Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Just GO for it, Already!
The first phrase that writhed into the crevices of Gerard’s brain- his mind’s first attempt at describing the awkward, sideways, breathless feeling that had pushed and shoved its way, uncomfortable and jagged, against the tight, restricting walls of his insides- came quick and simple, like a sudden breath of fresh air. It consisted of two words and, he had never been much of a poet nor had he ever been particularly gifted when it came to description, he actually sort of liked how it sounded. At that moment- that horrible, beautiful, surreal moment- when Frank pressed his lips against Gerard’s, the other boy’s delicious, arousing scent filling his nostrils and the warmth and curiosity and slight apprehension pulsating off his body like a some dulled heartbeat, Gerard immediately felt as if his insides had twisted. As he stared at Frank, his fingers clutching the thin, plastic DVD case to the point of a throbbing discomfort, and just simply realized how emotionally lopsided he felt. It was as if his emotions had become tangible, managing to lodge themselves inside him like rectangular pieces of glass, each at a different, extreme, uncomfortable angle, until one side of him was far heavier than the other.
Frank was sitting with his legs crossed, casual. From Gerard’s place on the floor, Frank seemed so much higher up than himself, so much greater, so much more beautiful. Gerard cleared his throat, the sound louder than he had intended, and tried to mutter something about putting in the movie in order to somehow distract the both of them. He scratched the back of his head while he opened the case, the gesture almost habitual. The disk was placed in the DVD player and the sideways triangle indicating ‘play’ was pressed before Gerard stood up again. There was a moment’s indecision- he wanted to sit. Not only did he want to be near Frank again, near that smell and that warmth, but if he didn’t, he’d look awkward. But he didn’t want to sit. He didn’t want to think that Frank might be playing with him. But as his legs began to make that short trip across the room, he felt he had no choice.
Gerard didn’t pay attention to the movie they were watching. He didn’t care. All he knew was that as soon as he sat down, Frank’s thigh pressed against his- gently, the pressure light and almost, /almost/, accidental- and all sense of awareness was gone. One of his hands threatened to stray onto the other boy’s jeans, to just lay his hand on his leg…but when he tried to move his arm, the bees in his stomach buzzed and stung. It was all too possible that Frank was simply being facetious. Gerard knew perfectly well how people like to fuck around with each other. Or maybe Frank was one of those people who just liked the kiss and touch and press his body against other’s and drive people absolutely insane with desire and lust and want. Gerard could feel himself trembling, his core shaking as if with cold. His heart wouldn’t stop pounding, he was sure Frank could hear it. He tried to mentally silence his heart, but the vociferous beating continued. It was loud. It hurt.
If Frank heard it, he didn’t say anything. His hand didn’t move from its spot in his lap. His thigh didn’t press any further into Gerard’s. He sat and watched the movie. Gerard wished he would say something, wished the silence would be broken, wished that Frank would notice Gerard wasn’t watching the movie, but rather, watching Frank, watching his sleepy, glossy, round eyes and soft lips (he no longer needed to speculate about their texture) which were pulled ever so slightly into a smile. Not even a smile. A smirk.
The angel was smirking. At what, Gerard didn’t know. He wished he could crack open Frank’s skull and see what he was thinking.
They spoke only occasionally, laughing nervously, their voices thin and low. And when their eyes actually met and neither of them said anything Gerard both feared and hoped Frank would kiss him again.
He didn’t. Gerard was okay with that. And he didn’t know why.
---
If Gerard had at some point wished for more stress, he didn’t recall it. He just knew that some higher power had decided to take the time to grant this request. Frank had left long ago. The thin beam of light that usually permeated the deep grays and greens of the room from the tiny rectangular window had since been swallowed by the nighttime’s dark navy blues the way a fly is engulfed by a toad’s gaping and seemingly endless mouth. Gerard hadn’t bothered to turn the light on. The lights and colors seemed too harsh, too sharp, for the tender state his mind was in. It was as if his brain had been tenderized- smashed into with some blunt object again and again until it was nothing more than a throbbing, aching organ. The pain wasn’t particularly unpleasant, it was hardly even distracting. It just simply reminded him- whispered softly and slowly so that he wouldn’t forget- about the person who caused the ache. And that was someone he didn’t want to think about.
