Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance
Something Like This
2 reviewsFrank looks back behind him at the rusty monkey bars and seesaws swaying in the breeze. Gerard had loved this park.
2Moving
The first story I’ve written since my 14th birthday, and it’s dedicated to xImRadx. Thank you for continuing to read my stories even after everyone else who used to gave up.
Jeez, people! 23 people read that wierd little glitch and no one told me it was cut off? Thanks a lot, lol! (But, really. If that happens, you should seriously let me know! =D)
Frank’s sneaker bumps against the side of a bench as he passes by and it finally comes to his attention that he’s blocks away from where he was headed. The houses around all look exactly as they had years before, all shadowed and covered in climbing vines in the evening light. It’s almost washout in Frank’s eyes, and a blue tint seems to take over everything. He sits down on the wooden bench, leaning forward and listening to the creak it makes under his weight. There’s a dog on the corner opposite him, two houses to the left, and gazes passively at it, rubbing the tips of his fingers around his eyes as they start stinging.
Frank looks back behind him at the rusty monkey bars and seesaws swaying in the breeze. Gerard had loved this park.
Even after they’d been far away in their flat in New York Gerard had still talked about how his father had taken him to the park every weekend after work, pushing him on the swings and catching him at the bottom of the twisty slides when he appeared at the other end.
Gerard had often begged Frank to let him drive him back there, near their childhood homes, and every time—every single time—Frank had given in. They’d sit with their feet all tangled together on the swings and kick woodchips when they had already talked about everything they could possibly talk about for the day. He can almost hear Gerard laughing at him after he fell off the swings, hear him whispering sweet nothings into his ear as they sat up on the top of the tallest slides and watched the sunset. He can almost hear Gerard’s breathing in his ear when they were both drunk after Frank’s high school graduation and Gerard had made love to him for the first time in the dark in the shelter of the tire towers. Frank even complied to lying in the dirt under the play structure to Sharpie their names on the underside: Frank and Gerard scrawled inside a big, curvy, red heart. It had been so teenager at the time, but that wasn’t too surprising, since they had been teenagers for the most part of their relationship, best friends or lovers, either way. Maybe, he thinks, maybe that’s why it didn’t work out. They’d been too young. Too young to keep things as steady as they did—it had to come to an end sometime, whether it be painful or not.
Frank thinks back and smiles, even as the tears start down his face. He wipes them away as quickly as they start, because he’s a twenty-four year old man crying in a children’s playground, but they keep coming, and before he knows it it’s already pitch dark and raining, the clouds streaming in from god knows where and it just makes it worse because Gerard used to drag him out when it rained and they were still naïve kids, desperate for an escape to something more than work and no wonder. His mother would glare, but Gerard just grabbed his hand and pulled him out into the street to yell and laugh and be the best friends they’d been since they hadn’t gotten into double digits.
It has to be an hour later when Frank looks up from his hands and a car pulls up near him, the headlights glaring in his tear-stung eyes. His hair is mussed up—his cut it shorter since Gerard hadn’t been around to curl his fingers in it anymore—and his sweatshirt sleeves are damp and cold on his skin.
He barely registers as his father appears from the opening car door and rushes to him, pulling him from the bench and into the backseat of the car as his mother leans back from the passenger seat and touches his shoulder. He’s almost amazed that they could tell he was crying, what with it raining to so hard as it is.
The car ride is silent; his parents glance at him in the mirror and exchange anxious looks. Frank is sure they both know why he was at the park and crying. They had invited him to come and live with them instead of alone in New York as soon as they’d gotten the news that he’d be coming back in a few weeks, days, years, he really didn’t know at the time.
But Frank would have done anything to get away from that apartment where everything smelled like Gerard, felt like Gerard. Where Frank saw Gerard wherever he went and almost called out because it seemed so real. He had slept on the sofa the whole two weeks before deciding to go to his parents and pull some dates a little closer, not being able to step foot in the bedroom without breaking down. That apartment had been Gerard. He’d had wanted a space of their own where he could draw and paint while tending 24/7 to Frank’s occasionally obnoxious requirements. It was their place.
When they get to the house, Frank finds that his stuff has been moved to the basement room, a whole floor away from his old bedroom. It’s exactly the same, but Gerard had never been down there; he had always been distrusting of basements. Gerard had never kissed him in that hallway while Frank’s parents were on the opposite side of the wall, or held Frank’s hips steady as he moved against him on that sofa until they were coming, biting their lips and fisting each other’s shirts and jeans pockets because they might wake up the guests that Frank’s parents were having over for Thanksgiving. Gerard had never proclaimed his pure devotion for Frank in that bedroom, or helped Frank rub shampoo into his hair in that shower, laughing when Frank was nearly tearing up from the suds in his eyes. Gerard had never been there, and for once Frank is happy about the fact.
He sleeps soundly that night, and when it comes time to get up, dressed, and ready, he knows he’s finally prepared. His parents are dressed as appropriately as he is, and they drive down to the church where Gerard’s parents are standing outside, waiting for Frank. They apologize pointlessly and hug him as soon and they see him, telling him Gerard loved him, even though Frank knows it better than they ever will, and they go inside to join the others. Black clad with hardly a planned speech in sight, it’s how Gerard had wanted it, describing it in full as he lay in the hospital bed. Frank had never understood why, if Gerard had the strength to talk at all, that he would choose it as the time to arrange his funeral. I just want to make it all right at the end, baby, Gerard had said, I want you to be okay when I’m gone.
