He knew Frank just wanted to make him feel better, and he appreciated the sentiment, but he didn't say what he was thinking: that Frank was only making it worse.
--
"What is it?" Gerard asked. "Mikey. Hey."
He had decided to ask right out, rather than keep pretending he didn't notice. Mikey was sitting on the floor and he didn't move when Gerard sat down next to him.
Mikey's room was neater than Gerard's, but only because he didn't have as much stuff; he didn't care about as many things as Gerard. There was a poster on the wall above the bed of some British group that was one of the few Gerard hadn't discovered first, the stereo was dressed in CDs, all out of their covers, spilling on to the floor. The blinds were pulled.
They sat like that for a while. When Gerard put an arm around him, Mikey ducked his head, his face obscured by his hair and the glasses.
It was slightly awkward; they hadn't really hugged for a long time. When they were young, it had been easy. When they'd had to share a mattress in some relative's big scary house, it hadn't been difficult being Mikey's big brother then, but Gerard didn't really know how to comfort him anymore.
When Mikey finally mumbled something, it was in a small voice, and Gerard tightened his arms around him and thought about attic noises and Mikey curled up next to him, scared of the dark.
***
Pete had not planned to be caught making out with Mikey Way in the playground, up against the climbing tree, in the middle of the night. Well, ten o'clock at night. Luckily it was just by a man out walking his dog, and Pete wasn't even sure he noticed that they were both boys, but it made him wake up and realize what he was doing.
"I have to go home," he panted, zipping up his hoodie again.
Mikey just nodded quietly. His jacket was on the ground where Pete had pushed it off his shoulders.
It was probably the worst he had ever acted, Pete thought after. He panicked. He realized that even if he stopped this right this second, there would always be one other person who knew and that was too many people for Pete to feel comfortable about.
So he told Mikey that it had been a set up and that everyone was laughing at him. It had gone as far as it had because Pete wanted to see if he could get a blowjob out of it. It wasn't a polished lie, but it was believable because Mikey was Gerard's kid brother and in the dark, with Mikey's eyes so wide, clearly wanting this, hand in Pete's, it must have seemed like the most believable thing in the world.
In his blog that night he wrote: "can't meet your eyes. can't meet my own."
--
Once, Pete had moved his hand from Mikey's thigh up to his waist, and along the way he'd slid the heel of his palm over the zipper in Mikey's jeans, and Mikey had definitely been at least half hard. Pete really owed a lot to Mikey that he didn't have more to regret now. Mikey didn’t seem ready to deal with anything below the waist, which was fine, which was a relief, Pete didn't want to do anything like that either, except his body was treacherous and sort of had no boundaries when it came to Mikey and the backseat of his car.
There had been times when he had been begging, pressed against Mikey, on fire, pleading, "please just let me, you don't have to do it back, I just need to, please," and it always seemed to make Mikey more nervous. Maybe he didn't believe that Pete wouldn't expect him to return the favor, and Pete sort of understood why. But he couldn't help thinking about what Mikey's dick would feel like in his hand and his mouth, without the denim and cotton and zipper, and just the thought of that kind of intimacy made his head spin. He imagined it when he was alone in bed at night and sometimes Mikey didn't even need to return the favor in Pete's fantasies. He wasn't sure what was wrong with him, but he didn't think that was normal.
He looked up websites about alternative sexualities, but even though there were a lot of people on there who thought they were going through the same thing, he thought, no, no one else understood this, no one else was feeling like this, he was alone. He never thought to talk to Mikey about it, because Mikey was not Pete, they weren't the same, and Pete had always been alone with his head and heart. But in the end, fantasies and thoughts were easy to take back, or forget about, and thanks to Mikey, there wasn't really much that had changed. He was still the same: he wasn't gay, he wasn't drawn to any other guy in school, he wasn't drawn to any girls either; he never felt anything for anybody. Mikey was just an idiosyncrasy.