But he couldn’t stop. It played over and over, the scene playing at different speeds like the replay on a sports event. He could see Frank’s face getting closer, closer- then it would rewind and play again. He’d hear Frank say, ”Has anyone ever told you you’re really attractive?”/, only by this time the memory had been worn down so thin that his voice weak, as if he was speaking softly and at a distance. His mind was a movie with a scratched disk and a remote with a gaping hole where the pause button had crudely been ripped free. All that was left were bits of plastic and the hardened residue of glue, and no matter how he clawed at the hole, that space where the control should have been- was /supposed to be- there was no God damn response. A dulled frustration build in the pit of his stomach like a stone. He didn’t feel the emotion fully. It was more as if he was feeling through some sort of thick cloth. All he got was the dulled edges of the emotion. The sheer lack of feeling was worse than pain itself.
Gerard rolled onto his side and pulled the blankets up to his chin, feeling his stomach drop like a cat off the fourteenth floor- it writhed and wriggled and squirmed till the last inch. His inner arm stung as the blankets brushed the raw and sensitive wounds, and he could feel the newly-formed scabs cracking as the skin twisted. A sigh of resignation escaped via his nostrils and the release of air gave him a clean and oddly nostalgic feeling. Maybe because he’d been there so many times before with the same recycled air and the same recycled feelings. He wouldn’t mind wasting just those things. The image of them rotting like garbage didn’t bother him in the slightest. As he buried his small, pixie nose into the thick, dark, forest green blankets he mentally braced himself for the next day. He’d face Finch and her sideways pursed lips and narrowed eyes of disappointment and worry when he wore the second of the only two long-sleeved shirts he owned; he’d take the bruises from having his shoulders repeatedly slammed into and the sharp stinging words spit from the mouths like venom of students who didn’t give a fuck; and he’d endure the tests he was probably going to fail with a massive headache and yet another steep dip in his self-esteem. And if he could look Frank in the eye without crying, he might just survive to do it again.
---
When there was a conspicuous lack of Frank the next day, Gerard wasn’t sure whether or not to feel relieved. On one hand, this meant a certain level of stress had been lifted from his shoulders. On the other, an equally heavy layer of stress had been added and he would now spend the rest of the day wondering what would have happened if Frank had been there all along.
He didn’t tell Finch about the kiss. It was on the tip of his tongue and on several occasions he opened his mouth to speak, but somewhere on the journey from his head to his mouth, his throat decided that it wasn’t quite ready to give up its secret. And so it remained unspoken. He knew that she would have loved to hear about it- she somehow marveled in what she (and, much to his surprise, many…/many/ other girls) called /boy-love/. It was somehow more intriguing than boys and girls kissing. He didn’t understand it fully, but he did find boys to be some of the cutest things in the world. And that he tried not to think about too much.
The few fleeting thoughts of a “replacement Frank” had already started knocking on the back doors of Gerard’s head. He didn’t want to move on- he really didn’t. Every part of him still wanted Frank, still wanted to touch his multi-colored hair, still wanted more than a physical longing. If someone could kiss him without meaning, then the relationship was nothing more than physical- sexual, at best. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if the part of him that craved a relationship- a warm, comfortable, loving relationship- was the part of him that was a teenage girl or the part of him that was simply human. At times they seemed like the same thing. But he liked being in love and he liked having hope and he liked having little secret fantasies- ones he told no one about, not Finch, not even the little journal in his dresser- about getting married and naming kids that he and his lover somehow came to have and the house they were going to live in and all those thing little girls dream up. And to let himself have those tiny bits of happiness and emotional relief that he rarely experienced, he needed someone that didn’t hurt him. If this meant finding someone he never even spoke to only so that there was no chance of rejection, no chance of severing an emotional connection, then so be it. He’d done it before.
