Chapter Twenty-Seven Growing Up Under Gray Skies

The morning sky was an omniscient gray color, like paint thinner washing over my entire world. Or, at least, it felt that way. I didn’t want to get up that morning. I didn’t want to sit at the table, choking down orange juice and staring at dreary milk in cereal while my mother batted her eyes from the doorway, her smile beaming, because her son had had another beautiful weekend. I did have a beautiful weekend; all the time I spent with Gerard was beautiful in some form or another, even before we had started the physical aspect. But there was something tragic this weekend, something that seemed to override everything else, choking the beauty and making it take on a morbid placidity.

The beauty we had was going to end. Not only that, but it had to end. I began to realize that each step I took forward in life was essentially another one backwards in our relationship, slowly unraveling it bit by bit until I was left a spool without thread. Gerard was my thread; he held me together. He wove me into the sweater that I was becoming, turning myself into something I could depend on, something that would keep me warm. But I didn’t want to be made into anything anymore. I wanted to stay how I was, with him in his apartment, with nothing else around us. Nothing could touch us then. We had even gone outside, declaring what little we could of ourselves to the world around us and nothing bad had happened. I was starting to convince myself that maybe, just maybe, we weren’t doomed after all. We may never get caught. My birthday was coming up; it was a little over a month away. If I was eighteen, we wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I would be an adult and I could be with Gerard without society tearing us apart. They would still hate us, look down on us, and ridicule because of the age difference, but no law could physically stop us. The thought of growing up and becoming an adult no longer scared me. It excited me to no end. I wanted to grow up, and Gerard was doing a good job in preparing me.

As I walked to the bus stop, the lack of color in the sky drove straight through to my bones. I wondered what had happened to the violent pinks and yellow from the sun, and the baby blue hues of the sky I was so used to seeing. And the vibrant orange – Gerard’s favorite – what had happened to that? I couldn’t help but think of it as an omen of what was to come, and I tried to walk backwards to the bus stop, thinking it would somehow change the forthcoming shadows of doom. If walking forward meant unraveling our relationship, then maybe walking backwards could save it. I knew I was only succeeding in looking like an idiot, however, so I just stopped and walked normally, my hands jammed into my pockets. I got to the stop before everyone else did, and I was left alone in my thoughts.

For once, I was okay to stand alone by the pole where usually there were hoards of people gathered. I didn’t feel the need to whip out my music or a book, or to find someone to mingle with. I was able to stand up straight and wait for the bus – by myself. My mind wandered around in circles and squares, weaving an intricate picture of the things Gerard had taught me that weekend. He had probably taught me the most valuable lessons I ever needed. He taught me how to be alone, or was gradually enforcing that principle on me. And it was already working. Though in the restaurant on Saturday I had flipped out and not liked the sensation at all, I could hold my ground on Monday at the bus stop.

I looked around, trying to take everything into focus. Gerard said that you saw the answers for yourself in the people around you, or something like that. I looked around, seeing what I could find, and seeing what my future held. I only locked on something so strange and so distant in the forthcoming scenery - Sam and Travis approaching. I didn’t like that answer. My face sunk and I took in a deep breath. I didn’t know if I wanted to see them right away, especially when I was searching for deeper meanings in myself. I didn’t know if I wanted to see them in general.

Gerard’s lessons about questions and answers came into the forefront of my mind, giving me an extra bit of confidence. The last time I had encountered my so-called friends, I had been a bumbling fool. I knew what I was going to say just then; Gerard had told me in the car. That night, as I laid in bed, not sleeping, stuck at my own house yet again, I repeated the conversation I was hopefully going to be having with the two teens. I went over every possible reaction, every possible word, and every possible feeling. I was leaving no ground uncovered. The two had surprise attacked me before, and I had let my guard down. Not this time. I had built up my confidence bit by bit the night prior, and I only hoped I could retain it.