--
He couldn't meet Mikey's eyes the next day, mainly because by then he was furious. Furious at how messed up this was. He was angry that Mikey had been so stupid, so pliable, and that he had caused Pete to doubt himself like that; it nagged at Pete, tore open his barely contained anxiety. He was a sophomore and a soccer star and a basketcase; he didn't need Mikey to come along and make it worse.
When he didn't see Mikey all day, he finally ended up seeking him out, cornering him against the wall by the toilets.
"Hi," Mikey said, somewhat warily.
"How the fuck could you have believed it was real?" Pete spit out. "They must have done this to your brother a hundred times."
Pete knew for a fact that there had been at least one bet for a girl to pretend to flirt with Gerard to get him to embarrass himself, and Gerard had barely noticed her, which was when the gay rumours really took off.
Mikey shrugged. His headphones were tangled up in his shirt and bag strap where Pete had torn them out of his ears. "No, I thought it was probably a set up," he said, quietly.
Pete blinked at him, dumbfounded. "But then...why did you go along with it?" he asked.
Mikey didn't answer, and Pete felt like someone had just punched him in the stomach. It took a while for him to catch his breath again.
--
He had stolen so many Ativan that it was finally noticeable, and he dreaded what would happen when it was discovered. There was no way they would be able to let that slide; he would have to explain himself, explain about his dreams and the headaches and the suffocating feeling that was keeping him awake at night.
There was no real explanation for it. He was being slowly strangled by the suburb. His room and the house and his car and his computer and schoolbag and his friends were all going to bury him alive and slowly pile up on top of him as he sank deeper and deeper beneath the surface. He woke up from dreams, fighting for breath. He wanted something to grind against, something tangible, for leverage, but at the same time he wanted cotton and comforting, beautiful headaches.
The pills were all gone: he didn't stockpile, and he never took enough of them, so they never really helped, but he panicked at the thought that he wouldn't have them there across the hall anymore, like a comforting friend, someone to sleep with.
His parents noticed that something was wrong of course, and they asked him about it, and he really didn't know what to tell them. They worried; he heard them mumbling late at night and he was absolutely sure it was about him. The makeup seemed forgotten about - it was never mentioned again, and, conveniently, Pete was sort of over it anyway. It had just been a thing, something to try out. He still loved the way the eyeliner accentuated and dirtied up his eyes, especially when he was in the bathroom under the harsh lights, crying, but it was a bitch to get off afterwards and he was always scared he'd go to school with traces of it still around his red-rimmed eyes.
Mikey had been like a headache, but also something to grind against, even though he'd never let Pete. It was kind of funny; he had used Mikey a little bit, even though it should have been the other way around if the world had been the right way up. He couldn't help it. He had enough going on just trying to get through a school day and soccer practice without the facade starting to bleed, and he wondered what his parents would say if they knew that the only thing keeping him on the rails so far had been a lanky, weird-looking boy with pretty, melancholy eyes who had been really nice to Pete, had picked him up from town in the middle of the night just because Pete had asked him to, had listened to him, and smiled at him, and touched him when Pete asked him to.
He missed Mikey. That was an unforeseen problem. He missed the tense, nervous, electrical feeling that was big enough and worrisome enough that it wiped away all the other problems he usually obsessed about. He'd gotten used to the uncomfortable, nervous, liquid heat pooling in his stomach and at the base of his spine, how he was always scared, but always thinking about it, and now there was just a dull ache.
He wasn't in love, because love was supposed to be selfish and hardcore and Mikey Way was none of those things. It was cozy being with Mikey – or maybe cozy wasn't the right word. Pete searched for words, none were totally right. But his heart slowed to a comfortable pace when he was with Mikey, if they weren't making out. There were moments when he rested his head on Mikey's shoulder and talked about bits and pieces of his life and didn't care what he said. In his blog, he wrote less about his mind and more about his body. He listened to Mikey's music and it made him feel better, even after he'd made Mikey hate him. He wrote poetry, but he started to think of it as lyrics.
One afternoon, he found Mikey by his car in the school parking lot, looking a bit lost.
"Hi," Pete said, "What are you doing?"