“You’re lookin’ kinda down, hun.”
Gerard lazily looked up at Finch from behind the curtain of hair in his face. She was in her usual pose: leaning on the table with her elbow. She tapped against her open textbook with the eraser of her pencil habitually. Her eyes looked large today for no particular reason. Maybe it was concern. He didn’t know. He exhaled heavily into his folded arms, on which he was leaning his head, hunched over the table despondently. Depression emanated off him like heat and he vaguely wondered why she hadn’t bothered to scold him about his arm. With a sniffle that indicated a stuffed nose more than sadness and a shake of his head, Gerard sat up and tried to twitch his mouth into a weak smile. When his facial muscles refused to move and his knowledge of English vocabulary had run dry, he let his face fall and he leaned his head on his hand. Finch looked back to her book.
“You’ve been quiet all day,” she continued. Her tone was an odd sort of monotonous, as if she was both concerned and bored. Gerard replied with a weak grunt and traced a circle on the ugly grey table with the tip of his finger. The noises in the cafeteria were too loud. They were jumbled and thick and metallic and permeated his thoughts of what he wanted engraved in his wedding ring. Probably something like, I can’t believe you made it this far. He closed his eyes and wished for the sleep he’d missed while tossing and turning the night before. The wet sound of Finch parting her lips reached his ears, but there was a moment before she said anything. When she finally did, she sounded even more tired than he did.
“If you don’t want to tell me, I guess you don’t have to.” This meant she was writhing inside with curiosity. He deeply respected the lack of pressure but lacked the energy or motivation to say anything about it. “But know I’m here if you want to talk. And you’d better start putting anti-septic on those /scratches/. They’ll heal faster. Your mom’s gonna get suspicious again if you wear those shirts too many times.” She added the last few sentences quickly and thinly as though she was verbally walking on cracking ice. Gerard opened his eyes slowly and stared at the wall laggardly. His dry voice, slightly rough from his superficial smoking habit, sounded prominent and out of place amongst the chatter of students.
“What do you think my parents’ll say when I tell them?” he asked languidly, continuing to circle his finger on the table. “…About…/me/, I mean.” Finch took a moment before shrugging her shoulders, not looking up from her book.
“Everyone’s parents are different. And I’ve known yours for a while and they seem pretty cool. Nice, I mean. You should come out to them when you’re ready. Personally, I don’t see why people would be making a big deal out of it. It’s not like you’re any different because you’d rather kiss a boy than a bitch who could get pregnant. It’s probably actually more beneficial for you, in that respect.” Gerard looked over at her. She was chewing on the eraser of the pencil. He saw her furrow her eyebrows slightly before she spoke again. “Actually…how do your parents not know? And I’m not kidding, I’m pretty sure my mom knew before you did.”
“What?” He asked through a half smile. “Do I like, scream fabulous or something?” Finch smirked and glanced up at him.
“Nah, you’re just…” She paused. “…different. Too introverted and artsy and…/lonely/ to be straight.” Gerard snorted and asked sarcastically if loneliness a gay man makes. Finch laughed and shook her head. “You could have brought him girls if you wanted- talked about them at least. Hell, made some guy friends. You just didn’t. But it’s what I like ‘bout you I guess…And that’s another thing. One friend? Girl? Very gay, Gee-Gee.”
“You have one, guy friend and my parents don’t go off about their suspicions of you being a lesbian,” he teased.
“That’s ‘cause I vocalize my love for guys, homes.”
“You love girls too.”
She smirked. “Everyone’s a little bi.” She stole a glance of him. “Some more than others.”
---
The school day passed as usual with a lack of anything interesting or eventful occurring. Gerard slept through that stupid computer class he put off until his junior year and remained oddly unbothered until the bell rang. Possibly because half of the other students were napping as well. When Frank’s name was called for attendance in the music history class they shared, Gerard’s stomach did a slight drop and he remembered why his day was so shitty in the first place. He was glad he wouldn’t have to avoid awkward glances and thick tension for seven hours, but he couldn’t help but regret Frank’s absence. He could be gone out of coincidence, but Gerard felt it was more likely that it was because of the tension between them. Perhaps Gerard had embarrassed him.
