Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Perfect
Party favors to all the readers/reviewers! Especially this supportive bunch; p_xox_p, FaithSlayer, Hottgrl89, GreenDayCrazy, luckystars4XO, tornpantyhose, ColdHardBitch, romanticchick, XrayPineapple, cutegirl12356, slacker0, Popciclegirl, and lovely muse Andie Francis. Sorry it's been a while, I know. It's not that I got stuck on the plot or anything this time, but I just got so busy. School, family, the whole bit. But hopefully I'll be getting updates up faster after this chapter. But anywhoo, here's another boring chapter, details and stuff that need to be said, yadda yadda, the good stuff happens from chapter 009 and on. Never the less, I hope you might enjoy it.
Chapter 008
[Fast-Forward]
Seattle. The energy, the music, and, of course, the coffee. I love this place. It's almost uncanny that four months ago, I was in tears coming here. Yep, I've been in Seattle for about four months now and it has been growing on me ever since I touched down. Don't get me wrong, I definitely miss the basement shows and musty buildings of Newark and Belleville, but Seattle's got their own version of that. The bands can churn out some pretty moody-grungy stuff that are so different from the sounds hailing from Jersey.
Speaking of that decrepit place; I haven't heard anything new from Jamia about Mikey. Last I was told was that he and Gerard had entered the twelve-step program and started going to AA meetings. She always says he's getting better (I really hope he is) but also mentions the more withdrawn attitude about him. He doesn't say as much anymore, only practices day and night on his bass since My Chem's exploding under the surface of the underground scene and are beginning to take major record label offers seriously. Frankie's also confirmed that Mikey has slowly stopped drinking of his own accord. Also, he addressed times when my ex would simply shut down if I was ever mentioned.
"It's like he doesn't want to bother those memories," Frank had said, "I mean it's one thing to be upset about what happened, but shutting out everyone who wants to help you? Nah, that's just... wrong."
Yet, even in hearing about Mikey's disparity, I couldn't help but put on a steel heart and ignore the want of his arms around me. I couldn't undo what had happened and what I had to do in return for both of our safeties. But one things for sure, I'm proud that he's putting down the bottle, him and Gerard. Hopefully I'll be able to tell him that one day.
[Play]
I sprinted toward the campus parking lot, hoping to find Will there, waiting for me despite my half-hour tardiness. Scanning the lot, I was relieved to see Will leaning against his worn out yellow pinto, having a smoke. He waved to me as I approached him with a sheepish smile.
"Sorry, got held up talking to my Lit professor," I said as he took a lazy drag from his disappearing cigarette.
"No prob. I was running a little late too." He exhaled a poisonous cloud.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, I got hung up at work." He motioned for me to get in as he crushed the stub against the ground with his heel. I eyed him suspiciously while we traveled away from my institute of learning.
"When will you tell me about this mysterious job you have?"
It wasn't a mystery only to me what Will's occupation was, but to the others also. All anyone knew was that it paid well and that he usually made his own schedule. A part of me dreaded the fact that it he could be dabbling back into the drug business that made him into, as he described himself at that point of his life, "a bottom-of-the-barrel junkie."
"Relax, Andie," Will laughed, knowing where my thoughts were, "I'm not doing anything like that. Five years of sobriety has made me a bit resistant to that shit."
"Then tell me what your job is."
A smirk crept along Will's pale features as he shook his head. "I'm going to be quitting soon anyway, right before the tour starts.
[Pause]
I didn't tell you did I? Aiden got signed to Victory records in February! It's a huge deal for everyone involved because now they can tour in more venues than before with a record deal under their belts. This summer is their first tour on the label and it's slated to go all throughout the U.S. and Canada. Right after that, with no respite, they're doing another lap of the county with another band called Silverstein. I can honestly say this is almost as exciting as when Jamia and I found out that our boys had gotten signed to Eyeball records.
[Play]
"So I was thinking," Will said as we sat down to a hefty meal at our favorite locale eatery, Fat Dodgeson's, "At our kickoff tour date, here in Seattle, I wanted to know if you wanted to skip out of selling merch with Troy and watch us from side stage with Ati?"
[Pause]
Okay, quick lesson in Rock'n'Roll 101.