Mikey looked up and seemed a little startled when he saw Pete. Pete wondered if Mikey had already forgotten what his car looked like, or maybe he'd never really paid attention.
"Um, Gee was supposed to give me a lift," Mikey said, "But I think his car is gone."
Pete sighed. "Okay. Do you want a ride?"
"No." Mikey quickly shook his head. "No, it's fine."
Pete just sighed and didn't argue. He got into his own car and reversed out of the parking space. He didn't throw a look in the back mirror as he drove off. He got stuck in the tumult of the line to the exit for a while, and when he was finally on the road, he noticed Mikey walking along the curb, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, earphones on. He honked, and Mikey's head shot up. When he had Mikey's attention, he slowed and pulled over.
He waited while Mikey walked somewhat warily back to his car, bending down by his window. "Um," Mikey said.
"Get in," Pete said, "I'll give you a ride."
Mikey hesitated. "It's alright." He looked down the highway, as if he could see his house from there. "It's not far."
That was a lie. It was far.
"I know where you live," Pete said.
Mikey went a bit red and mumbled, "Yeah, okay," and went around the car to get into the passenger seat. Pete pulled away from the curb again.
"So, how's it going?" he asked after they had been driving in silence for a while.
Mikey nodded. "Fine."
"How is the croquet team doing?"
"Fine. The same." He thought he saw Mikey smile a little, even if it was just courteously.
Mikey didn't ask him about soccer or anything else and Pete thought, fair enough. They were quiet again, and Pete realized he was expecting Mikey to start fiddling with the radio, just like he'd done all the other times he'd been in Pete's car.
He thought that maybe they should talk, even if it was just courteously.
"Look, the deal is, I'm not gay," he blurted out, sort of inelegantly, and he noticed that Mikey flinched. He had meant to be blunt, but he still sighed. "What I mean is, it's not my fault. I'm just not, so it wouldn't have been – you know what I mean." Mikey nodded and Pete wished he'd say something else, but Mikey didn't, so Pete continued, "I got carried away. I thought maybe I could get something out of it." He looked over. "It was pretty decent of me to stop it before it went that far, wasn't it?"
Mikey nodded, but he might as well have been shaking his head or shrugging. Pete sighed.
He wished he wasn't so smart. And that wasn't being conceited; he wished he could believe his own lies, the stuff he was telling Mikey.
"Have you told Gerard about us?" he asked.
He had to look over to see Mikey shake his head, and Pete thought maybe it wasn't the whole truth. Maybe Mikey had told Gerard some things or Gerard had figured it out on his own, or maybe he'd seen them somewhere. That night on the patio, the night that was burned into Pete's mind and made his stomach clench even now, it would be pretty fucking ironic if that was the night Gerard had witnessed. Ironic in a way that made Pete want to drive the car into a ditch.
"Do you think he knows?"
"Maybe." Mikey's voice was tense, his body angled towards the door as if he couldn't wait to get out again.
"Do you think he would tell anyone?"
"No," Mikey said, simply and Pete believed him.
"Okay." Pete pulled a hand over his face. He breathed out, glanced over. "Thanks."
Mikey shrugged. He was looking out the window and Pete felt suddenly fiercely sad. He almost wished that Mikey was a bit more like him, that he would take the opportunity to manipulate this into something else. But Mikey was just looking out the window.
If I hadn't broken it off, Pete thought, he would be looking at me right now like he really wanted me and couldn't believe he could have me.
When they were getting closer to the Way's house, Pete slowed down, then pulled over. "Listen, I know you don't believe me," he said.
Mikey had reached for the door handle as soon as Pete stopped the car and he looked a bit disappointed that the conversation wasn't over.
"No, I believe you," he mumbled.
Pete knew that Mikey had no clue what he was talking about. "No, listen. I know it seems like I'm lying, but I'm not. I'm just not, you know. I'm sorry, it's not my fault. But I won't tell anyone."