He blinked to himself. This was something he hadn’t considered. Which was odd, seeing as Gerard spent most of his time thinking in every angle possible. He made sure of it. It was his job as an artist. He had to see, see, see/, not even necessarily with his /eyes/, but he had to fucking /see. It was all too possible that Gerard’s reaction wasn’t what Frank had expected. It was also possible that he was all too consumed in his own emotions to realize that Frank may have been embarrassed. And now Frank wasn’t at school and was probably feeling as bad- if not worse- than Gerard was.
So now he felt responsible. The joy ceased to end.
The school day ended. Finally. He had just dropped Finch off at her house (she reminded him that she was there to talk and her phone would be on all night if he needed her) when he nearly suffered a heart attack. It was one of those moments where his body froze up then melted with fear, his legs threatening to go weak and release the gas pedal. It felt as though his heart had momentarily disappeared and was instead filled with some sort of terrifying fog. He saw that familiar walk, the way the neck was bent and the shoulders gave a slight bounce with each step. He knew the toned build and he recognized the way the hands were shoved into the pockets of the jeans. And, despite the fact that he recognized all these things so well, it took him a moment to understand why his mind was wiped clean like a slate wiped clean of writing.
The hair. It was the hair. Gerard became aware that the only reason he reacted so late was because he had singled out a sole attribute. Instead of being bright and conspicuous enough to be singled out in a crowd of people, it was now of medium-darkness, the color accentuating the recently acquired length. Gerard now had about a second and a half to decide whether or not he should slow down. He gripped the steering wheel and regained control of his muscles, which still felt loose and weak. One foot held the gas pedal in place, keeping his speed steadily at around an agonizing twenty-something miles-an-hour. The other foot dangled in the air over the break. As the space between him and who he almost didn’t recognize closed, his leg twitched above the break.
Gerard didn’t stop for Frank. He could have- almost did, actually. But he didn’t. He drove passed him at that twenty-something miles-an-hour, felt air escape his chest in almost a gust, and didn’t stop until he reached the sign at the end of the street. In his rear-view mirror, he saw Frank look up, saw him shake his dark-brown hair, and saw him stop. Frank stared at the back window of Gerard’s car for a moment. He looked back down at the sidewalk. Gerard turned the corner and didn’t see anything else.
Frank was sitting with his legs crossed, casual. From Gerard’s place on the floor, Frank seemed so much higher up than himself, so much greater, so much more beautiful. Gerard cleared his throat, the sound louder than he had intended, and tried to mutter something about putting in the movie in order to somehow distract the both of them. He scratched the back of his head while he opened the case, the gesture almost habitual. The disk was placed in the DVD player and the sideways triangle indicating ‘play’ was pressed before Gerard stood up again. There was a moment’s indecision- he wanted to sit. Not only did he want to be near Frank again, near that smell and that warmth, but if he didn’t, he’d look awkward. But he didn’t want to sit. He didn’t want to think that Frank might be playing with him. But as his legs began to make that short trip across the room, he felt he had no choice.
Gerard didn’t pay attention to the movie they were watching. He didn’t care. All he knew was that as soon as he sat down, Frank’s thigh pressed against his- gently, the pressure light and almost, /almost/, accidental- and all sense of awareness was gone. One of his hands threatened to stray onto the other boy’s jeans, to just lay his hand on his leg…but when he tried to move his arm, the bees in his stomach buzzed and stung. It was all too possible that Frank was simply being facetious. Gerard knew perfectly well how people like to fuck around with each other. Or maybe Frank was one of those people who just liked the kiss and touch and press his body against other’s and drive people absolutely insane with desire and lust and want. Gerard could feel himself trembling, his core shaking as if with cold. His heart wouldn’t stop pounding, he was sure Frank could hear it. He tried to mentally silence his heart, but the vociferous beating continued. It was loud. It hurt.
