FicWad

TRIGGER WARNING


Chapter 29

And If I Had the Guts to Put This to Your Head

October, 2002

I stood in a long hallway in what looked like an elegant hotel gone to hell from being abandoned. Every ten feet, on both sides of the hallway, doors with chipped black paint awaited me to open then. I ran from one end of the hallway to the other, but found no elevator or stairwell exit, only the hallway and the doors.

I picked a door at random and tried the doorknob. The door swung inward and I almost stepped into a pitch-black void that chilled me to the bone. I slammed the door and backed away, bumping into the door on the other side of the hall. Tentatively, I tried that door. It opened on a single room with gray brick walls and warped floorboards; no windows or closet or bathroom. The room seemed like a cell, or a root cellar, not a place to spend much time.

I turned in a circle and again felt a chill. Glancing at the door, I saw it was slowly closing. A fierce premonition overwhelmed me—if the door closed it would vanish, leaving another brick wall. I would never escape. Below the warped floorboards, nothing but a grave waited for me. Deep down….falling from the top floors of the tall building I found myself in.

Lunging forward, I caught the edge of the door an inch before it reached the doorjamb. Without a backward glance, I fled the room and slammed the door. I was trembling and soaked with perspiration. The third door opened onto the hallway itself, as if I was peering into a mirror.

When I walked through the doorway I simultaneously stepped into the hallway again. A fourth door opened into a room with pulsing gray walls, glistening as if wet, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch them. Stepping closer, I felt heat radiating from the throbbing walls, as if they were part of a diseased organ. I noticed tiny pores or spiracles covering the surface and they appeared inflamed. As I watched, black goo, like some sort of toxin, began to ooze from the tiny holes, running down. Following the course of the black liquid, I looked down for the first time and realized the floor was made of the same living material as the walls. As soon as I noticed it, the floor began to undulate beneath me. Twice I almost fell before catching my balance. The second time, my hand nearly touched the floor. I saw with horror that the black ooze had begun to pool in several spots around me. Stumbling, I worked my way toward the exit, and with each step my shoes pulled against the tacky, glistening floor. I felt like an insect caught in the petals of a carnivorous plant, like one of the flies my seventh grade science teacher had fed to the Venus flytrap on my desk.

Somehow I fought my way out to the hallway and pulled the door shut.

Unwilling to try any other rooms, I stood helplessly in the middle of the hallway trying to gather my wits and breath and tried to formulate a plan to escape. At least one room must have an exit. How else could I have gotten into the hallway?

Sooner or later, I would have to try the other rooms. I took a step and my foot broke through the floor. Yanking it free, I took another step and felt the floor collapse beneath my weight again.

The building that contained the hallway—whatever the building was—began to tremble, slightly at first, but gradually increasing until cracks appeared in the walls and spread to the ceiling. Domed light bulbs popped or flickered out, one by one, and darkness claimed the hallway. Plaster rained down on my head and the flooring shook so violently I fell down. It felt like I had been through this before.

I knew that if an earthquake rocked the building and I couldn’t leave, the next best option was to huddle in a doorway, but that meant I would have to open another door. A violent explosion shook the hallway. I flinched and made a decision. Lurching forward, I fumbled in the dark until I found a doorknob and pushed the door open. Though I braced myself in the doorway, another violent tremor cost me my balance. I swayed forward and stepped into the dark room—and toppled into thin air to the sound of people screaming.

I landed with a thud, my left arm and legs bound.

My eyes opened to morning light, but I fought violently against the sweat-soaked bed sheet that ensnared me as if it were alive.

Trembling, I sat against the edge of Gerard’s bed, head in my hands. Fucking nightmares, I told myself. That’s all.