So they had. They’d done it exactly, down to every last /word/, how Gerard wanted, and while Frank steps down from the podium, the black coffin getting farther away as he goes straight from the building and back to the park bench, he finally understands.
END
Jeez, people! 23 people read that wierd little glitch and no one told me it was cut off? Thanks a lot, lol! (But, really. If that happens, you should seriously let me know! =D)
Frank’s sneaker bumps against the side of a bench as he passes by and it finally comes to his attention that he’s blocks away from where he was headed. The houses around all look exactly as they had years before, all shadowed and covered in climbing vines in the evening light. It’s almost washout in Frank’s eyes, and a blue tint seems to take over everything. He sits down on the wooden bench, leaning forward and listening to the creak it makes under his weight. There’s a dog on the corner opposite him, two houses to the left, and gazes passively at it, rubbing the tips of his fingers around his eyes as they start stinging.
Frank looks back behind him at the rusty monkey bars and seesaws swaying in the breeze. Gerard had loved this park.
Even after they’d been far away in their flat in New York Gerard had still talked about how his father had taken him to the park every weekend after work, pushing him on the swings and catching him at the bottom of the twisty slides when he appeared at the other end.
Gerard had often begged Frank to let him drive him back there, near their childhood homes, and every time—every single time—Frank had given in. They’d sit with their feet all tangled together on the swings and kick woodchips when they had already talked about everything they could possibly talk about for the day. He can almost hear Gerard laughing at him after he fell off the swings, hear him whispering sweet nothings into his ear as they sat up on the top of the tallest slides and watched the sunset. He can almost hear Gerard’s breathing in his ear when they were both drunk after Frank’s high school graduation and Gerard had made love to him for the first time in the dark in the shelter of the tire towers. Frank even complied to lying in the dirt under the play structure to Sharpie their names on the underside: Frank and Gerard scrawled inside a big, curvy, red heart. It had been so teenager at the time, but that wasn’t too surprising, since they had been teenagers for the most part of their relationship, best friends or lovers, either way. Maybe, he thinks, maybe that’s why it didn’t work out. They’d been too young. Too young to keep things as steady as they did—it had to come to an end sometime, whether it be painful or not.
Frank thinks back and smiles, even as the tears start down his face. He wipes them away as quickly as they start, because he’s a twenty-four year old man crying in a children’s playground, but they keep coming, and before he knows it it’s already pitch dark and raining, the clouds streaming in from god knows where and it just makes it worse because Gerard used to drag him out when it rained and they were still naïve kids, desperate for an escape to something more than work and no wonder. His mother would glare, but Gerard just grabbed his hand and pulled him out into the street to yell and laugh and be the best friends they’d been since they hadn’t gotten into double digits.
It has to be an hour later when Frank looks up from his hands and a car pulls up near him, the headlights glaring in his tear-stung eyes. His hair is mussed up—his cut it shorter since Gerard hadn’t been around to curl his fingers in it anymore—and his sweatshirt sleeves are damp and cold on his skin.
He barely registers as his father appears from the opening car door and rushes to him, pulling him from the bench and into the backseat of the car as his mother leans back from the passenger seat and touches his shoulder. He’s almost amazed that they could tell he was crying, what with it raining to so hard as it is.
The car ride is silent; his parents glance at him in the mirror and exchange anxious looks. Frank is sure they both know why he was at the park and crying. They had invited him to come and live with them instead of alone in New York as soon as they’d gotten the news that he’d be coming back in a few weeks, days, years, he really didn’t know at the time.
But Frank would have done anything to get away from that apartment where everything smelled like Gerard, felt like Gerard. Where Frank saw Gerard wherever he went and almost called out because it seemed so real. He had slept on the sofa the whole two weeks before deciding to go to his parents and pull some dates a little closer, not being able to step foot in the bedroom without breaking down. That apartment had been Gerard. He’d had wanted a space of their own where he could draw and paint while tending 24/7 to Frank’s occasionally obnoxious requirements. It was their place.
When they get to the house, Frank finds that his stuff has been moved to the basement room, a whole floor away from his old bedroom. It’s exactly the same, but Gerard had never been down there; he had always been distrusting of basements. Gerard had never kissed him in that hallway while Frank’s parents were on the opposite side of the wall, or held Frank’s hips steady as he moved against him on that sofa until they were coming, biting their lips and fisting each other’s shirts and jeans pockets because they might wake up the guests that Frank’s parents were having over for Thanksgiving. Gerard had never proclaimed his pure devotion for Frank in that bedroom, or helped Frank rub shampoo into his hair in that shower, laughing when Frank was nearly tearing up from the suds in his eyes. Gerard had never been there, and for once Frank is happy about the fact.
He sleeps soundly that night, and when it comes time to get up, dressed, and ready, he knows he’s finally prepared. His parents are dressed as appropriately as he is, and they drive down to the church where Gerard’s parents are standing outside, waiting for Frank. They apologize pointlessly and hug him as soon and they see him, telling him Gerard loved him, even though Frank knows it better than they ever will, and they go inside to join the others. Black clad with hardly a planned speech in sight, it’s how Gerard had wanted it, describing it in full as he lay in the hospital bed. Frank had never understood why, if Gerard had the strength to talk at all, that he would choose it as the time to arrange his funeral. I just want to make it all right at the end, baby, Gerard had said, I want you to be okay when I’m gone.
So they had. They’d done it exactly, down to every last /word/, how Gerard wanted, and while Frank steps down from the podium, the black coffin getting farther away as he goes straight from the building and back to the park bench, he finally understands.
END
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