"Okay." Mikey was looking down at his hands in his lap, eyes flickering towards the CD player and Pete's bag and Pete's lap, anything but at Pete's eyes. "Thanks." He didn't move, but he clearly wanted to get out. Pete was overcome by memories of Mikey in his car, of comfort and excitement and not this empty, safe, suffocating silence.
"It's not my fault," he said, lower this time.
He leaned over and Mikey met his eyes then and there was the moment when Mikey realized what Pete was about to try to do and he looked suddenly scared to death. "I – uh, I, I can walk from here," Mikey mumbled and scrambled for the door handle, pushing the door open and almost tumbling out.
"Mikey," Pete said, but the door slammed and Pete sat back, closed his eyes and groaned. "Fuck, what the fuck?" he said, to himself.
He got the car into gear and pulled away from the curb, tires screeching.
--
There had been this one perfect night a few weeks ago when they had spent an hour sitting together on the creaky patio to Mikey's house. It had been late at night and Mikey had climbed out of the window when Pete called his cell phone, but then he hadn't wanted to go anywhere in case his parents woke up, so they sat on the porch until 2.30 am, watching the moon. It had been warm enough, but cool enough that they had curled up together. Mikey's head had been resting against his arm and they'd been whispering, probably hadn't been talking about anything important, but Mikey had ended up with his head in Pete's lap and Pete had slid an arm under his neck and they'd kissed softly for a few moments, which felt like it was for longer than Pete had ever wanted to do anything.
--
He didn't know what struck him at first. He was turning a corner on his way to soccer practice, and suddenly he was pushed back through some bushes and up against the wall at the back of the gym, and a knee hit his stomach. It had probably been aimed at his groin, he realized later, grateful suddenly that all it did was make him double over. He tried to defend himself, kicked at air and almost tumbled them both over. A clumsy punch landed on his cheek and they both groaned. He had a bruise the size of Gerard's fist on his face for days after.
**
"Why do you guys take this shit?" Bob said when he saw Gerard's face at the next band meeting.
They were checking out some gear that they might be able to hire from the school band and over by the drum set, Ray was getting bossy because he was the only one with his own instrument and it had been his idea.
"Yeah, that's what I said too," Frank muttered, as he passed them, carrying a small amp.
Gerard's face was healing, but the swelling around his mouth made him look worse than he had two days ago.
"What do you suggest I do?" Gerard said, "Learn karate?"
Bob shrugged, "No. But they gang up on you, so you gang up on them."
"Yeah," Frank said, " Yeah. "
Bob rolled his eyes at Frank, but his gaze was steady on Gerard. "So, how many were they?"
Gerard blinked. "Uh... four, I think."
Bob splayed his hands, "And there are four of you."
"Yeah," Frank said again, "Wait. You're not going to help?"
Bob picked up the tambourine stand and the drum sticks, and carried it over to where Ray was meticulously organizing them to play. "Nah," he said over his shoulder, "When there's five of them, I'll help."
--
He started writing songs almost out of fear of Bob, because Bob had frowned and said, "well, what's the fucking point of having a band if no one is going to be writing any songs? What, are we just going to sit around and do Green Day covers?"
He hummed, but mostly there were words, words, so much to say. When he showed it to Ray, there was a sudden strange pride. He had expected to feel embarrassed, but Ray nodded, said it was interesting. They were in the basement in Ray's house and his song had been about vampires as a metaphor for cancer as a metaphor for high school. Ray got his guitar out and three hours later there was a song of sorts. Gerard was breathless. He knew Ray could play, but he didn't know he could play like that.
"When did you learn this?" Gerard had asked him, slightly stunned, and Ray had shrugged and said, "Every night, basically,"
Gerard thought about the long nights in his room that had perfected his art and made high school bearable, and he suddenly felt a connection to Ray, like he was starting to see him in a different light. They had known each other since they were 14 and Ray had always been an awkward, undefined loser-kid who didn't have a choice but to hang with people like Gerard and whose parents pushed him to play violin when he wanted to learn the drums, but now he thought that Ray seemed to actually know who he was and what he wanted to do, and he was passionate and dedicated and knew a hell of a lot about song structure and chord progression.
