Summertime (Frerard)

20: Smoke Sea Boats With Cigarette Lipped Pirates

"Don't feel as if you're obliged to stay here you know. I'm hopeless, but I can manage for an hour in a music room." Ray tossed a light-hearted smirk complete with the raised eyebrows in my direction, the Gibson in his arms letting out off pitch sounds as he attempted to tune the thing for his guitar demonstration next lesson.

How he even thought that he could enthuse any of these kind of kids with an old acoustic guitar was past me, but I wasn't going to stop him from trying at the very least, seeing as it made him just so happy to simply have his fingers down the strings. He was definitely a guitar person; his fingers gave it away.

He had guitar players fingers; worn down and padded at the tips from excessive contact with steel strings, which had probably reduced those same padded finger tips to a bleeding mess the first time he played.

It was kind of weird to think of Ray ever being a novice at anything vaguely musical, because despite his youth and inexperienced demeanour, simply spending a few lunchtimes with the guy had led me firmly set in the belief that this guy was a Jimi Hendrix in the making.

"What else would I do? Do I look like the kind of guy who has friends?" My comment didn't come off quite as jokey as I had intended, gaining a pitiful look from my music teacher and now apparent friend. It was probably kind of sad to consider your music teacher to be your friend, and in a situation like mine, quite possibly my only friend, but really, I didn't care at all.

"Yeah, you do." He reassured me, his fingers lifting from the strings as his gaze locked with mine. "Some people are just jerks, Frank."

"Yeah." I sighed, biting down on my bottom lip, finding peace and security in pressure upon the skin.

"I think Mikey was my friend, but I said something and he's avoiding me now..." I confessed, maybe it wasn't the best of ideas, but I was kind of just far too dead-set upon convincing Mr Toro that in one point in my life I had had a friend, but as my mind delved deeper into just what had happened with Mikey, I couldn't stop a blush creep upon my cheeks.

"That guy's just kind of off, you know." Ray's words came out warily, almost as if he was scared he might offend me within his opinion, but really I was awfully indifferent to Mikey Way, and awfully bad at being so.

I let out an exasperated sigh, wanting to agree with Ray, but not quite letting myself. Maybe just for the little paranoid voice in the back of my head that claimed that somehow, somewhere, Mikey was listening in on this conversation.

"He has his reasons... I guess." I sighed out, setting upon an awfully mediocre answer, but one I hoped I could pass off.

"Frank, I'm just saying he's a douche- well in my doubtful, overwhelmed music teacher opinion anyway." I chuckled a little, however the smile eradicated itself from my face as soon as I plummeted back down into reality; face first into the matter at hand, releasing a loud groan.

"Some of the best people are the biggest douchebags though." Ray chuckled, and I wanted to stop myself but I couldn't, and I thought of Gerard and his smoking and the way he hates everyone in the world and the way I fell in love with him, and of course, the mess the two of us are in now, because somehow Mikey has deemed it his business.

"Funny how things work out like that, isn't it?" Ray mused, running his fingers up and down the frets of the Gibson he held on his lap - it was pretty much in tune now, and he was just trying it out with a few simple chord shapes.

"Greatness makes egos like dominos, leaving them to topple over and wreck personalities." He let out probably the most influential sentence I'd ever heard between the dodgy stretch into an F chord with tired fingers.