FicWad

Mikey and I slowly walked to the park on a sunny yet chill morning in mid October.
"You actually agreed to help Gerard?" Mikey asked, looking over at me with a bemused smile.

I shrugged. "Yeah."

Mikey just laughed. "You're going to get so frustrated at him. He's just going to let you do all the work. He hates writing papers."

I laughed a little with him, and then zipped my hoodie up a little farther as a cold wind whistled around me.

Mikey looked at the swings swaying gently in the breeze. He surveyed me quietly for a moment through his black-framed glasses.

"I'll push you," he said quietly, seeming like he was surpressing a laugh. I shook my head. "Oh, c'mon, Leila."

"Fine," I said with a sigh, settling down on the stiff blue rubber of the swing. Pulling my fingers into my sleeves, I wrapped them around the cold iron chains, shuddering a little as the cold still penetrated the cloth.

I felt Mikey's hands gently on my shoulder blades, giving me a soft push forward. I swung back, and he gave me a harder push. I laughed, and Mikey stepped away as I reached the point where I was high enough to swing by myself.

Mikey just stood on the ground watching me as I swung like a pendulum on the swing.

"C'mon, Mikey, swing with me," I called with a grin. Mikey, smiling, stepped forward and took the swing next to me, roughly starting to get it to move.

"I haven't been on a swing in forever," he said ruely, looking up at me sailing high above.

"Neither have I," I crowed happily.

It didn't take too long before we were tired of swinging, cause Mikey nearly got sick because of the constant back and forth movement.

"You sure you're okay?" I said, a bit concerned, for Mikey was even paler than usual. He gave a half-hearted nod, and I ushered him over to a bench.

He gave a sigh, and squinted up at the brilliant blue sky above us, watching a cloud scud across the southern horizon.

"It's kind of pretty," I said softly, realizing that the wind had slowed to a gentle breeze, which made it seem a little less cold.

"Yeah," Mikey said, so softly it was almost inaudible. And then, before I really registered what had happened, Mikey had turned his head and was gently leaning in, eyes closed, for what I guessed was going to be a kiss.

I froze, confused, and then saw Mikey's eyes shoot open as a familiar voice pierced the still air of the playground.

"Mikey? Leila? What the hell are you guys doing?" Gerard asked, scowling at us from around the corner of the building as the wind tossed his shaggy hair about.




The Library

Gerard stared at the ceiling tiles, trying to think of a good way to start his paper. With my help, we had done some more research and formed an outline, but it was going to be Gerard's job to initially write it.

Absent-mindedly, I was drawing a simplistic scene on notebook paper, waiting for Gerard to ask for how to spell a word, how to put this idea into words, or, better yet, kiss me. But I highly doubted the last option would happen.

While I was drawing,I was thinking about what had happened at the park. Mikey, I was pretty sure, had been going to kiss me. And not on the cheek or anything. On the mouth.

When I thought about it, it'd be like one of those kisses in teen movies, nobody else was around and stuff, and he just leaned in all of a sudden and did it.

I wondered, mildly, what I would've done if Mikey had actually planted the kiss. Would I have pulled back? I didn't know, really. And now I was all confused. Did I have a crush on Mikey? If I did, I certainly hadn't realized it before. This was so weird to be thinking about Mikey this way. Usually, this kind of thinking concerned Gerard.

The thought of Gerard sent my thoughts into a new direction. Why had he seemed...(here, I struggled for a word to describe how I thought he had looked) concerned as he rounded the corner and saw us about to kiss? Was that a sign of jealousy?

And then, with a mental sigh, I knew it wasn't, for Gerard detested most signs of physical affection unless he was involved in it or it was cinematic, and then seeing his brother and his brother's friend kissing would probably not be pleasant for him. And then, he was probably surprised, for, if Mikey had a crush on me, there was a large likelihood that Gerard didn't know. But then there was also -

"Leila? Still alive?"

I jumped a little, leaping back to focus. I had stopped drawing and had tuned out the quiet whisperings of the library as I had been thinking, and I had not heard Gerard address me.

"Oh, yeah," I said, giving what came off as a nervous laugh.

Gerard gave a small smile. "Thinking about your darling little Mikey?" he said, an emotion behind his voice I couldn't quite catch.

I felt my cheeks redden. "Mikey's not my darling. I don't even like him that way."

Gerard laughed easily. "Sure. That's why you weren't too busy pulling away when he was going to kiss you."

I blushed even more, and this annoyed me, for I knew this was not making me look like I didn't have a crush on Mikey. "He wasn't going to kiss me. He was just reeling a little, like he said."

"Sure," Gerard said, arching one of his brows and then returning his pencil to the paper as he scribbled down another sentence. I breathed a slight sigh of relief, thankful for the few moments this gave me to gather my thoughts before Gerard would start questioning me again.

But in the back of my brain, a tiny little voice whispered:/ Is this a sign that Gerard is jealous of Mikey's attempt to kiss me?/