FicWad

Part 14
Frank’s POV- ‘I could put back all the pieces they just might not fit the same’
I wake up, get ready and head straight for Amy’s house. “Hi.” She greets me at the door with stony indifference. “Bob isn’t about yet.” She says. I’m still on the doorstep and she hasn’t made any moves to invite me in. From above I can hear the sounds of the shower and I guess that Bob must be in there.
“I didn’t come round to see Bob actually.” I explain.
“Oh, well sorry I’m kind of busy.”
“Doing what exactly?” I ask her knowing full well that she was lying.
“Drying my hair.” She replies dryly. Before I even have time to point out that her hair isn’t even wet she shuts the door in my face.
I knock on the door for 10 minutes straight before bending down to shout through the letter box. I hold it open with my right hand and hear the TV. I put my mouth towards the hole in the door and call Amy’s name over and over.
“Amy? Why won’t you let me in? Please let me in? I saw Charli last night. She said I upset you? I just wanted to know if you were Ok now? See if I could make it up to you?” The TV volume gets turned up to drown out my voice. Predictably this just makes me get louder. “I don’t see why you’re ignoring me Amy. What have I done wrong? Please just let me in? I just want to talk to you. I’m sorry about over reacting about and Gerard. You were drunk, I know, I’m sorry. Please…”
“Amy just let the damn boy in!” Bob’s voice calls down the stairs. When she just turns the TV up louder in defiance I see Bob’s feet come down the stairs and towards the door. I straighten up and try to compose myself for Bob. I’m not sure if he’s going to be Bob, my friend or Bob, Amy’s brother. “Hey Frank. I don’t think she wants to speak to you.” He sounds apologetic; I guess it’s Bob my friend then.
“Can’t you just let me in?” I plead. “I just want to talk to her. Tell her I’m sorry.”
He thinks about it for a few moments before replying, “Fine, but just this once.” I thank him repeatedly as I enter Amy’s house and remove my shoes.
“Bob I’m going to kill you.” Amy yells from the living room.
“I’ll live.” Bob replies then frowns as he realises that he’s just made an unintended and really bad pun.
He leaves and I walk through to the room where Amy is hiding out.
“What?” She asks coldly not even looking in my direction as I enter the room and take a seat on the sofa across from where she is sat on one of the chairs.
“I just wanted to talk.”
“About?”
“Us.”
“There is no ‘us’.”
“I want there to be.”
“Tough.”
“What so just like that you’re dismissing the idea?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to use more than one word answers at all?”
“Nope.”
I sigh deeply. “Amy please just talk to me?”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
I’m so eager to please her that I don’t even rip her for going back on her earlier promise of one word answers only.
“Cant I talk to you?”
“If you’re that intent on wasting oxygen.”
“Fine.” I pause a moment to think over what I want to say. “I’m really sorry for getting so angry about you and Gerard. I didn’t mean to shout at you like that but I’d just heard you and Gerard talking in the kitchen and from what I heard it sounded like you were confessing your love for him.”
“You heard wrong then.”
“Yeah I know that now.” I’m quick to agree, glad that she is sort of talking this over with me. “I just want you to know I didn’t go to Dean’s yesterday. I went home. I’m not doing that stuff anymore. I’m going to prove to you that I’m worth your time. I don’t want you to hurt anymore. Especially not because of me.”
“That could be hard considering every time I get near you I seem to end up with another reason to cry.”
“What?” I’m taken aback slightly by this. To my knowledge I’ve only hurt her bad once and a little yesterday. That’s it.
“You’re just… You’re such a w*nker now. I hate it. You make me worry about you and I don’t want to but I can’t help it. You’ve slept with most of my friends yet you go off on one because I made out with Gerard drunkenly at a party. You’re a complete hypocrite and I wish I could just forget you… but I can’t…”
“Please don’t get upset Amy.” I beg quietly as tears start to form in her angry eyes. She looks up at me and I momentarily forget how to breathe. “I love you. I’ll do what ever you want, anything, to have you back. Even if we’re just mates.”
“We’re still mates.” She answers me. “I just didn’t want to see you until I’d gotten my head around this whole f*cked up situation.”
“Charli came round last night to talk to me. I thought I’d f*cked up every thing. That’s why I rushed around.”
“You didn’t f*c up every thing. It would just have been a hell of a lot easier if you didn’t go off on one.”
“Sorry.” I say for the millionth time that morning.
“I know.”
After a few minutes of normal albeit strained conversation I leave. I get a hug goodbye too. I catalogue the moment away in my memories to be retrieved when the next drugs cravings come around. It would be my motivation to stay strong. It will be my goal. My reminder of what I have to loose.

Amy’s POV- ‘I don’t want to be alone but now I feel like I don’t know you’
I stare blankly at the TV hopelessly trying to convince myself that I’m acting like any sane person would. I know I’m being harsh bit I’m so confused. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know him anymore. Well I do, he’s the Frank Iero everyone warned me away from. The one that didn’t truly exist but that he made himself into when every thing went to sh*t.