Sam was wearing his normal attire: baggy jeans with a t-shirt, accentuated with an unbuttoned plaid shirt hanging loosely at his sides to act as a makeshift jacket. Usually, his shirt underneath the plaid was plain, just a black or white tee that clung to his small frame and visible rib cage, but today it bared the name of a band. It was some heavy metal one that I knew Travis was obsessed with, and as the two approached more, I noticed that it was actually Travis’s shirt that the smaller boy was wearing. Travis was taller than Sam and had broader shoulders, causing the black band shirt with bright red flames on it to be huge on the other boy, and making him look even thinner. Travis was wearing all black as usual, his dark hair combed off to the side of his face, his hoodie seeming to drape off of his skinny frame.

They were walking beside each other, Travis on the road and Sam on the curb, bridging the gap of height between the two. They plodded along at a leisurely pace, Sam sometimes dipping his foot in the space between the curb and the road as he walked along the fine line of concrete like a balance beam. I watched them as they approached, noticing that something was missing, but not pinpointing the object. The small gusts of wind blew around the two, causing their long hair and loose clothing to billow and fill, changing their shapes. They were still fairly far away, just turning the corner from where Sam’s house stood, and taking their sweet time to get where I was, still standing alone. I had looked at the clock before I left the house, and noticed that I had been a little earlier than usual. But I couldn’t have been that early. There were still no kids around the stop, and the bus was nowhere to be seen.

It wasn’t a normal yellow school bus, but the town bus, chartered specially for the high school. My school wasn’t too far away, about a half an hour walk, but I never did it in the morning. I never had enough energy to walk in the morning, and always waited for the bus. I hated public transit, but since it was free (as long as I had my student card) and I was lazy, it was my savior. When it actually showed up, that is. The driver, a middle aged, disgruntled, overweight man, was notorious for just not coming into work on some days, like when the weather was particularly horrid. Other than the sky being the peculiar gray shade it was then, the weather was a good temperature. I was wearing a zip up hoodie, and as I felt the heat collecting between the folds of the fabric, I started to regret my choice. Even Travis as he approached looked as if he was dying inside his black jacket, but that could have been the remnants of druggy smoke in his eyes.

“Hey,” Sam greeted, his voice stale as they both stepped over onto the grass where I stood, still waiting. Travis didn’t say anything, but nodded his head in recognition.

“Hi,” I said, nodding back at them.

I shifted my weight and my bag on my shoulder, feeling like their eyes were staring into me. Travis always seemed to have this intense stare to him, and since he was taller than me, his eyes were always narrowed down. Sam’s glances were made in complete and utter conceit, however, his eyes looking me over from head to toe and scoffing to himself. A smile spread across his disjointed face as he flipped his thick hair back over his ears, fixing it from the winds dishevelment.

“You do realize what day it is, right?” he asked me, patronizing tone clearly evident. He had his hands shoved into his pockets, jangling the change and what I assumed to be keys around. He shifted his weight from side to side like me, but it was more so in an energetic way, excited to expose a mistake.

“Monday…” I told him, my eyes rolling around in my head slowly, unsure if that was the answer I was supposed to be giving. Knowing Sam, especially in the light I was now seeing him in, he would take any chance to correct me, even if I was technically right.

“The first day of spring break, jackass,” he scoffed, smiling and nudging me, setting free his hand from his pocket.

I just stood there and absorbed the blow, finally realizing what had been missing from the two teens beforehand: backpacks. Even if Sam and Travis never really did work, they always had their backpacks with them, mostly to carry around their lunch and stash. I also realized that that was why the bus hadn’t come yet, and why I was the only one there. If there was no school, then there would be no bus.

“Really?” I still questioned, though all of the signs pointed to Sam’s answer.

It was spring break. Our school was weird with scheduling their spring break, sometimes leaving it until the first week in April so not all the high schools were out at the same time, but regardless of what month I was in, it was still spring break right now. And I had totally forgotten about it. As I stood there and looked at Sam, I realized I didn’t even know what month it was. I hadn’t looked at a clock or calendar in ages – I hadn’t needed to. I only did to see what day of the week it was, and the numbers beside each day were soon forgotten. Gerard had taught me to not look at time. He had no clock in his apartment, except for the one he hid in his drawer, as well as calendars and date books. Looking at time was useless, because we had to live in the present.