Side stage (n): a place where girlfriends or guitar techs, of the band playing, watch the show. a privilege wanted by many people, usually groupies or delusional stalkers, but given only to a select few.
Whenever Aiden do a show around town, I'm usually selling merch with Troy, which is fine by me since I see the dudes practice all the time. Perhaps things between me and Will are changing.
[Play]
My pause in though was probably very evident and prolonged since Will's face drooped a bit as he hastily added, "Unless you don't want to...!"
"No--"
"You don't?" He looked absolutely crest-fallen.
"No, I-uh, I don't not want to." I shook my head at my horrible grammar evoked by the scratchy situation and corrected myself. "I mean, yes, I want to."
"Oh, okay. Cool." He smiled his childishly happy smile. Will looks so cute like that. Sometimes I wonder how such a great guy got into so much crap earlier in his life.
[Pause]
Not too long ago, Will shared with me his past. In junior high he started drinking and experimenting with drugs. By the time he got kicked out of the school district for good, he had gotten really messed up, with friends dying from drug overdose left and right. He was truly living fast and on the way to dying young up until just a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday half a decade ago. The police had a laundry list and more of all the things he had been doing and were about to smack him into prison with all the charges, once he became legal. This scared him straight into rehab and never looked back.
[Play]
"That's next week, huh?" I said in a low voice to avoid an awkward moment.
"Yup, then it's five months away from you!" Will nodded with a cackle.
I feigned hurt, "Won't you miss me?"
"A little bit, /maybe/."
"How much is a little bit?"
He held up his pointer finger and thumb to eye level to show a space as wide as the diameter of a cigarette. "That much."
"Ouch." I made a hissing sound reminiscent of a sizzling grill.
"Just kidding!" He let out a laugh, putting down his hand on top of mine which lay on the table. "But seriously, I'm gonna miss you."
"I'll miss you, too." Then we had a moment, the kind that you see in the movies, right before the couple has their first kiss. And I swear to Buddha we were going to until...
"Christ! If I didn't know any better, I'd say you two were about to have a hot'n'heavy make-out session right about now." Nick whooped, clapping Will heavily on the back.
Will shifted into defense in a flash, "Then you don't know any better." He took his hand away from mine, leaving me to pull mine into my lap and a lonesome feeling in my throat.
"I sense some tension", Atiana said, stating the direly obvious fact as she scooted into my booth.
"Can't get anything past you Ati", I replied with a rueful smile.
"Clairvoyance, my gift, your annoyance." She shrugged as she picked through my french-fries.
"Anywhoo, Miss Cleo, can you see into the future as to what we're going to do while the guys are gone until November?", I asked as I watched the boys get into a thumb-war, a game that no-one could beat Nick in.
"Good question..." She began muttering to herself, reminding me of the old lady with fifty cats at the end of our street. I had gotten back to my burger when Atiana sprang back into action. "Oh, oh, oh, idea!" She raised her hand excitedly and supported it with her other hand as if waiting to be called on in class like know-it-all Granger.
"Yes, Miss Guerrero?" I said slowly in a child friendly manner.
"How 'bout we go to LA and visit my sisters? We'd have a ton of fun!" She added the last part as she began bouncing up and down, a rabid look in her eyes.
"Would they mind?" I had met her sisters when they came to Seattle one weekend in April to see family. They were pretty rad with their self-designed clothing and crazy hair styles.
[Play]
"Doubt it. Besides they love you remember? Called you their favorite muse." Atiana answered as she shot french fires into Nick's mouth, across from her as he continued to beat Will at thumb wars. "Oooohh! And then we could go boy hunting!"
"Hey!" Nick cried out indignantly.
"I mean, you could go boy hunting, Andie", Ati giggled, letting the group at large know she was, in fact, kidding. "Nick's the only one for me." She scored a french fry right into Nick's mouth and let out a resounding, "Woo-hoo!", right before the two shared a brief kiss.
As awkward as kissy-face moments are for the non-couples in a group, I found myself suddenly unaware what was occurring next to me. I was more concerned about Will who had gotten quiet. I wondered if the "hot'n'heavy" comment or the boy-hunting thing were the things on his mind right now. Hopefully it wasn't the latter because that would mean he was the jealous type and Shibalaba knows I have had enough of that.
