The Fourth Fall (Sequel to Boy In My Class) Gerard Way

Chapter 1: Fall

There’s something beautiful about fall. The weather finally becomes a bearable temperature, and everywhere becomes a beautiful mixture of orange and red shades. Little hints of Christmas begin to pop up here and there; the occasional decoration in a store window or an advertisement on what gift to buy your partner this year. New York is beautiful when fall comes around; it’s almost impossible to walk through the streets without getting lost in the beauty of it all. The satisfying sound of leaves crunching under your shoes as they scatter along the sidewalks. The slight hint of cold on your cheeks.

The realisation that you’re going to be alone at Christmas.

New York is beautiful when fall comes around for the first time. When it comes around a second time, it’s a little less beautiful. When it comes around the third time, it’s even less beautiful than before. As fall comes around for the fourth time, it becomes almost impossible to see the aforementioned beauty of it because all you can really think about is the fact that you’ve got nobody to share it with. Nobody to crunch leaves under your shoes with and nobody to warm up your cheeks as they get cold. Nobody to buy you that gift that’s being advertised or get excited with you about the Christmas decorations in stores.

The fourth fall is when I couldn’t see the beauty anymore.

Trudging to work, I angrily kicked the orange and red leaves out of my way as they covered the sidewalk. What ugly shades they are, orange and red. I walked past the same store every morning with the tiny little Christmas lights blinking away at me and this particular morning I decided to look the other way, across the street. That’s where I saw a couple, holding hands and pointing at a billboard which was advertising holidays for couples at Christmas time. Their fingers were tightly intertwined and they both had smiles spread across their faces. What an ugly sight, a couple who are in love.

As you can probably tell, I’ve become incredibly cynical, as my fourth fall alone has come in. I spent the last three Christmases travelling back to England to spend it with my mother and stepfather, before quickly returning back to New York to work at NYU. I had convinced myself to quit my job at least thirty or forty times, so that I could move back to England and start again. However, I knew that I wouldn’t find a job as good or well paid as the one I had at NYU, so I spent every day at work reliving the memories of him and I.

How we fell in love.

At the end of every working day I would go back to my apartment, stand on the balcony and smoke endless amounts of cigarettes, and relive more memories of him and I.

How we broke apart.

Every day was a constant reminder that I had taken a perfect relationship and ruined it by some childish idea that I never wanted to have children. Now that I had hit my mid-twenties, I was seeing life from a whole new perspective. Unfortunately for me, I was four years too late.

I turned the corner of the street and continued my walk to work, trying my hardest not to look at couples or Christmas decorations or the fall leaves under my shoes. If only it was possible to close my eyes and walk to work…

I glanced into a shop window at the exact wrong moment, as I saw an image that made my stomach turn. An image of a man that was so familiar and yet so unfamiliar at the same time. Beneath the image of this man read the words The Aftermath is Secondary. My Chemical Romance. 19.11.10