But when the present became the future right before my eyes, it was hard not to feel a little out of it. It had just totally slipped my mind. Time had escaped me, or I had escaped it. I wasn’t entirely sure who held the upper hand in that battle, especially since I was standing here aghast. I just couldn’t believe I had been so stupid and missed out on everything. I hadn’t been to school in two days either, so no one could have reminded me about my new holiday. With this sudden news of no school, my first thoughts would have been of seeing Gerard, but another sensation washed over me. Right then in that moment, I had never felt so out of it. And I wanted to get back in.

“Yeah,” Sam laughed again, punching me lightly to snap me out of my thoughts. I looked over at him and Travis as his tone suddenly took on a serious form. “This is what happens when you ditch school all the time. And your friends.” He spat the last sentence at me, his face twisting into bitter resentment.

“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying, crumbling into pieces. I had wanted to stand my ground, to not let Sam tear me open and apart. I was going to be strong and tell him my version of the truth. Right before anyone had even asked questions, I felt my answers fading fast into oblivion. I had been jostled from my timeless state, leaving me cold, confused, and alone. An alone that I couldn’t handle just yet. An alone that Gerard didn’t teach me about. And now I was an open wound, as Travis and Sam flicked salty words at me.

My emotions started to change shapes and forms, paint thinner wearing away at my strong hold. I felt guilty for ditching my friends. I never really thought that my seemingly small actions had had that much of an effect before. I was just leaving them; I thought they had already left me. But apparently, they had still been waiting all the time by the bus stop to see if I would ever come around. And when I did, it was time to layer on the guilt.

I hadn’t been exposed to guilt in such a long time. Gerard had always told me it was a useless emotion. I agreed with him there - it made my stomach tie in knots and drop down to my knees. It made me want to tear off my skin and apologize profusely. I began to think about all the other people I had been letting down by not being around consistently. My mother was happy for me, but I could see the strain in her eyes. She knew something else was up, and the charade she was putting on for me and herself was only hurting her. I had zoned out of my life completely, starting another one with Gerard. One I would only have to leave soon, and just go back to the normal, everyday existence I had been stuck with for so long. Sure, I would be better prepared for it after all of the lessons he had taught me, but those lessons were useless if no one knew who I was anymore.

“You’ve been disappearing, man,” Sam said, interrupting my thoughts and backing them up at the same time. I had been disappearing. I had been finding myself with Gerard, but losing myself at the same time. I didn’t show people who I was when I was with Gerard. They didn’t see the old me, or the new me. They only saw me coming and going, ignoring their phone calls and invites. They only saw the shadow of me. Shadows have a limited time warranty, and my sun was coming up soon.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized again, my own words stinging in my blood. “But I’ve been busy.”

“Busy with what?” Sam questioned, the words flicking past his flat tongue harshly.

I swallowed hard. This was the question I had been waiting for, preparing for, and even disappearing for. I may have been a shadow to them then, but I could make it all up. I could make the guilty feeling disappear by making myself reappear. If they knew what I had ditched them for, maybe I could be forgiven. The question still remained if I really wanted Sam and Travis to forgive me, but it seemed better than the feelings I had right then.

“I’ve been learning how to play guitar,” I said, trying to come off as confident as I could. I waited for them to respond, but I got nothing. My heart sank, not hearing words of encouragement right away. But I kept going, determined to make this work. I needed to relate it to them before they cared. Teenagers were self-centered, I had to remind myself. Even though I had done a lot of growing with Gerard, I knew that I still pertained to this ideal.

“I’ve been getting pretty good, too,” I added along to my story, trying to escape the silence that surrounded us like the gray sky up above. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the ultimate test in everything. “And I was hoping that we could do something with it.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Sam cut in, questioning my methods already. He furrowed his brow, his tone trivial and demeaning. I swallowed hard again, summoning more courage than ever before.

“We as in us three,” I clarified, taking a hand out of my pocket and motioning around. Neither of them moved or breathed, and I doubted they blinked. They just looked at me, stared at me, and waited for me to continue. “I was thinking that since I can play guitar again, maybe we could start a band?”

I scrunched up my face, not even sure if I wanted in on the idea anymore. I felt like I was descending through the stages of life I had grown up in, reverting back to childhood again. Unraveling the thread of the sweater Gerard was making me.