[Rewind]
Mikey and I, as well as Frankie and Jamia, Ray, Bob, and Gerard, had been at a New Year's Eve Party in New York, only a month before I left. Things were fine and dandy with me talking to nearly everybody there, despite the fact I only knew the group I came with. But it all turned sour just before the stroke of midnight.
[Play]
"Do you think I'm fucking blind?"
I stared at Mikey, shocked at his words. He almost literally dragged me from the apartment of the party and into the empty hallway when he saw me talking to Adam Lazzara, a new friend I had just met through Gerard. "I'm sorry, what?" I asked in an insolent tone. I regretted the way I had said it, knowing the thick smell of booze on his breath only meant trouble.
Instead of getting a verbal reply, I got a punch in the gut. When I staggered, breathless from the attack, he held me up, gripping me firmly on my upper arm. "You listen to me, " he growled, the hold on my arm growing more and more painful as a spoke. "I know you were flirting with Adam."
"But I wasn't!" I insisted on my innocence, the truth. Mikey would have none of it, though, and began to shake me violently, both hands like coiling anacondas on my arms now.
"Oh really? They why the fuck was he coming onto you?" He hissed, his eyes turning into slits. There's the truth. Adam was the one coming onto /me/. That was up until I told him I was seeing Mikey, then the devil himself showed up, drunk as hell, asking to have a word with me before rag-dolling me out of there. "I'll tell you why." He brought his face closer to mine, forcing me to look up at him. "Because you were leading him on, you fucking whore." Then he spat on my face and shoved me to the ground. "Don't embarrass me like that ever again, or you'll regret it. Stupid piece of shit." With that parting shot, he went back to the party.
A day or two later, he was on my doorstep, apologizing with a gift of something or another in hand like he always did after one of our spats. In return, I'd accept it but only in fear of what he would to me if I said otherwise. That's how things were with us. Subconsciously, I must have known it wasn't a healthy relationship for either of us which is why it only took a few words from Jamia to coax me into moving.
[Fast-Forward]
The day before the boys were due to leave for their tour, Atiana decided to celebrate her seventeenth birthday at none other than Chuck E. Cheese's.
[Play]
I gazed up at the colorful sign that beckoned every child and shook my head. "Ati are you sure you want to spend your birthday, here, in a kiddy place? We could go out for a nice sushi dinner instead." But I needn't have asked my question for Atiana stood there in her crisp, Wednesday Addams get-up with her raven black hair pulled into two braids on either side of her head. She was ready to go inside and wreak havoc upon the place.
"I'm saying goodbye to my years as a child." She said in a solemn voice I knew all too well as her faux serious tone. Her face produced a sneaky smirk as she relayed a challenge, "So, you up for getting you ass kicked Skee-Ball style?"
"Only if you're gentle." I replied before ushering her in.
The sounds of the many games inside intensified once we entered the place and excited Ati so much, I wondered if she needed some Ritalin. Not too long after we arrived, Big Bun a.k.a. Jake W. (A/N: No lie, they really call him that.), Jake D., Nick, and Angel arrived, along with some of Ati's friends from school. Troy, Bun's younger brother, came also; Ati, him, and I work together on designing Aiden's merch.
"Will couldn't make it, got called into work", Troy said when I mentioned Will's absence. Shame he had to work today of all days. He was missing Ati going crazy over all the lights and sounds. But i didn't get to think about that too long because, as promised, I got my ass kicked at Skee-Ball by the birthday girl.
Three hours and six pizzas later, just before we were going to sing to Happy Birthday to Atiana and have cake, Chuck E. Cheese himself graced us with his presence.
"Oh, look, look! It's Chuck E. Cheese!" Atiana squealed, eyeing the icon heading for our area.
Jake D. glanced over his shoulder, his eyebrows knit together in frustration. "You." His eyes were trained on the suit in deadly concentration. Before we knew it, he was on his feet, charging Brave-Heart style, battle cry and all at Chuck. The man in the suit tried to make a break for it, but that didn't do much good on his account. Jake had him on the floor in a mere moment from the impact of his monkey-tackle. The others and I rushed over to see what had happened only to find Jake laughing his head off on top of Chuck.
