no good reason? After all this mess? Whatever the motive, I would make damn sure I wouldn't get stuck in a car cabin with him. This whole getting locked up in a storage room was more than enough. I moved towards the door to start with the knocking. If there is a god, please open this door for me. Like now.

"I'll take the walk instead, thanks.." I declined while knocking ferociously on the door. My knuckles ached. "HELLOOO?" I called out, "SOMEBODY HELP!"

"That just sound like I'm molesting you here or something."

"I wish." I blurted out before thinking, and immediately wished I could take the words back letter by letter. What a fucking failure. I wanted to slap myself silly, but instead closed my eyes again and frowned.

An awkward laugh escaped his lips as I tried to cope with the embarrassment.

"Just promise me that when the time comes, you'll be willing to talk it out?"

"Why the hell would I?" I asked wearily and leaned my damp forehead on the cool surface of the door.

"Cause without your friends you're just a idiot stuck in a storage room." He replied playfully. I wasn't in the joke mode anymore.

"Well atleast I've been sober since I have no life. Isn't that what Mikey wanted?" I argued dramatically, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Mikes needs you. Frank does, too."

"Let's not talk about Frank. What's it to you, anyway, Gerard? Why are you here trying to fix my fucked up friendships when you could be out there having both of them all to yourself, huh?"

I was so tired. I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in what felt like ages, and the coffee I depended on had slowly started to work against me, making my body energetic while leaving my mind a dozy, disoriented state. I hated this new life I had and I hated thinking about how things used to be because it made me hate this new life even more, if that was even possible.

"We gotta sort shit out, Em. Everything's messed up. Frank and Mikey ain't talking, for some reason they started throwing punches a few days ago and hasn't been in the same room since-" I cringed. Oopsie. "-and Grace has turned her back on everybody but Ray who just drove her to the ER again cause she ain't got nothing to do but get fucking high. Pencey Prep is struggling cause Frank is so out of it, our band is falling apart cause Frank doesn't want us in the same damn rehearsal space cause of y'know, Mikey... Everything's just a big fucking mess and I'm telling you, we gotta sort it out."
His voice sounded both aggravated and anxious, and I was amazed that he could even think that I was somehow the person capable of fixing these sort of situations, I mean come the fuck on, I was usually the one creating the mess, not cleaning it!
What did it matter if I was there or not, I'm sure they could figure it all out by themselves.

"Well right now it seems to me that we ain't going nowhere." I pointed out the obvious when suddenly the door clicked and I fell face first toward the hallway floor. A guy in a tracksuit stood before me, my nose almost touching his shiny sneakers. He looked down and snickered as I hurried to scramble back onto my feet, realizing that we had just been saved by the boss.

"Thanks." I breathed out as he helped me to my feet.

"No problem. You kids have a good time there?" He teased.

"Actually, Em is leaving early if that's OK, she's claustrophobic and the whole experience was just a bit too much, I think." Gerard chipped in while grabbing my forearm.

I opened my mouth to protest but snapped it back close when I realized he was getting me away from the office and the two hours I had left of work time. I could figure out a way to escape after we'd exited the building.
Something about this car ride seemed deeply fishy.. I mean I could even understand wanting to drive me home for some safety reasons that someone else had forced into his head, but leaving early? Why?

I snapped back to reality - who the hell cares why, I was leaving early! High-five!

"I feel dizzy.." I faked a moan and took an unstable step back, acting as if Gerard arms were the only thing holding me together at this point.

"Sure." He nodded, and whistled loudly as I staggered toward the main exit with Gerard by my side. I played my part and shut my mouth as we walked towards the exit. I had an entire elevator ride to figure out an escape plan. I wouldn't be caught dead getting in a car with him. I was so walking. Despite the fact that even to me I sounded like the only person I was trying to convince was myself, I decided that once the elevator would reach ground zero, I would bolt.

Or not. The doors opened and he walked me to an unfamiliar car that was parked right by the doors we'd just stepped through. There goes my plan. He walked to the driver's side. I don't think he even expected me to just obediently enter the car.

"I told you I could walk home." I muttered with my hand unmoving on the car door handle.

"And I told you I could drive you home." His position on the other side of the car was a perfect reflection of mine - his hand ready on the handle, and his stern eyes directed at me. The little scowling competition that was going on between us seemed to make the car shrink into nothingness and I felt nauseous just thinking about having to sit in the car with him.

I briefly wondered why he wasn't driving the van today, and to whom this silvery Toyota belonged to, but went back to picturing us occupying that tiny space in just a second. Nope, no thanks.