“Why would we start a band?” Travis finally spoke up, his thick voice breaking through. His question was innocent at first, but as he looked down at Sam, a snide smirk fell upon the shorter man’s face.

“Why wouldn’t we, Travis?” Sam uttered, shrugging his shoulders and flipping his hair sarcastically. He blinked as he rolled his eyes, changing that versatile voice of his into a high pitched nuisance. “I mean, wouldn’t it be, like, the totally hippest thing to do?” Sam continued with his perky mannerisms, causing Travis to chuckle and my heart to sink to the grass.

It was one thing if Sam and Travis completely rejected my idea. I could handle that; Gerard had taught me about rejection many times. If they didn’t want to do it, then that was fine. Honestly, I wasn’t even feeling the idea as much as I had been before. Guitar wasn’t in my hands; something else was. What I didn’t need, and wasn’t prepared for, were the reactions I did get. Sam and Travis didn’t have to be complete and utter asses over the subject, talking down to me as if I were nothing. I clenched my fists at the side of my rigid body, debating my next move.

“Sam, just shut the fuck up,” was all I could muster to say.

Gerard had not taught me how to defend myself from insults. He had taught me how to ask and answer questions, but he seemed to be completely unaware that I was not dealing with normal individuals. I was dealing with teenagers. And we were some pretty nasty fuckers when we wanted to be. Gerard also clearly didn’t understand that though guilt was useless, it was still present, and it was a violent weapon when placed in the wrong hands.

“Oh, Frank,” Sam cooed sarcastically, his voice and characteristics returning to normal. He straightened his posture, seeming a foot taller than me (even though he was my height, and even shorter in real life) as he began to walk forward. His face was open and condescending, but quickly changed to hardened anger within a few words.

“ You shut up,” he spat, looking me up and down again. His brown eyes were now flecked with orange specks, giving the illusion of fire. I stared at him, not able to take my eyes off of the spontaneous combustion in front of me. I could see Travis, however, in the background of the chaos. He was smiling sardonically, pleased at what was going on. His black clothed shoulders were hunched over, as if he were some God-like figure watching this scene unfold in front of him before his very eyes.

“You can’t expect us to come and join your little band, if you’ve been nothing but an asshole to us these past few weeks,” Sam concluded, his stature falling slightly. He moved to stand next to Travis, both of them folding their arms across their chests, the duality of corruption evident.

I tried to swallow hard again, but I was met with sand in my throat. Nothing was working; not in my body, my mind, or in real life. This was just fucked up. My heart pounded in my chest, causing the blood to pump right to the veins under my cheeks, turning them a bright tinge of crimson.

How could I have been so wrong about fucking everything? I asked myself over and over again as my two former friends in front of me gave me disdainful looks. I thought I was growing up. I thought I was learning. I thought I fucking had answers. How could I have fucked everything up this bad? I felt like a piece of shit, not being able to hold down any type of friendship. I was a shadow on the wall, Sam and Travis being the beam of sunlight that washed over me, exposing everything about me. I had been a shit to them, expecting them to just drop everything and join something they had never expressed an interest in, not even in the depths of childhood. Even if they were a shit to me first, I was only stooping to their level, which made me feel like even more of a shit. I got an icky feeling inside my gut, everything accumulating at once and spewing out of me.

“I’m sorry,” I stated again, my gaze falling to the grass. I wanted to rip out every single strand I saw and set fire to the earth. I didn’t want to see the colors anymore. I didn’t want to see the beauty in nature. I didn’t want to see beauty in anything. As far as I was concerned, everything around me was ugly. Drop dead fucking ugly.

“Whatever,” Sam barked, loosening his stature, surprised he had won so soon. He curled his hair behind his ears again before he glanced up at Travis, who smiled back down at him. This was not a nice smile, despite the happy gleam in both of their eyes.

“You’re just lucky we’re such good friends,” he stated, both of them coming around the side of me.