If Frank heard it, he didn’t say anything. His hand didn’t move from its spot in his lap. His thigh didn’t press any further into Gerard’s. He sat and watched the movie. Gerard wished he would say something, wished the silence would be broken, wished that Frank would notice Gerard wasn’t watching the movie, but rather, watching Frank, watching his sleepy, glossy, round eyes and soft lips (he no longer needed to speculate about their texture) which were pulled ever so slightly into a smile. Not even a smile. A smirk.
The angel was smirking. At what, Gerard didn’t know. He wished he could crack open Frank’s skull and see what he was thinking.
They spoke only occasionally, laughing nervously, their voices thin and low. And when their eyes actually met and neither of them said anything Gerard both feared and hoped Frank would kiss him again.
He didn’t. Gerard was okay with that. And he didn’t know why.
---
If Gerard had at some point wished for more stress, he didn’t recall it. He just knew that some higher power had decided to take the time to grant this request. Frank had left long ago. The thin beam of light that usually permeated the deep grays and greens of the room from the tiny rectangular window had since been swallowed by the nighttime’s dark navy blues the way a fly is engulfed by a toad’s gaping and seemingly endless mouth. Gerard hadn’t bothered to turn the light on. The lights and colors seemed too harsh, too sharp, for the tender state his mind was in. It was as if his brain had been tenderized- smashed into with some blunt object again and again until it was nothing more than a throbbing, aching organ. The pain wasn’t particularly unpleasant, it was hardly even distracting. It just simply reminded him- whispered softly and slowly so that he wouldn’t forget- about the person who caused the ache. And that was someone he didn’t want to think about.
But he couldn’t stop. It played over and over, the scene playing at different speeds like the replay on a sports event. He could see Frank’s face getting closer, closer- then it would rewind and play again. He’d hear Frank say, ”Has anyone ever told you you’re really attractive?”/, only by this time the memory had been worn down so thin that his voice weak, as if he was speaking softly and at a distance. His mind was a movie with a scratched disk and a remote with a gaping hole where the pause button had crudely been ripped free. All that was left were bits of plastic and the hardened residue of glue, and no matter how he clawed at the hole, that space where the control should have been- was /supposed to be- there was no God damn response. A dulled frustration build in the pit of his stomach like a stone. He didn’t feel the emotion fully. It was more as if he was feeling through some sort of thick cloth. All he got was the dulled edges of the emotion. The sheer lack of feeling was worse than pain itself.
Gerard rolled onto his side and pulled the blankets up to his chin, feeling his stomach drop like a cat off the fourteenth floor- it writhed and wriggled and squirmed till the last inch. His inner arm stung as the blankets brushed the raw and sensitive wounds, and he could feel the newly-formed scabs cracking as the skin twisted. A sigh of resignation escaped via his nostrils and the release of air gave him a clean and oddly nostalgic feeling. Maybe because he’d been there so many times before with the same recycled air and the same recycled feelings. He wouldn’t mind wasting just those things. The image of them rotting like garbage didn’t bother him in the slightest. As he buried his small, pixie nose into the thick, dark, forest green blankets he mentally braced himself for the next day. He’d face Finch and her sideways pursed lips and narrowed eyes of disappointment and worry when he wore the second of the only two long-sleeved shirts he owned; he’d take the bruises from having his shoulders repeatedly slammed into and the sharp stinging words spit from the mouths like venom of students who didn’t give a fuck; and he’d endure the tests he was probably going to fail with a massive headache and yet another steep dip in his self-esteem. And if he could look Frank in the eye without crying, he might just survive to do it again.
---
When there was a conspicuous lack of Frank the next day, Gerard wasn’t sure whether or not to feel relieved. On one hand, this meant a certain level of stress had been lifted from his shoulders. On the other, an equally heavy layer of stress had been added and he would now spend the rest of the day wondering what would have happened if Frank had been there all along.
