Never Coming Home // Frerard

Chapter 5

"Why weren't you at school for a week?" Patrick asked curiously. My grip around my coffee cup stiffened a little bit at the question.

"I, uh," I mumbled, trying so hard to get the name 'Lindsey' to fall from my mouth again. "You know the girl... that I was dating?" Gerard,  you idiot. At least try not to stutter, for Christ's sake.

"Lindsey?" He asked. I nodded and looked down, trying not to cry.

"She, um... she died," I said simply. The last word lingered in the air, weighing down on everybody.

"Oh my god..." Was all Patrick could get out for a second. "Gerard, I'm so sorry..."

I couldn't handle it. Luckily Mikey was sitting next to me, and I pulled him into a hug and buried my face in the jacket covering his shoulder. He pulled me into the tight, protective brotherly hug we gave each other when one was scared or upset. Mikey was afraid of storms, so I sometimes ended up hugging him right for hours until they stopped. He did the same for the past week whenever I cried about Lindsey.

Everybody sat around for a few minutes as I pulled myself together and pulled away from Mikey's embrace, mouthing a 'thank you' as I picked my coffee cup off the table again.

"Sorry for asking," Patrick apologized after a few seconds of silence.

"It's fine," I smiled at him, "It's just... we dated for a year and a half. I was in love with her, and then she just died so suddenly. It's pretty rough, but yeah, it's cool. I'll be okay."

The rest of the time was spent talking to Ray about the fight he got in with a teacher, everybody laughing at how stupid he could be. But my mind was elsewhere. It was on Lindsey and how sudden her death was and how I could also die in an instant. It was on Frank and his 'incident' that led him to be enrolled in our school. It was on Mikey and how it must have made him feel to see his older brother in this state.

My mind was racing so fast that it was nothing but a blur of worries and fears and sadness that I was desperately reaching out to try and catch and sort out but it was constantly too fast for me, almost taunting me.

"Gerard?" Frank asked, almost a whisper. The others were still mindlessly chatting.

"Yeah?" My head snapped up, the chase in my mind being interrupted by his voice.

"Are you okay?" His eyebrows were raised in concern.

"Y-yeah, I guess. Just thinking."

"This talk is that boring, huh?" He laughed, mimicking the note I wrote him in math that morning.

"Nah," I laughed, "I just have a lot of... confusing things in my head right now. I've just been getting trapped by them recently, you know?"

"Yeah," He nodded, "I know that feeling all too well." He looked down at his hands, almost as if he was ashamed to say that. Maybe he was. I sure was ashamed of the thoughts in my head.

"You finished with your drink?" Mikey asked me, interrupting my hushed conversation with Frank.

"Yeah," I looked over to Frank, "Are you?" I asked him. He took a final drink from his cup and we all stood and threw our trash away, walking to the car.

Frank grabbed my arm when we both fell behind everybody else, and I turned to look at him. He took out a sharpie and wrote something on my arm.

"I know you don't know me too well," He said as he scribbled on my forearm, "But here's my number. You can, uh, call me if you ever feel like shit or something. Alright?" He smiled at me.

"Alright, thanks. Do you want me to write mine down?"

"Uh, no, that's fine," He looked slightly panicked and subconsciously pulled the sleeves of his hoodie farther down his arms, shaking his head quickly.

"Oh, okay, I'll call you later, then," I smiled to show him there was nothing to worry about. He nodded and we climbed into the car.

"So, where to next?" I asked as I started the car.

"We should go back to the house and watch horror movies," Mikey suggested.

"That sounds cool," Ray agreed.

"Patrick? Frank? Are you guys alright with that?" I asked, looking in the rearview mirror at them.

"Yeah," They said in unison.

"Alright, horror movies it is," I grinned as I pulled the car out of the parking lot.

-

'"I'm fucking hungry!" Ray whined after the second movie.

"You're always hungry," Mikey slapped his arm.

"Oh, shut it. We should get pizza," Ray looked at me with puppy dog eyes.

"Fine," I pulled out my phone, "What pizza do you guys want?"

"Pepperoni," Ray replied.

"Frank's a vegetarian," I said as I looked at Frank. He looked a little shocked, probably suprised that such a small, insignificant fact stuck in my mind.

I found it interesting that he was a vegetarian because of the fact that so many animals are killed every year for us to eat. As he put it, we treat animals like shit unless they're cute and fluffy.

"Okay, let's get cheese, then," Mikey replied. I dialed the number, which I now knew by heart, ordered our pizza with a two liter of soda to go with it, and then got up off the couch.

"Any of you guys want coffee?" I asked as I walked to the kitchen.

"No thanks!" Ray called back.

"Dude, we literally got back from Starbucks a few hours ago. You need rehab or something," Patrick said. I flipped him off before walking inside the kitchen and grabbing a mug from the cabinet.

"So," Mikey's voice scared me so much I almost dropped my Star Wars mug. I turned to see him lifting himself onto the counter behind me. "What was that little number exchange back at Starbucks?" He hushed his voice a little bit.

"Nothing. Frank just said I could call him if I wanted to," I shrugged.

"Looked a little less 'call me if you're upset' and a little more ' call me to get in my pants', if you ask me," I could almost hear Mikey smirk as he spoke.

"Oh, shut up, Mikes. He just wanted to give me his number in case I felt like shit. I guess he was referring to what I said happened to Lindsey."

"Keep telling yourself that, big bro," Mikey smirked as he hopped off the counter and walked out of the kitchen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY MCR INTERVIEWS ON YOUTUBE

It's not good for when I'm trying to be productive

I listened to Brother by Falling In Reverse for the first time today and I cried a lot ;-;

My mom got me Starbucks earlier today so I'm a very happy emo right now ^-^

I think that's all

~XoChase