The headpiece had been knocked askew in the tussle to reveal Will's face protruding out from the top of the suit. "This is exactly why I never told you what I did for a living." Will chuckled as we helped him up, laughter rippling through everyone.
Will Francis and the Mystery of the Unnamed Occupation case solved.
Hold your breath for the next chapter folks!
10 December 2006/ 349p
Chapter 008
[Fast-Forward]
Seattle. The energy, the music, and, of course, the coffee. I love this place. It's almost uncanny that four months ago, I was in tears coming here. Yep, I've been in Seattle for about four months now and it has been growing on me ever since I touched down. Don't get me wrong, I definitely miss the basement shows and musty buildings of Newark and Belleville, but Seattle's got their own version of that. The bands can churn out some pretty moody-grungy stuff that are so different from the sounds hailing from Jersey.
Speaking of that decrepit place; I haven't heard anything new from Jamia about Mikey. Last I was told was that he and Gerard had entered the twelve-step program and started going to AA meetings. She always says he's getting better (I really hope he is) but also mentions the more withdrawn attitude about him. He doesn't say as much anymore, only practices day and night on his bass since My Chem's exploding under the surface of the underground scene and are beginning to take major record label offers seriously. Frankie's also confirmed that Mikey has slowly stopped drinking of his own accord. Also, he addressed times when my ex would simply shut down if I was ever mentioned.
"It's like he doesn't want to bother those memories," Frank had said, "I mean it's one thing to be upset about what happened, but shutting out everyone who wants to help you? Nah, that's just... wrong."
Yet, even in hearing about Mikey's disparity, I couldn't help but put on a steel heart and ignore the want of his arms around me. I couldn't undo what had happened and what I had to do in return for both of our safeties. But one things for sure, I'm proud that he's putting down the bottle, him and Gerard. Hopefully I'll be able to tell him that one day.
[Play]
I sprinted toward the campus parking lot, hoping to find Will there, waiting for me despite my half-hour tardiness. Scanning the lot, I was relieved to see Will leaning against his worn out yellow pinto, having a smoke. He waved to me as I approached him with a sheepish smile.
"Sorry, got held up talking to my Lit professor," I said as he took a lazy drag from his disappearing cigarette.
"No prob. I was running a little late too." He exhaled a poisonous cloud.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, I got hung up at work." He motioned for me to get in as he crushed the stub against the ground with his heel. I eyed him suspiciously while we traveled away from my institute of learning.
"When will you tell me about this mysterious job you have?"
It wasn't a mystery only to me what Will's occupation was, but to the others also. All anyone knew was that it paid well and that he usually made his own schedule. A part of me dreaded the fact that it he could be dabbling back into the drug business that made him into, as he described himself at that point of his life, "a bottom-of-the-barrel junkie."
"Relax, Andie," Will laughed, knowing where my thoughts were, "I'm not doing anything like that. Five years of sobriety has made me a bit resistant to that shit."
"Then tell me what your job is."
A smirk crept along Will's pale features as he shook his head. "I'm going to be quitting soon anyway, right before the tour starts.
[Pause]
I didn't tell you did I? Aiden got signed to Victory records in February! It's a huge deal for everyone involved because now they can tour in more venues than before with a record deal under their belts. This summer is their first tour on the label and it's slated to go all throughout the U.S. and Canada. Right after that, with no respite, they're doing another lap of the county with another band called Silverstein. I can honestly say this is almost as exciting as when Jamia and I found out that our boys had gotten signed to Eyeball records.
[Play]
"So I was thinking," Will said as we sat down to a hefty meal at our favorite locale eatery, Fat Dodgeson's, "At our kickoff tour date, here in Seattle, I wanted to know if you wanted to skip out of selling merch with Troy and watch us from side stage with Ati?"
[Pause]
Okay, quick lesson in Rock'n'Roll 101.
Side stage (n): a place where girlfriends or guitar techs, of the band playing, watch the show. a privilege wanted by many people, usually groupies or delusional stalkers, but given only to a select few.
Whenever Aiden do a show around town, I'm usually selling merch with Troy, which is fine by me since I see the dudes practice all the time. Perhaps things between me and Will are changing.