I snapped up and out of my dazed state of repeating my failures over and over again. Even in times like these, Sam could still find a way to rub the hurt in even more. Sam loved to destroy things, but he only loved to destroy them so he could build them up again, and call himself the creator. He was ruining my confidence, the confidence that I had worked so hard to obtain with Gerard, only to have it all break down with a few simple words. I felt Sam’s arm link with mine as he started to drag me forward, budding into his new creation.

And I let myself be led.

As the three of us began to walk again, Travis lagging slightly behind despite his long legs, my thoughts ran rapid. At first, I began to blame myself for all that had happened. It was my fault that I was being a dick, a prick, and a shit to my friends. It was my fault for worrying my already frantic mother with where her son was all weekend. It was my fault I couldn’t hold my ground and start to work up to this band ideal. I couldn’t even get them to listen to me when I told them about my guitar playing. That had been the only thing I had told them in weeks that hadn’t been a lie, and I still let them crush it beneath their fingers. I couldn’t even find my fucking passion, when the answer was right in my own hands. I folded, because obviously I hadn’t been doing anything right. But as I ran over everything that had happened in the past few weeks, I made an alarming discovery.

My failure was not my fault. It was all Gerard’s.

Ever since he had started teaching me these lessons, hell, ever since I had met him, I had been captivated. I wanted to run to his apartment every day after school in order to clean fucking paint brushes, just to be around this man. Then, when he was teaching me how to paint, it only gave me more fuel to keep going back again and again. But what would painting get me in real life? What would learning about modern art and Van Gogh really do for me in the long run?

Nothing.

The answer was as clear as day. I didn’t even bother to tell Sam and Travis about my painting, because I knew they would have hated it even more than the guitar. Art was useless in life, especially when you were a teenager. My dad had been able to figure that out ages before me. Maybe I should have listened to him – he was my family, after all – and not even bothered with Gerard.

Even when Gerard had started to teach me these life lessons, he had failed at preparing me. His lessons didn’t work, or at least, he picked the wrong topics to teach. He was teaching me French when German was more prevalent in high school, and my heritage called for Italian. He wanted to prepare me for the world, to make it easier for me to live a life by myself. But the world we had created inside his apartment with bare flesh and enlightened dreams as the foundation was nothing compared to what lay in store for me on the outside. In the real world, art was useless, guilt was a staple, and rejection happened every single fucking day, every single fucking second. You had to cover up bare flesh, and dreams were always broken. Mine were broken right in front of me that day, and Gerard had never taught me how to pick up the pieces.

Not everyone was like Gerard on the outside: encouraging and loving, letting a teenager run wild in their life in order for him to find himself. And that was where my failing had been. I had put too much faith in the artist that didn’t have to go through what I did. He could stay in his apartment and live that life over and over again without disruption. He didn’t have to come out every day, deal with parents and friends and school. I had been twisting and turning between two worlds for so long, that I blended the lines together. Only this was not a painting. There was no blending here, just sharp corners. I cut myself on those corners, and this time, I let myself bleed. I wasn’t going to go to him for help, because he couldn’t help me anymore, at least not while I was here.

I walked with Sam and Travis, even though I knew they were only going to treat me the same way they always had. I found it funny how Sam could be so mad at me one moment, calling me an asshole and breaking my hopes into pieces, but then welcome me right back to his circle of friends. It was a vicious pattern and circle that I didn’t know how to break and didn’t want to, the more I thought about and ran around it. At least if I stayed with them now, then I didn’t have any surprises up ahead.

“So,” Sam started after some mindless chit-chat exchanged briefly between him and Travis. His arm was still linked with mine, making sure I did not get away. He patted my shoulder as he talked, snapping me into reality. For good this time.

“Since it is spring break now, we have a lot of catching up to do.”

He looked down at me even though we were the same height, waiting for me to continue. I merely nodded my head. I didn’t know what to say anymore. Everything was wrong inside my head; something they wouldn’t understand.

“Where have you been all this time?” Sam asked me, a curious nature in his voice that I couldn’t ignore. Sam had to know things, like who had been replacing him as the creator of my image. I never controlled my image, I realized. It was always those around me. Sam or Gerard. Gerard or Sam. And maybe my father for a little while. It was a constant battle that people were fighting to keep me, without any of them ever knowing.