My muscles were taut as piano wire. My skin felt feverish and I wondered if I had caught one of those diseases; the epidemics I had heard mentioned on the crazy zombie films Gerard seemed to be extremely into lately. I had a killer headache. I pressed my fingers and palms against my forehead and felt my pulse raging, straining against my flesh. The heat radiating from my forehead convinced me I had a fever. If I had to guess, it was well over a hundred degrees, maybe not as high as brain-cooking levels, although I felt wired, rather than wiped out. My head was sore and I found a couple of lumps, as if I’d been whacked over the head with a club … Of course, I had been in the moshpit the night before at a Smashing Pumpkins show and then reacted violently to the nightmares. I would probably find half a dozen bruises on my body in a few hours.

I took only a few seconds of consciousness to notice I was, in fact, alone in the basement. Where is Gerard? I thought to myself, while rubbing my tired hands over my face.

Things have been – well, things have been….a bit…um, distant. Yea, I suppose you could say, ‘distant’ is the right word. The anniversary of September 11th has put a strain on my life. In a way, it did bring me a bit closer to Gerard, but it also put this wedge between us. We haven’t made ‘love’ since that night. I feel like he thinks that I used him for comfort that night and in a way that is just what I did, but it was so much more than that. I love him. ‘Love’. We are connected. I can feel that in my very being and it was an inevitable act that was going to happen sooner or later. I know I was pushed into it that night out of grief and wanting to be closer to him than I could ever be. I needed him and I needed his ‘love’. We haven’t talked about that night at all. We don’t talk. We talk about the band, traveling, and things that pertain to that, but nothing personal between us. I’m lost. I know I’m not the best at expressing my feelings or showing people how I really feel. I also know that I haven’t even tried to talk to him about anything that I should.

I don’t talk to anyone, really.

Blaine and Nate have kind of adopted my British friend, Taylor, and they all live together. Blaine and Nate work at Nate’s club in Newark and they hired Taylor as a hostess, so we don’t see each other a lot, well, not in the last month, since the party.

Hey, life moves on. People, friends, family all have to have jobs and can’t be there twenty-four-seven to deal with your problems.

Mikey hangs a lot with Baily, because they are best friends, lots of movies, comics, and books when we are not going to a gig.

Frank stays firmly attached to Jamia’s hip, but I don’t really see that as a bad thing. At least she keeps him on the up and up. She is good for him.

Ray and Matt have taken up hanging out with each other and trying to beat each other at every video game known to mankind. I do enjoy the matches sometimes, but all in all, I stay pretty much in my own little world.

I know that is one of the main problems with mine and Gerard’s relationship at the moment. I don’t give him anything to work with. How can I expect him to try if I’m not either? Can this work?

I felt weak and all worked over by the endless days that seemed to crawl by without anything good happening. I know what I wanted to do to release some stress I was feeling, but I also knew that I had promised Frank I would never do it again. Another knife in my hands, a stain that never comes off. Okay, so technically, it was a blade, a straight razor to be precise. I can’t do that! I shook the thought away and stood up from the bed and looked for my jeans and Nirvana t-shirt.

While rummaging through all the clothes around Gerard’s bed, I found my clothes and changed and I found that his keys were gone. I looked at his desk and found a note:

T –
Didn’t want to wake you. Went to get coffee with Ray. Be back in a little while. I love you.
- G

I love you. Neither of us has said that out loud in over a month. I shook my head again to keep the tears from growing in my tired, bloodshot eyes. I folded the note up and stuffed it into my backpack, which I grabbed right after I threw my overly long hair into a gross messy bun. I was a fucking mess. I then shoved my converse on, found a black old worn zip-up hoodie, and grabbed the van keys.

Where are you going? I asked myself. Where was I going to go?

I got in the van, rain was pouring down in sheets and the sky was a disgusting grey color on this October late morning. I drove aimlessly through the Belleville traffic, with really nowhere to go for over an hour.