[Play]
My pause in though was probably very evident and prolonged since Will's face drooped a bit as he hastily added, "Unless you don't want to...!"
"No--"
"You don't?" He looked absolutely crest-fallen.
"No, I-uh, I don't not want to." I shook my head at my horrible grammar evoked by the scratchy situation and corrected myself. "I mean, yes, I want to."
"Oh, okay. Cool." He smiled his childishly happy smile. Will looks so cute like that. Sometimes I wonder how such a great guy got into so much crap earlier in his life.
[Pause]
Not too long ago, Will shared with me his past. In junior high he started drinking and experimenting with drugs. By the time he got kicked out of the school district for good, he had gotten really messed up, with friends dying from drug overdose left and right. He was truly living fast and on the way to dying young up until just a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday half a decade ago. The police had a laundry list and more of all the things he had been doing and were about to smack him into prison with all the charges, once he became legal. This scared him straight into rehab and never looked back.
[Play]
"That's next week, huh?" I said in a low voice to avoid an awkward moment.
"Yup, then it's five months away from you!" Will nodded with a cackle.
I feigned hurt, "Won't you miss me?"
"A little bit, /maybe/."
"How much is a little bit?"
He held up his pointer finger and thumb to eye level to show a space as wide as the diameter of a cigarette. "That much."
"Ouch." I made a hissing sound reminiscent of a sizzling grill.
"Just kidding!" He let out a laugh, putting down his hand on top of mine which lay on the table. "But seriously, I'm gonna miss you."
"I'll miss you, too." Then we had a moment, the kind that you see in the movies, right before the couple has their first kiss. And I swear to Buddha we were going to until...
"Christ! If I didn't know any better, I'd say you two were about to have a hot'n'heavy make-out session right about now." Nick whooped, clapping Will heavily on the back.
Will shifted into defense in a flash, "Then you don't know any better." He took his hand away from mine, leaving me to pull mine into my lap and a lonesome feeling in my throat.
"I sense some tension", Atiana said, stating the direly obvious fact as she scooted into my booth.
"Can't get anything past you Ati", I replied with a rueful smile.
"Clairvoyance, my gift, your annoyance." She shrugged as she picked through my french-fries.
"Anywhoo, Miss Cleo, can you see into the future as to what we're going to do while the guys are gone until November?", I asked as I watched the boys get into a thumb-war, a game that no-one could beat Nick in.
"Good question..." She began muttering to herself, reminding me of the old lady with fifty cats at the end of our street. I had gotten back to my burger when Atiana sprang back into action. "Oh, oh, oh, idea!" She raised her hand excitedly and supported it with her other hand as if waiting to be called on in class like know-it-all Granger.
"Yes, Miss Guerrero?" I said slowly in a child friendly manner.
"How 'bout we go to LA and visit my sisters? We'd have a ton of fun!" She added the last part as she began bouncing up and down, a rabid look in her eyes.
"Would they mind?" I had met her sisters when they came to Seattle one weekend in April to see family. They were pretty rad with their self-designed clothing and crazy hair styles.
[Play]
"Doubt it. Besides they love you remember? Called you their favorite muse." Atiana answered as she shot french fires into Nick's mouth, across from her as he continued to beat Will at thumb wars. "Oooohh! And then we could go boy hunting!"
"Hey!" Nick cried out indignantly.
"I mean, you could go boy hunting, Andie", Ati giggled, letting the group at large know she was, in fact, kidding. "Nick's the only one for me." She scored a french fry right into Nick's mouth and let out a resounding, "Woo-hoo!", right before the two shared a brief kiss.
As awkward as kissy-face moments are for the non-couples in a group, I found myself suddenly unaware what was occurring next to me. I was more concerned about Will who had gotten quiet. I wondered if the "hot'n'heavy" comment or the boy-hunting thing were the things on his mind right now. Hopefully it wasn't the latter because that would mean he was the jealous type and Shibalaba knows I have had enough of that.
[Rewind]
Mikey and I, as well as Frankie and Jamia, Ray, Bob, and Gerard, had been at a New Year's Eve Party in New York, only a month before I left. Things were fine and dandy with me talking to nearly everybody there, despite the fact I only knew the group I came with. But it all turned sour just before the stroke of midnight.