Almost unwillingly, Gerard started thinking that maybe the band wouldn't just be a way to pass the time, maybe it would be more, maybe this time next year he would be an art student who was in a band. It felt like an ocean must divide that kind of life from his now, but it was only a summer. Some of his bruises would hardly have time to fade.
--
When Gerard went to get his jacket and bag after the last class of the day, Frank was waiting by his locker.
"Hi," he said. He was leaning against the locker door next to Gerard's, chewing on a nail. "Do you wanna do something?"
"Sure." Gerard put his books away and got his bag out. He was a bit embarrassed, because a few days earlier someone had written "fag" on his locker door with a black marker, and he still hadn't found a good way to get rid of it. He noticed that Frank glanced quickly at the word, but he didn't say anything.
"We could go to your house," Frank said instead. "I got my bike, but I can leave it here."
Gerard nodded. "Okay. Sure."
Frank chatted the whole way home as the bus weaved through the back roads. Gerard mostly listened and watched the low bushes and houses as they passed. Sometimes Frank's train of thoughts were difficult to keep up with, but Gerard had learned that you didn't need to listen to everything he said as long as he got to talk, and when he paused for breath, Gerard could usually just nod and say "really?"
"He's like one of the best drummers in school, I think he said he's been looking for a band, like, a real band, to play with. He was in a band in Chicago. I think that's what he said."
"Really?"
The kiss between them hadn't changed the fact that Frank was a touchy talker. He would touch Gerard's leg, arm, chest, lean close and not let his gaze up.
"Yeah. He's just going to prom with some friends. No dates. Like, the drumline just decided to go as a group. I don't think he likes all the fucking drama either. Apparently there was a catfight in the girls toilet or something because Brian asked two girls, so they both thought they were going with him. You know, the mascot."
Gerard tried not to think too much about what had happened two days earlier on his bed when Frank had kissed him - twice, with tongue - because Frank had been drunk and Gerard had been pathetic, so there were plenty of reasons why Gerard shouldn't think about it.
He did, though, almost every day, every time he saw Frank, and sometimes he could tell that Frank thought about something similar, because he'd bite his lip and look uncomfortable or would laugh too loudly and not look at Gerard. Otherwise nothing was weird between them, and Gerard knew that real kisses changed things between people, so it had definitely not been one of those. They were fine.
"I think his defense was that he was drunk when he asked the first one and stoned when he asked the other. Bet he's going to end up going with both too." Frank pinched his arm, "Hey, we're getting off."
As they got their bags and made their way down the aisle, someone made a catcall and someone else laughed. Frank turned around, but Gerard pushed him forward, hurriedly, because they didn't need any more attention on them, and the jeers had more than likely very little to do with Frank anyway.
Once on the side of the road, Gerard squinted against the sun and the dust as the bus took off again.
"It's fucking warm," Frank said, scratching his neck. They started walking the path up to the house.
"Yeah."
"Is Mikey still grounded?" Frank asked when they came by Gerard's mom's car parked in the driveway.
Gerard nodded and Frank smirked.
"He still won't say what he was doing?"
"No." Gerard hadn't told Frank about Mikey and Pete, because he wasn't sure what Frank would do with that knowledge, and, also, the less Gerard had to think about Mikey doing things with anyone in the car, the better.
He wasn't exactly shocked to find out that Mikey was kissing guys now, he was more shocked that it had been Pete Wentz. Pete was athletic and good-looking and popular and nothing about it made any sense. He wanted to tell Mikey what had happened the other day behind the gym, because he thought Mikey should probably know, but he really didn't want to tell him because he knew that Mikey wouldn't appreciate it. It had been an impulse; he'd seen Pete and Pete hadn't seen him and he hadn't exactly caused much damage, but had felt better after. He knew it hadn't been the best idea to get Mikey through the rest of high school unscathed, but Pete was a dick and even if Mikey didn't actually believe that Pete had only done it for a bet, he was still sad, Pete had still used him, and Gerard felt justified punching Pete in the mouth.
