Never Coming Home // Frerard

Chapter 12

Mikey always played the 'strong' sibling. He never let us see him fall apart. He was always there when I was going through something difficult, but he hid himself away when something happened to him.

I've only seen him cry a handful of times before, even though I've known him all his life.

I should have known that something was wrong. I'm his older brother. I know all of his nervous tics, all of his giveaway signs of irritation or sadness, so why didn't I pick up on this?

"Gee?" I heard Frank's voice from the other side of my bedroom door.

"Come in," I sighed, not getting up from under my blankets. The door opened slowly, and Frank walked in with two Starbucks cups. I sat up as he handed me one.

"I figured you probably wanted some coffee," He said as he sat cross-legged on the end of my bed.

"Thank you," I sipped at my drink.

"How are you holding up?" He asked after taking a sip of his drink.

"Not... great," I sighed. "I'm honestly a mess."

"Understandably so," He looked around at my room. "I mean, he's your brother. That's gotta hurt pretty bad."

"I just keep wondering how I never picked up on it before. I always notice the little things he does when he gets nervous or upset."

"Depression doesn't usually have giveaway signs that are easily noticed. They happen over time: losing weight, no energy, things like that." I raised an eyebrow.

"You really know a lot about this, don't you?" I asked.

"Yeah... you could say that I have a little bit of experience with it..." He mumbled, not looking at me. I could tell it was a difficult subject for him, so I reached over and pulled him into a hug.

"I have no idea what happened, and I know you don't want to talk about it, so I'm just going to hug you and tell you I hope everything's okay."

"Thanks, Gee. You're awesome." We just sat there for a few minutes, my arms around him, in comfortable silence. "I guess I can tell you..." He said after a little while, pulling away from the hug.

"Oh, okay," I replied.

"So, this has to do with why I was in the hospital. Um, I got really badly bullied at my old school. It was horrible. I got beat up basically every day for two years. Eventually, we moved back to Jersey because all of our family was here. But at the time we decided to move, I was really, really depressed. So we came back, but before I got enrolled in this school..." He wiped some tears off his face, "I tried to kill myself."

He lifted up his sleeve to reveal one deep, jagged scarring wound that reached from the bottom of his wrist to the top of his forearm. "I passed out from the blood loss, and my mom found me on my bedroom floor. She called an ambulance, and I was taken to the hospital. They evaluated me before I was discharged, like they said they would do to Mikey, and decided long-term therapy would be better than an inpatient hospital, which is why I usually leave in the middle of school." He pulled his sleeve back down. "And that's what happened."

I was speechless. All that I wanted to do was hug Frank again, so I did. He hugged me back tightly, and I felt tear stains on my t-shirt where he was crying.

"Frank, can you help me... help Mikey? When he gets out of the hospital, I mean."

"Of course I can, Gee. I know what it feels like to be in his situation. I'm not just going to tell him to go through this whole thing by himself.

"Thank you," I smiled as I pulled away. "Let's go visit Mikey, and then maybe we can invite Ryan, Brendon and Patrick over for pizza and movies or something. Does that sound good?" He nodded.

-

Mikey was asleep in the hospital bed when we walked in. Frank sat in the chair on one side of the bed, and me on the other side. I took Mikey's hand and was happy that the heat had come back to it. For once, Mikey looked peaceful. In that moment, he had no worries, no concerns, nobody to look after. I enjoyed seeing him like this again.

"He looks almost... happy, doesn't he?" Frank asked.

"Yeah," I nodded. "He does."

"When I was asleep in the hospital, my mom visited me. And when I woke up, she told me that I didn't look sad or ashamed or jaded while I slept. She said it was the only state where I was actually at peace, and that's how I like to look at sleep, now. It's sometimes the only time someone is fully unaware of anything."

"Mikey has nightmares a lot," I sighed. "I can tell when he's having one. He cries in his sleep, his breathing is usually heavy, things like that. This is one of the few times I've seen him not have one." We sat in silence after that. I watched as Mikey's chest rose and fell, and I was finally convinced that he would soon be okay.

_

I checked the clock beside my bed. It was just past three AM, and I had school tomorrow. I sighed at the realization that I wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight and sat up in my bed.

I pulled open the draw of my bedside table and pulled out my red notebook that nobody had ever seen other than myself. In it was my secret passion: songwriting. I had been writing songs for a few years, now. I had songs about my grandma, about my family, about school, about everything that bothered me. Turning my troubled thoughts into lyrics always made things better.

I flipped to the next blank page in my journal and began to messily write what was on my mind.

 Does anyone have the time to bring me down?

 And can I sleep, all night long

 To the drums of the city rain?

 Just make it up

 Cause I'm awake

 All night long, to the drums of the city rain.

 And brother if you have the chance to pick me up

 And can I sleep on your couch

 To the pound of the ache and pain?

 Oh, in my head-

 Cause I'm awake all night long

 I hear the drums of the city rain

I wasn't able to come up with anything else at the moment, so I scrawled 'Brother' on the top of the page and flipped my journal closed, sinking back down into my blanket and falling alseep.

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

I went on vacation so I couldn't write anything /.\

Brother is my second favorite song off of Hesitant Alien (My favorite being Maya The Psychic) and it felt nice to include it somehow c:

~XoChase