He didn’t tell Finch about the kiss. It was on the tip of his tongue and on several occasions he opened his mouth to speak, but somewhere on the journey from his head to his mouth, his throat decided that it wasn’t quite ready to give up its secret. And so it remained unspoken. He knew that she would have loved to hear about it- she somehow marveled in what she (and, much to his surprise, many…/many/ other girls) called /boy-love/. It was somehow more intriguing than boys and girls kissing. He didn’t understand it fully, but he did find boys to be some of the cutest things in the world. And that he tried not to think about too much.
The few fleeting thoughts of a “replacement Frank” had already started knocking on the back doors of Gerard’s head. He didn’t want to move on- he really didn’t. Every part of him still wanted Frank, still wanted to touch his multi-colored hair, still wanted more than a physical longing. If someone could kiss him without meaning, then the relationship was nothing more than physical- sexual, at best. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if the part of him that craved a relationship- a warm, comfortable, loving relationship- was the part of him that was a teenage girl or the part of him that was simply human. At times they seemed like the same thing. But he liked being in love and he liked having hope and he liked having little secret fantasies- ones he told no one about, not Finch, not even the little journal in his dresser- about getting married and naming kids that he and his lover somehow came to have and the house they were going to live in and all those thing little girls dream up. And to let himself have those tiny bits of happiness and emotional relief that he rarely experienced, he needed someone that didn’t hurt him. If this meant finding someone he never even spoke to only so that there was no chance of rejection, no chance of severing an emotional connection, then so be it. He’d done it before.
“You’re lookin’ kinda down, hun.”
Gerard lazily looked up at Finch from behind the curtain of hair in his face. She was in her usual pose: leaning on the table with her elbow. She tapped against her open textbook with the eraser of her pencil habitually. Her eyes looked large today for no particular reason. Maybe it was concern. He didn’t know. He exhaled heavily into his folded arms, on which he was leaning his head, hunched over the table despondently. Depression emanated off him like heat and he vaguely wondered why she hadn’t bothered to scold him about his arm. With a sniffle that indicated a stuffed nose more than sadness and a shake of his head, Gerard sat up and tried to twitch his mouth into a weak smile. When his facial muscles refused to move and his knowledge of English vocabulary had run dry, he let his face fall and he leaned his head on his hand. Finch looked back to her book.
“You’ve been quiet all day,” she continued. Her tone was an odd sort of monotonous, as if she was both concerned and bored. Gerard replied with a weak grunt and traced a circle on the ugly grey table with the tip of his finger. The noises in the cafeteria were too loud. They were jumbled and thick and metallic and permeated his thoughts of what he wanted engraved in his wedding ring. Probably something like, I can’t believe you made it this far. He closed his eyes and wished for the sleep he’d missed while tossing and turning the night before. The wet sound of Finch parting her lips reached his ears, but there was a moment before she said anything. When she finally did, she sounded even more tired than he did.
“If you don’t want to tell me, I guess you don’t have to.” This meant she was writhing inside with curiosity. He deeply respected the lack of pressure but lacked the energy or motivation to say anything about it. “But know I’m here if you want to talk. And you’d better start putting anti-septic on those /scratches/. They’ll heal faster. Your mom’s gonna get suspicious again if you wear those shirts too many times.” She added the last few sentences quickly and thinly as though she was verbally walking on cracking ice. Gerard opened his eyes slowly and stared at the wall laggardly. His dry voice, slightly rough from his superficial smoking habit, sounded prominent and out of place amongst the chatter of students.
“What do you think my parents’ll say when I tell them?” he asked languidly, continuing to circle his finger on the table. “…About…/me/, I mean.” Finch took a moment before shrugging her shoulders, not looking up from her book.