Sam was going to win, mostly because I was tired of fighting.

“Told you. Learning guitar,” I said weakly, drawing upon my previous story.

“At that apartment building we caught you outside of?” he added, his voice hitching at the end. His words made me cringe; he knew just what ones to use to make me feel even guiltier.

“Yeah,” I expressed in barely a breath of air. I felt Travis’s strong presence beside me, taking a giant stride to stop us.

“That guy’s house,” was all the tall boy said, his meaning resonating in everyone’s memory. Except Sam. He walked on merrily for a while until he threw himself into a sudden halt, unlocking his arm from my own.

“Wait. What?” he questioned, his voice dropping to the bottom of his stomach. He looked over at Travis’s placid face and then at mine. I couldn’t hide the color rushing to my visage, betraying me and showing my embarrassment.

Gerard never told me how to fix this either, I thought bitterly.

“Fucking fag,” Sam uttered lowly, with a harsh edge. He began to walk again, coming up beside me but not touching my arm like he had before. I didn’t miss his touch, but couldn’t help but find deeper meaning in it.

“Don’t tell me that fucking fag was teaching you guitar.” The words were bluntly stated, not forming a question, but I couldn’t help but throw in my answer.

“Then I won’t.” I knew I was being a smart-ass, and I had no idea why. I almost hoped that Sam would recognize my attitude as the same he possessed and be proud, instead of noticing the gay connotations behind everything.

There was another sudden halt, and a firm hand slap against my arm. Sam was big with rough physical contact, batting at people to get their attention, but this was more than an attention swat. It was even more than a ‘shut the fuck up’ or ‘behave’ swat. There was fear in the gesture, and I saw it in Sam’s eyes as he looked. The fear of gay by association came into play all over again, like it was some kind of fucking disease. If I was hanging out with the artist, I was gay, and if Sam was hanging out with me, he was gay. Everyone who knew everyone would be gay and then the apocalypse would happen. It was stupid, wrong, but still very present in the minds of teenage boys.

It had to be snuffed out.

“Frank, don’t fuck with us,” he stated, the words coming out like double-tipped razors, threatening both of our skin. Sam needed me to tell him that I was just fucking with him in order for him to be secure with his sexuality. He needed this to be a joke in order to live. He needed my life to be a joke, my decision to be meaningless, so he would be okay with himself. I felt the razors sting me in another way, snuffing out the person I actually was.

I was gay. I fucked Gerard and fucking liked it. But I had to hide that from them. I needed to hide it from everyone, including myself now.

We were stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, all three of us just looking at each other. More so, the two of them just fucking staring at me. I could see the fear begin to mount in Travis’s countenance. He didn’t hit or talk, but the fear was there. Association was key. It told you who was popular and who was the outcast.

I didn’t want to be the outcast, even if the people who accepted me didn’t matter in the long run. High school friendships were fleeting and high school was almost over. But until it was, I was attaching myself to them like a confused leech, while they sucked my blood. It had been different at Gerard’s place. I had been unique and creative and an artist all in one. But again, that was in his world. In my own world, the one I would be staying in for the time being (and probably the rest of my life – after all, Gerard and I had to come to an end eventually), I wanted to blend in. I was not unique anymore. I was what Sam told me to be.

I was not gay.

“I’m kidding,” I stated, waving my hands in the air and faking a smile. “Let’s just forget about it?”

Sam pursed his lips, looking me up and down again, before nodding his head.

Better to be a fake agreement than nothing at all.

“All right,” he agreed slowly, beginning the walk again and standing even farther from me. I crushed my eyes closed, feeling guilt seep into my system again. Only this time, I felt guilty for what I had done to Gerard. It was indirect, of course, but I had basically denied his presence in my life. I denied my sexuality for my friends and thus denied our relationship ever existed. Sure, I was mad at him for not teaching me the right things and building my hopes up so high for them to only get torn down, but at least he had tried. At least he was taking the time to teach me something, giving me hope in the first place. I had never met anyone who cared for me so much. And I cared for him right back. It was just hard, living in the seemingly opposite universes that we did. It was so hard and I didn’t know how to fix it. I only broke things instead.