I cranked the van’s stereo to full blast. The music served its purpose, amplifying my feelings a thousand times more. Had I had one lick of sense in my mind, it may have been enough of an emotional outlet to sing along. Singing songs that make you slit your wrists, fucking Emo Kid; that at least, was what they called me at school and really everywhere I went. That doesn’t bother me as much as it does others. What really does bother me is that they don’t ask you what is wrong before they call you names and they don’t understand what you are going through. They don’t understand you. They don’t know anything about what is going on in your mind, your home, your life for that matter. I can’t stand judgmental twats that speak before they think. I am getting way too ahead of myself and ranting inside my own head isn’t going to help the situation. I shake those quite depressing and infuriating thoughts away and continue to drive in the rain.

I turn down a familiar road that I used to walk down every day before I was in My Chemical Romance. Cemetery Drive.

The Belleville Cemetery was a place I could go to get away from everything. No one knew my spot or where I went when I was gone for hours upon hours. I had a special spot in a mausoleum to sit and write or read. I know it was pretty morbid, but no one bothered me there. I just wanted some peace and no one around. Gerard didn’t even know about this place. I needed something that was all mine. A place I could go to escape from all reality. It’s selfish, I know, but everyone needs their space.

As I rolled through the cemetery gates, a hush lay over the cemetery. It had been raining, pouring, making the ground turn muddy. Puddles lay all around. The grasses and branches stirred in the howling wind. Lightning flashed in the dark sky above. It illuminated the mausoleum. The Iero mausoleum where my long lost relatives where entombed. Morbid, yet comforting, I know. I am very strange, but we already established that a long time ago.

I preferred the dark, gloomy days, when the sky was nothing but a mass of grey clouds, reflecting upon the world the very sadness I felt every day at the fact that I was never going to amount to anything. Should the clouds darken just that little bit more; there may be some rain to hide the tears that fell when no one was looking. Jesus, I rolled my eyes at myself. Even I’m depressing my already depressed self.

I parked the van in the road next to the mausoleum and ran through the hurricane-like downpour that just so happened to start as I vacated the van. Icy bullets of autumn rain lashed against my face and soaked through the thin black fabric of my hoodie and t-shirt as I raced through the headstones and trees, winding my way in and out of the spindly trees as my shoes splashed through overflowing muddy puddles and squelched through clumps of decaying October leaves that spattered my jeans with sticky mud.

The wind was harsh and bitter, icy and whipping through my tangled hair like an unearthly shriek, lingering on the tip of the tongue and tasting of decomposing autumn leaves, rust, and adrenaline.

The gnarled old trees behind me were growing faces, the wind rustling through the branches snarling at me as I stumbled into the mausoleum and found my spot near the back. I slid down the cold marble of the headstone that marked my great-grandfather’s resting place and I took out my notebook to write.

-Belleville with Gerard and Ray-

Gerard spent the morning with Ray, discussing the band and what he thought the future might hold for them. He never got to just sit around and talk with Ray without everyone being around lately and it had been nice to talk freely. Then they decided to head down to the practice studio to work on some new songs, but for some reason, Gerard was getting nowhere.

"You've been staring at your notebook for half an hour, Gerard." Ray strummed his guitar absentmindedly and stared at his friend.

Gerard was pretty sure it's had been more than half an hour - it felt like he’d been sitting there for half his life. He knew what he wanted to write, knew the feeling he wanted to convey, that warmth he felt in his entire body when Tristan smiles at him in the morning, or hugs him from behind while he’s drawing. But the words just weren’t coming, and it was making his entire body feel heavy, weighed down with all the words he knew were in there, swirling somewhere in the back of his mind, but that he just couldn’t get out.

"Gee," Ray repeated, sounding mildly concerned when Gerard just kept staring at the blank page in front of him, knuckles white around his pencil.

"Okay," Ray said, while coming over to the couch. He pulled the pencil out of Gerard's grip, as well as the notebook, and put both items on the coffee table.

"They'll come to you," Ray said, "They always do."

Gerard knew that. He knew that he'd wake up one morning with the perfect words spinning in his head, and by the time Tristan would wake up he'll be scribbling too furiously to kiss her or even say good morning. But Tristan will just smile and doze in the bed for a while, watching the way Gerard's hands move across the page, stringing words into lines and lines into poems that Tristan will read over a cup of coffee while Gerard works on his comics. And Tristan will love them and tell him so. She was always truthful with him. Always.

