lifeboat

34.

this was it. this was the fucking end. pete was going to kill himself, or perhaps he already did, and mikey would have to stand on the sidelines and watch.

"mikey? are you okay up there?" gerard, his older brother, yelled from downstairs.

"no!" mikey yelled back, burying his head in a pillow. he felt like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it was pushing him down.

gerard's footsteps were audible as he marched up the stairs and shoved the door to mikey's room open, finding his little brother curled up on his bed with his face in a pillow.

"hey, mikes, what's wrong?" gerard asked, closing the door and sitting down by mikey's legs.

"someone i know," mikey began, lifting his head, but not enough to show that he was crying just a little, "left me a suicide note, a-and i don't know what to do, gee, he doesn't answer his phone and i don't know where he lives and i can't get to him - fuck, i don't want him to die, i don't want anyone to die, what the hell am i supposed to do?"

gerard paled a little, and mikey instantly regretted what he said. when gee was around fifteen, he lost his closest, oldest and best friend (besides mikey, of course) to a suicide, and he still hadn't absolutely recovered from it. whenever someone mentioned the topic, he spiraled away into his own little world; gerard had been helpless, so damn helpless, when he saw lindsey's lifeless body being lowered six feet under the ground at a shitty funeral she wouldn't have wanted, wearing clothes she quite ironically wouldn't have wanted to be caught dead in.

gerard had been in a dark place for so long after that, and had very nearly followed in her footsteps.

"gee, i'm sorry, i know that's a sensitive topic-" mikey began, but his brother cut him off.

"no. i'll help you." gerard said. he wasn't letting his brother suffer through what he had to with lindsey. he wasn't going to stand by another suicide again. "who is it?"

"pete. pete wentz."

"who the hell is that?"

mikey sighed, wiping his eyes. "emo kid. lots of eyeliner and needs a haircut. hangs out with the wannabe cool kids at school."

"i have no idea who that is, but i'll ask frank. he knows a few of those kids."