They seemed to be the only ones home, and Gerard went into the kitchen to get them some ice tea from the fridge while Frank sent a quick text message to his mom. When he came out into the hallway with two glasses, Frank was sitting on the bottom step, his jacket thrown over the chair, undoing his tie and top shirt buttons.
There was a moment of awkwardness as they got up to Gerard's room. Gerard had never before felt like his bed took up the whole room like it seemed to now, and he noticed that Frank hesitated for a second before he closed the door. "Your mom and dad didn't find out about the booze, right?" he asked and pulled his bag over his head, putting it on the floor.
Gerard shook his head. "No."
"Good." Frank made a gesture and Gerard wasn't sure if he imagined that there was an odd, curious look on Frank's face. "How's your face?"
"Fine."
"Still looks pretty bad."
Gerard shrugged. It was only because of his lip; there weren't any other bruises left. Except there was one bruise on his shin where Pete had gotten in a good kick, but Frank didn't know about that and couldn't see it, luckily.
Frank went over to sit on the bed and had to move a bunch of CDs and Gerard's headphones and paint case. "What are you working on?" he asked as he picked up the sketchpad and photograph lying on the bed. "Is that your grandparents?"
"Yeah." Gerard nodded.
"Are they alive?" Frank was often blunt. Gerard was almost used to it.
"Granddad is."
"I'm really close to my granddad." Frank put the drawing and photo on the dresser and sat down on the bed. "He's in a band. He and my dad play together sometimes. They think it's great that I'm in a band now."
"I was close to my grandma," Gerard said, quietly.
Frank looked at him. "Oh. I – "
Gerard quickly interrupted. "My mom is over the moon that Mikey's going to learn an instrument."
Frank seemed to take the hint. He didn't ask anything further about the photograph. "Yeah," he said instead, then, "We really need a name. You're creative, you could think of something."
Gerard thought they needed instruments and a place to practice before they had to worry about band names, but Frank was too intense for that kind of logic.
"And you should draw our album art," Frank continued, enthusiastically, "Of, like, a zombie Audrey Hepburn or something."
Gerard sort of wished that Frank hadn't seen his Audrey Hepburn drawings because it was just a matter of time before he accidentally shared it with everyone and Frank didn't seem to understand what was odd about a guy keeping a photo of Audrey Hepburn's face in close-up hidden in his bookshelf.
"I watched that movie with her that you like the other day with my mom and my sister. They really liked it."
Gerard felt his face heat up slightly. "Uh, I just think the colors are interesting and stuff."
"No, I liked it too. It was funny." Frank flopped down on the bed. "What are we watching?"
Gerard picked a horror then he crawled up next to Frank on the bed and didn't realize until he was already sitting against the headboard that he could have taken the chair.
They sat on the bed, and it wasn't exactly a romantic movie, but Gerard kept getting distracted by the way Frank's thigh was pressing against his, which was ridiculous, because he didn't have anything to feel awkward about. He hadn't kissed anyone, but he had a nagging feeling in his chest that somehow he had been even more obvious than Frank during those few minutes of Frank's mouth against his.
Finally, Frank must have noticed, because he looked over.
Gerard gestured at the screen. "This is pretty crap."
"Yeah." Frank nodded. He was quiet for a few moments, then he said, "I'm sorry for jumping on you."
"Oh." Gerard felt himself turn red. "It's okay."
Frank shook his head. "No, I'm a fucking idiot. I was really drunk." He looked genuinely anxious, his nose was crinkled and he was chewing on his bottom lip.
"It's –" Gerard couldn't think of anything to say, and what came out was "I was really drunk too."
"Yeah." Frank nodded. For a moment it looked like he was going to say something else, but then he just turned back to the television. "Just, please, don't think about it too much."
"No. Sure."
They finished watching the movie, and Gerard didn't think about it and didn't think about it and didn't think about it.
--
"Yeah?" Mikey said when Gerard knocked on the door to his room.
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