“Everyone’s parents are different. And I’ve known yours for a while and they seem pretty cool. Nice, I mean. You should come out to them when you’re ready. Personally, I don’t see why people would be making a big deal out of it. It’s not like you’re any different because you’d rather kiss a boy than a bitch who could get pregnant. It’s probably actually more beneficial for you, in that respect.” Gerard looked over at her. She was chewing on the eraser of the pencil. He saw her furrow her eyebrows slightly before she spoke again. “Actually…how do your parents not know? And I’m not kidding, I’m pretty sure my mom knew before you did.”
“What?” He asked through a half smile. “Do I like, scream fabulous or something?” Finch smirked and glanced up at him.
“Nah, you’re just…” She paused. “…different. Too introverted and artsy and…/lonely/ to be straight.” Gerard snorted and asked sarcastically if loneliness a gay man makes. Finch laughed and shook her head. “You could have brought him girls if you wanted- talked about them at least. Hell, made some guy friends. You just didn’t. But it’s what I like ‘bout you I guess…And that’s another thing. One friend? Girl? Very gay, Gee-Gee.”
“You have one, guy friend and my parents don’t go off about their suspicions of you being a lesbian,” he teased.
“That’s ‘cause I vocalize my love for guys, homes.”
“You love girls too.”
She smirked. “Everyone’s a little bi.” She stole a glance of him. “Some more than others.”
---
The school day passed as usual with a lack of anything interesting or eventful occurring. Gerard slept through that stupid computer class he put off until his junior year and remained oddly unbothered until the bell rang. Possibly because half of the other students were napping as well. When Frank’s name was called for attendance in the music history class they shared, Gerard’s stomach did a slight drop and he remembered why his day was so shitty in the first place. He was glad he wouldn’t have to avoid awkward glances and thick tension for seven hours, but he couldn’t help but regret Frank’s absence. He could be gone out of coincidence, but Gerard felt it was more likely that it was because of the tension between them. Perhaps Gerard had embarrassed him.
He blinked to himself. This was something he hadn’t considered. Which was odd, seeing as Gerard spent most of his time thinking in every angle possible. He made sure of it. It was his job as an artist. He had to see, see, see/, not even necessarily with his /eyes/, but he had to fucking /see. It was all too possible that Gerard’s reaction wasn’t what Frank had expected. It was also possible that he was all too consumed in his own emotions to realize that Frank may have been embarrassed. And now Frank wasn’t at school and was probably feeling as bad- if not worse- than Gerard was.
So now he felt responsible. The joy ceased to end.
The school day ended. Finally. He had just dropped Finch off at her house (she reminded him that she was there to talk and her phone would be on all night if he needed her) when he nearly suffered a heart attack. It was one of those moments where his body froze up then melted with fear, his legs threatening to go weak and release the gas pedal. It felt as though his heart had momentarily disappeared and was instead filled with some sort of terrifying fog. He saw that familiar walk, the way the neck was bent and the shoulders gave a slight bounce with each step. He knew the toned build and he recognized the way the hands were shoved into the pockets of the jeans. And, despite the fact that he recognized all these things so well, it took him a moment to understand why his mind was wiped clean like a slate wiped clean of writing.
The hair. It was the hair. Gerard became aware that the only reason he reacted so late was because he had singled out a sole attribute. Instead of being bright and conspicuous enough to be singled out in a crowd of people, it was now of medium-darkness, the color accentuating the recently acquired length. Gerard now had about a second and a half to decide whether or not he should slow down. He gripped the steering wheel and regained control of his muscles, which still felt loose and weak. One foot held the gas pedal in place, keeping his speed steadily at around an agonizing twenty-something miles-an-hour. The other foot dangled in the air over the break. As the space between him and who he almost didn’t recognize closed, his leg twitched above the break.
Gerard didn’t stop for Frank. He could have- almost did, actually. But he didn’t. He drove passed him at that twenty-something miles-an-hour, felt air escape his chest in almost a gust, and didn’t stop until he reached the sign at the end of the street. In his rear-view mirror, he saw Frank look up, saw him shake his dark-brown hair, and saw him stop. Frank stared at the back window of Gerard’s car for a moment. He looked back down at the sidewalk. Gerard turned the corner and didn’t see anything else.
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