I wondered if he were to see me right then, caving and folding so easily, what he would do. He may just end up taking the whole situation and making it yet another lesson. But what would this lesson be? Don’t listen completely to your fag boyfriend? Don’t get too involved living in a dream world? I couldn’t see the moral behind this story, because Gerard wasn’t around to point it out to me. Maybe there wasn’t even one to begin with. Maybe it was just life, and I had to live it. I had to just go with the flow, and not over-think everything so much. Actions were just actions. Sam not walking as close to me as before may just be that and nothing else. The sky being gray might have just meant that the sky was gray. It didn’t have to mean anything.

Life was not a painting, even if Gerard said it was. Gerard had said a lot of things to me, and though he was a smart man, they didn’t all make sense. They didn’t all apply at once without conflicting. Life was just a picture, and we all just had to look at it. No interpretations, no double meanings. It was what it was. Pretty, but for the most part, unmoving.

“So, Frank,” Sam cut in, switching from the curb to the road with each step, pushing Travis out to the middle of the road as he walked like a gymnast on a balance beam.

“Yeah?”

“Me and Travis are hanging out with a few people tonight,” he started, glancing over to his other friend and smiling hard. I caught myself wondering if they were thinking something else as they spoke, but quickly shoved myself out of that pondering. They were just smiling. They were happy. That was it.

“And?” I questioned, kicking a pebble in front of me, focusing on something else.

“You coming?” he questioned, looking at me with wide eyes that already displayed my answer. I glanced over at him, and then back to the pebble on the ground, trying my hardest not to compare myself to the inanimate stone. I gave it a good hard kick, shoving it into the oblivion that never existed and just thought about everything.

If I went out with them that night, it meant not seeing Gerard. I felt so shattered inside right then that I just wanted to run into his arms and have him tell me everything was okay. I wanted him to kiss and hold me. I knew he would find some solution to the mess I had created, or he created in some ways. His preparing me for the world was not working. He had been preparing me for his world, for his use and measure. He taught me about art so I would paint with him. He taught me about life so I could live it with him, in his paint-strewn apartment. But it wasn’t his world that I was going to live in if society thrust us apart. It was this world, this dark and desolate city in Jersey, that I was going to be living in. The lessons he was teaching me meant nothing here, so why would I bother to go back to his house tonight just to learn more? I should just stay where I was. My house was there, my parents were there, and my so-called friends were as well. I was so young, and I was already having trouble living.

My life felt so complicated, falling in between these two cracked universes. But it was because of the double meanings that I placed on things, that life itself was more complicated. If I just did things without thinking, then I wouldn’t feel so trapped. If I did things without adding a sub-context to them, then I wouldn’t feel so crushed when what I thought didn’t match the reality. If I stopped trying to act like Gerard, then maybe I could live how I was supposed to.

So finally, I did something without thinking of the direct consequences, without double meaning and circumstance.

“Yes,” I told Sam, sending a smile riveting across his face.

He nodded his head, his voice resonating with complete and utter arrogance. “I knew you would always come back to us.”

He walked over towards me again, deciding it was okay to link arms once more, any threat removed. I had come back to them, and really, I always would. I had to.

If Gerard was preparing me for real life, he wasn’t doing a good job, because I was just going to spend it here in the real world. I still cared for him, I knew that deep down inside. I never wanted our relationship to end, but the more time I spent with him, the closer it would come to ending. I needed to take time apart from him. I needed time where I didn’t have to grow up anymore, being away from him and all of his lessons. Ironically, to make everything last longer with him, I needed to undo all of his teachings by spending less time with him. I needed to unravel that sweater, to have him spend more time working on me, building me up again before he eventually let me go. He said he wouldn’t leave me until I was ready, so I was going to make it so it would be a damn long time before that ever came around. It seemed like the perfect bridge between the two universes I was biding my time in. And if it didn’t work, I was going to have to get used to this world eventually, in this small Jersey city.

As I began to walk with Sam and Travis back down the street, I couldn’t help but wonder if Gerard would be proud of the plan I had. It was a compromise, a trick, and yet another double meaning. But I quickly shoved that notion from my mind.

Double meanings were useless, after all.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14