I had already openly admitted my overwhelmingly embarrassing and humiliating feelings towards the guy and I honestly didn't see the point in him having to torture me any further.
I mean really, offering me a ride home? Making me sit inches away from him in a tiny car cabin? Forcing me to endure the choking awkward silence that was sure to follow? I mean if we didn't fuck up the possibility of being friends by having sex before, I was pretty sure the ship sailed when I totally fell for the guy. Obviously, Gerard here didn't think so.

"You should learn to take no for an answer, G." I sniffed.

"You should learn to take what you can get, M." He threw back.

My mouth was stuck in an awkward half-gasp as I processed his words. The fucker had no business talking to me like that! Wasn't that exactly what I'd been doing? Taking whatever I could get from him? How the hell was that in any way healthy or something I should learn to do, assuming of course that I hadn't already mastered the talent?

So the friendly, playful Gerard of the storage room was gone, and this cocky little bastard I knew and loved was back in charge. I wondered if the whole happy-go-lucky mood was just for show - to get me to come with him. And again, why on Earth would he want to?

"You should learn to not offer what you can't really give."

"You should learn the difference between someone offering you a ride and someone giving you the car altogether."

I wasn't exactly sure what we were talking about at this point, but I had a pretty good idea that it was so not about the car or the ride home anymore.

"If the someone would make his case clear enough, I would!"

"Right, so I'm offering you a ride. Can you take up on the offer without wanting the car to yourself?" He sneered.

"No." I answered honestly. No I could not take whatever time and words and fuzziness he offered me on occasion without wanting him entirely. Sad story, but based on facts.

"Get in the car." He ordered with a lack of patience that reminded me of my mother.
I cringed.

"No." I sniffed and stayed put.

He ran his hand through his wild locks of dark hair, a habit which was both endearing and infuriating, and gave out a short sigh.

"Fine. I'm sorry about what I said. You know, it's just a lot to take in, what's happened lately. I don't think any of us are handling it very well. Get in the car and let's talk, okay?"

"I don't wanna talk." I was fully on my uncooperative mode now and there was no backing down.

"You're difficult, you know that?"

"No, I'm not." I snapped. "I have.. character."

His chuckle made my lips curve into an involuntary smile. Before I knew it, he was on my side of the car, opening the door for me and gently shoving me into the car. I would've put up a better fight if it wasn't for the fact that the car was now the only way I could go to avoid his immediate presence. I doubted he even realized what a sneaky move he'd made and I hated the fact that it made me look like such a pushover.

He slammed the door shut and appeared on the driver's seat a moment later.

"You do know there's a word for this?" I folded my arms across my chest in disapproval.

"Huh?"

"Kidnapping."

"Yes." He amended.

"And that it's illegal?"

"Very illegal." He agreed with a stern nod.

I felt my face flush as I ran out of anything clever to say that would express my negative feelings in an appropriately nasty way so I shut my mouth. At least he wasn't driving the deathtrap of a van. With some luck I would be at home within 5 minutes.

"I'm not really driving you home, though." He slipped out after a moment of silence.

"What?" It was more or a confused what than an angry one, mainly due to the fact that I'd just finished thinking about going home and in some creepy way, he was answering my thoughts.

"Wouldn't be a proper kidnapping if I did, now would it?" He smiled, clearly very pleased with himself. "I'll drive you to the band practice, you know, Pencey Prep's."

"What the hell, Gerard? Why?" I roared. Why the heck was he plotting against me all of a sudden? Didn't he think that maybe, if I wanted to go, I would - on my fucking own?
I knew there was something he wasn't telling me!

"Everybody's gonna be there. Mikey, Frank.. They all wanted to get together and you know..." His voiced died out to an awkward whisper.

"What?" I challenged, although I did have the brain to figure it out.

"You know, sort shit out." He shrugged.

"I don't want to sort shit out.." I moaned loudly.

"Why not? You gotta miss Mikey, too. And Frank, you too are so fucking close." His voice held some strange sort of well concealed jealousy, like a barely detectable bitter edge to it as he spoke the part about Frank. I guess it doesn't take a genius to figure out why.

I wondered which of the guys had put him up for the job, I did get the fact that he had a hard time rehearsing with his precious band if Frank didn't want Mikey's ass near the place, but still... It wasn't motivation enough to go through all this trouble to get me there, nor did I think he did it purely for the goodness of his heart..

"Things are different now.." I argued, feeling a little defeated.
It's not like my defiance or objections would do any good at this point anyway since, as I spoke the last word, Gerard pulled up at the parking lot in front of the old warehouse in which the rehearsal space was located.

"Let's do this!" He exclaimed with sarcastic joy, hopping out of the car. I followed without a word.

I wish I'd never left work.
Things were only getting worse by the minute..