[Play]
"Do you think I'm fucking blind?"
I stared at Mikey, shocked at his words. He almost literally dragged me from the apartment of the party and into the empty hallway when he saw me talking to Adam Lazzara, a new friend I had just met through Gerard. "I'm sorry, what?" I asked in an insolent tone. I regretted the way I had said it, knowing the thick smell of booze on his breath only meant trouble.
Instead of getting a verbal reply, I got a punch in the gut. When I staggered, breathless from the attack, he held me up, gripping me firmly on my upper arm. "You listen to me, " he growled, the hold on my arm growing more and more painful as a spoke. "I know you were flirting with Adam."
"But I wasn't!" I insisted on my innocence, the truth. Mikey would have none of it, though, and began to shake me violently, both hands like coiling anacondas on my arms now.
"Oh really? They why the fuck was he coming onto you?" He hissed, his eyes turning into slits. There's the truth. Adam was the one coming onto /me/. That was up until I told him I was seeing Mikey, then the devil himself showed up, drunk as hell, asking to have a word with me before rag-dolling me out of there. "I'll tell you why." He brought his face closer to mine, forcing me to look up at him. "Because you were leading him on, you fucking whore." Then he spat on my face and shoved me to the ground. "Don't embarrass me like that ever again, or you'll regret it. Stupid piece of shit." With that parting shot, he went back to the party.
A day or two later, he was on my doorstep, apologizing with a gift of something or another in hand like he always did after one of our spats. In return, I'd accept it but only in fear of what he would to me if I said otherwise. That's how things were with us. Subconsciously, I must have known it wasn't a healthy relationship for either of us which is why it only took a few words from Jamia to coax me into moving.
[Fast-Forward]
The day before the boys were due to leave for their tour, Atiana decided to celebrate her seventeenth birthday at none other than Chuck E. Cheese's.
[Play]
I gazed up at the colorful sign that beckoned every child and shook my head. "Ati are you sure you want to spend your birthday, here, in a kiddy place? We could go out for a nice sushi dinner instead." But I needn't have asked my question for Atiana stood there in her crisp, Wednesday Addams get-up with her raven black hair pulled into two braids on either side of her head. She was ready to go inside and wreak havoc upon the place.
"I'm saying goodbye to my years as a child." She said in a solemn voice I knew all too well as her faux serious tone. Her face produced a sneaky smirk as she relayed a challenge, "So, you up for getting you ass kicked Skee-Ball style?"
"Only if you're gentle." I replied before ushering her in.
The sounds of the many games inside intensified once we entered the place and excited Ati so much, I wondered if she needed some Ritalin. Not too long after we arrived, Big Bun a.k.a. Jake W. (A/N: No lie, they really call him that.), Jake D., Nick, and Angel arrived, along with some of Ati's friends from school. Troy, Bun's younger brother, came also; Ati, him, and I work together on designing Aiden's merch.
"Will couldn't make it, got called into work", Troy said when I mentioned Will's absence. Shame he had to work today of all days. He was missing Ati going crazy over all the lights and sounds. But i didn't get to think about that too long because, as promised, I got my ass kicked at Skee-Ball by the birthday girl.
Three hours and six pizzas later, just before we were going to sing to Happy Birthday to Atiana and have cake, Chuck E. Cheese himself graced us with his presence.
"Oh, look, look! It's Chuck E. Cheese!" Atiana squealed, eyeing the icon heading for our area.
Jake D. glanced over his shoulder, his eyebrows knit together in frustration. "You." His eyes were trained on the suit in deadly concentration. Before we knew it, he was on his feet, charging Brave-Heart style, battle cry and all at Chuck. The man in the suit tried to make a break for it, but that didn't do much good on his account. Jake had him on the floor in a mere moment from the impact of his monkey-tackle. The others and I rushed over to see what had happened only to find Jake laughing his head off on top of Chuck.
The headpiece had been knocked askew in the tussle to reveal Will's face protruding out from the top of the suit. "This is exactly why I never told you what I did for a living." Will chuckled as we helped him up, laughter rippling through everyone.
Will Francis and the Mystery of the Unnamed Occupation case solved.
Hold your breath for the next chapter folks!
10 December 2006/ 349p
Sign up to rate and review this story