Why? To punish himself maybe? It’s conceivable. Would he really change for me? Do I want him to? Why the f*ck des like have to be made of so many God damned choices? Which college? Which friends? Which exams do I give priority? Do I drunk tonight? Do I kiss him? Is this worth self-harming over when I’ve gone so long without it? Do I love him?
I don’t know. I don’t know the answers to any of it. Some I’ve completely missed the chance to choose and just have to hope that I made the right choice at the time. Others I still have the chance to make a decision on but I’m too scared to take that chance. I’m 16. I don’t know where I want to be in 2 weeks let alone what uni course I want to study in 2 years. I’m 16. I don’t know what to think when my Mum doesn’t come home 2 nights in a row. Or how to deal with an alcoholic Father. Nor can I decide whether being alone hurts more than giving yourself up to someone who has already screwed you over once.
I look at my watch, 12:30. Bob will be downstairs soon. His stomach wil draw him away from his beloved drum kit. He’ll make me something to eat and I’ll eat it because I don’t want to worry him. I’ll hate him for that though. I know it’s all just because he care but I wish he didn’t. Then I wouldn’t have to feel guilty. Then I could have gone a long time ago.
Dad’s not home yet either. For all we know he could be lying dead behind some grotty bar. He could be lying in hospital having his stomach pumped. They would be better than him turning up drunk on the doorstep mid afternoon ready to shout his mouth off though. Which is what will inevitably happen. It’s what always happens.
Then Bob will act like it’s all Ok and I’ll go upstairs and drown the world out with music. That’s normal. Well it is for us, but it shouldn’t be. Is it right to wish your Dad would fall under the wheels of a truck sometimes?
“Amy! Lunch!” Bob calls to me from the kitchen. I hadn’t heard him come downstairs and his voice makes me jump.
“Ok.” My stomach turns to lead as I walk to the dining room. “Cheers.” I say, looking down at what used to be my favourite sandwich; tuna and salad cream. I force down half of it then throw the other half away quickly when Bob goes to answer the phone.
“You Ok Amy?” He asks me as I sit at the table sipping orange juice.
“Yeah I’m fine why wouldn’t I be?” I reply in a really really bad ‘happy’ voice.
“Mum, Dad, Frank, Gerard, exams, worrying about the future, college, growing apart from old school friends, the pressure of growing up… starving yourself.”
“Well now you’ve pointed all that out…” I reply sarcastically.
“Amy please. Don’t p*ss me around. Just eat. One day you’re fine and you’re eating pizza with the rest of us. The next you’re depressed and won’t touch anything.”
“Don’t try to understand Bob please.” I reply, avoiding his underlying question.
“Have you started cutting again too?” I pause before answering. His question has caught me off guard as he hasn’t ever mentioned my previous self harm. I knew that he knew but we just didn’t talk about it. It was one of the only things we never talked about. I think it disgusted him.
“No. I promise. I just… not eating managed to fill that hole. And, hey, there are less scars!” I add dryly. He’s about to reply when the muffled sounds of my Dad arguing with the from door reach us.
“Dad’s home.” I say unnecessarily and clear the lunch stuff away quickly. Bob goes down the hall to unlock the door.
I turn just in time to see Dad punch Bob in the face. “Think you can lock me out of my own home do you? You and that b*tch? Where is she?” I’m suddenly very very scared. I hear Bob put up a fight to try and stop Dad but he’s unsuccessful. I’m frozen to the spot. I had never been on the end of one of Dad’s drunken rages. He’d picked arguments sure, and had him hurl verbal abuse at me as I tried to clean his own puke off him but he’d ever been aggressive towards me. Not until now.
“Dad please…” I begin to beg as he enters the kitchen. He stumbles in the doorway and I feel physically repulsed by him. “Calm down, please, you’re drunk. Maybe you should go and lie down?”
“Don’t tell me what to do you wh*re! I’m your Father you’ll do as I say and have a bit more bloody respect thank you.”
“I’m… I’m…” I feel tears make salty tracks down my cheeks and suddenly I can move. I run out of the room, grab Bob’s car keys, grab Bob who is hunched over in the hall, and drag him out to his car. He unlocks the doors and we climb in. Both of us turning to check we hadn’t been followed once we were sat safely inside the metal cage.
“He’s probably passed out or something.”
“Yeah.”
“Frank’s?” I ask. For some reason I just need to see him. Plus he knows.
“I was thinking Gerard’s.”
“Frank knows… and Charli and Mikey will be at Gerard’s too. I don’t feel like having too much company.”
“Ok.” He agrees and we pull away. Both our hands are shaking. We had honestly never seen him so bad before.
“So Frank knows?” Bob asks after a while of driving in silence.
“Yeah. He witnessed him in all his glory. Saw how he had to be escorted home in a taxi by to other men, saw him pass out in the hall and lie in a pool of his own vomit… and he still loved me…”
“You sure you want to see him right now?” Bob asks looking concerned.
“I’m sure. He understands. I really think he understands.”
“Well we’re here…” He says leaving the end open so I can change my mind if I want to.
“Come on then.” I urge and unbuckle my seat belt. I take Bob’s hand and allow him to lead me up Frank’s front path. Trying my hardest to ignore his new limp and the sharp intakes of breath he now takes between steps.