Ray and him decided to call it a day and then separated to their vehicles. Ray knew things were different with Tristan and Gerard and that was what was making Gerard frazzled. Ray hoped it would work itself out, but he hated what it was doing to his friends.

-On the Road Home-

Gerard absentmindedly hummed along to the Iron Maiden song on the radio, strumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Whilst the rain outside pelted against his windscreen before being chased away by his window wipers, he was reminded of what an awful day it had turned out to be. Ray and he had had a good talk, but nothing was accomplished. He couldn’t even write and that was bringing him down. He missed Tristan and wondered why he hadn’t woken her this morning, even just to kiss her. Why did I just leave? Gerard sighed.

She needs you….a voice in his head says. Gerard couldn’t take all those little things anymore. She’s not trying anymore. Does she even want to be with me anymore? Gerard was full of questions and he was done. He loved Tristan and was willing to fight for her. He decided to confront her, before it was too late for them to come back from wherever they were headed.

-Belleville Cemetery-

‘It's not fair when you say that I didn't try. I swear I never meant to let it die’

Hours passed and rain continued to fall steadily the entire afternoon. Writing was a way to escape reality just like reading was too. But writing was becoming increasingly hard to come by over the past few weeks and I know why.

I feel numb.

My emotions and feelings are all out of whack and I haven’t told anyone. I need to talk to someone. Gerard. I know I can talk to him, but why do I never talk to him? Why? He’s supposed to be there for me no matter what. I love him. I’m sure I’m hurting him by keeping him at arm’s length and that isn’t my intention, so why do I keep doing it?

I rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands in frustration and sighed. Would I ever be normal? Or at least happy? Why do I always have to be sad? Or numb? Or invisible?

I shook my head, again in frustration directed at myself. I’m so damn self-destructive.

I put my notebook and pen up in my backpack that is lying next to a large concrete statue of an angel in the back of the mausoleum. I then pull my knees up to my chest and lay my head on them, staring out the door into the darkening sky that rain was still sheeting down. Forked lightning, brilliant and white-hot, flashed through the blackening sky. Crackling thunder rippled; the deafening noise engulfed the marble buildings, erect and sleek with water. Rain fell in thick sheets of droplets. Little streams raced through the empty streets of the cemetery that was completely abandoned save for me.

I watched the sky grow darker and darker, knowing the longer I stayed there in that position; I would soon be trapped until the storm blew over. But even with knowing that I was putting myself in danger, again, I stayed.

-The Way House-

The windshield wipers were whining loud but Gerard still couldn’t get a clear sight of the road ahead of him. This storm had to be the worst he’d ever seen. He slowed to a miserable 25 mile per hour when entering his neighborhood. His mind was still reeling over what he was going to say to Tristan when he got home. He took a deep breath and took the corner next to his home slowly.

He braked hard in the driveway when he noticed that the only car in the driveway was his brother’s neon. The white van was missing. He furrowed his eyebrows in wonderment. Who has taken the van? Why would they go out in this weather?

Gerard parked the Subaru, took the first opportunity of the rain letting up for just a second and made his way down the stairs to the basement door. He let himself in and was met with darkness. His stomach turned when it brought back a sense of déjà vu for him from last year with Tristan’s suicide attempt.

He quickly flicked on the light and scanned the room, finding it empty to his relief and dismay. Where are you, Trist? Gerard thought.

“Gerard, is that you?” Mikey’s voice echoed down the stairs, before Gerard saw his brother appear at his doorway.

“Yea,” Gerard answered and looked at Mikey with bewilderment. “Is Tristan up there with you?” He asked, trying not to sound too desperate.

Mikey shook his head, no. “She’s not with you?” He asked, while pushing his glasses up his nose. “Where is she?”

Gerard ran a hand through his overly long jet black hair in desperation, “The van’s gone.”