Someone Out There Loves You (Adopted by Frank Iero)

83

MIKEY

By the time we got to the supermarket, Lexa couldn't stop laughing and neither could I. We would find just about anything to laugh at and it felt really good. I wasn't trying to force it, but I was making it a bit of a personal mission to make her smile on our snack run.

While we were at the house, I could see out of the corner of my eye how close she was sitting to Frank and how he was soothingly rubbing her back for a lot of the time we sat there, particularly after Gerard brought the hate page up. While it did need to be addressed, I felt really bad about it because Lexa looked uncomfortable the entire time. Because I was sitting so close to them, I could also make out Frank mumbling things to her, though they weren't loud enough for me to hear clearly, and I'd catch Lexa shaking her head or nodding or shrugging a reply in my peripheral vision. I got the feeling they were words of encouragement or reassurance. At one point I did make out a very distinct 'I love you' - that one tugged on my heart, but I pretended like I didn't hear it.

It felt very much like Frank forced her to come and that was upsetting. We all knew how much she loved us, so for her to not want to come meant things must have been pretty bad.

Frank didn't seem entirely himself either. Behind his smile he was stressed, and while I didn't know what things were like for them at home, it mustn't have been pretty for either of them. When Gerard told me about their conversation over the phone last night, he had said that Frank wasn't handling it well, and while I could see him trying to put on a front, I think it was mostly for Lexa than for us. We knew him better than that, and we didn't really hide our emotions from each other. We were long past that.

When I asked if anyone wanted to come with me on a snack run, I was really just asking if Lexa wanted to. I wanted to try to make her smile, but I also hoped that it would give Frank some time to talk with Gerard and Ray. Frank wasn't the kind of person who could bottle things up - he needed to be able to talk to someone.

I think part of me wanting to get Lexa alone for a bit, even if it was just a short window of time, was also because of Gerard telling me that Frank was scared she was on a bad path again, and I kind of wanted to know for myself. The main problem I had was I couldn't piece together the Lexa I knew with what Gerard had told me last night. They couldn't be the same person in my mind.

I couldn't stop my eyes from dropping to Lexa's sleeves every so often, like they were suddenly going to become transparent and I could see what she was trying to hide. When I'd catch myself doing it I would look away because I didn't want to stare or make her uncomfortable, but I couldn't get Gerard's 'she tried to end her life, Mikey,' and his 'you know how she only wears long sleeves,' and 'think bad and then triple it,' out of my head.

Maybe it would be better if I didn't know what it looked like. She was just Lexa to me, I didn't want her to be Lexa who has hurt and tried to kill herself.

But they were the same person. That was the hard part to comprehend.

As we entered the supermarket, Lexa rushed forward to grab the basket before me. She stuck her tongue out and giggled as my brain tried to catch up with her racing me for it, and the only way I could see her in that moment was as a carefree teenager who tried to turn everything into a playful competition just so she could beat me and rub it in my face. That, and as Frank's daughter, because that was a very Frank thing to do. I held in a chuckle.

I knew you could be suicidal and still experience moments of joy, but that made it hurt so much more because if anyone looked at her right now they would just see a happy kid, because that's exactly how I saw her as she giggled away, but I knew deep down that wasn't the case. That wasn't the case at all. Lexa had struggled hard in her past and she was struggling now. But you could convince yourself she was okay in moments like these. There was no indication that anything was wrong at all.