Patron Saint of the Denial

Chapter Six.

I awoke to discover Post-It note on my forehead.

I pushed myself up and walked to my dresser, looking into my small, cracked mirror while reading the small sticky square.

"Left you here, the rest of us left @ 7. Looked like you needed beauty sleep, bad. Really bad. -G."

I stretched my face with my hands and examined the dark bags under my eyes. I definitely agreed with the note. In fact, it looked like I needed more, but if I sat in bed (or in last night's case, floor) any longer, I would get a crazy headache, something I didn't need.

I ruffled through my top drawer, pulling apart stacks of haphazardly thrown in shirts until I found the one I was looking for, an army green shirt with the Thrasher logo printed in white on the front. As I took off the plain grey shirt and loose red tie I wore yesterday, I heard a crumple. I blindly stretched an arm behind my back to grab another 2 sticky notes.

"Yeah, we left you here. You need sleep after you get laid. xRay & Pete." I laughed at it, crumpling it then shooting it in the bin across the room. No one got laid, we all knew that. Though thinking about Pete and Mikey made it questionable.

"If you did anything with my brother I'm probably not gonna talk to you for a month. And I took your Slip It In shirt, btw. /Mikes." I stuck a hand in my dresser and confirmed it. That bastard took my Black Flag. My merch collection wasn't that big, I couldn't understand people who had huge collections of it. That shit is expensive. I grabbed te first pair of socks on the floor, a thick pair that was camoflauge printed.

I slipped on some dirty socks and slipped outside of my secluded wooden utopia, not caring about the feeling of the dry grass poking my feet. I looked through the window of my parents' residence, then scaled the wall, stopping at the window of the room my brother and sister shared. I knocked on the window, "Hey! It's Frank, guys!" I pause.

"I'm not stalkers."

I pause again.

"It's not Ian Watkins."

My brother came to the window and lifted me into the room, split down the middle by a line of silver duct tape. "You'd be the only to say that," he says.  Each side painted dark blue, with a pink and gray bed on one side and a dark red one on the other. The that made me smile the most though was the posters. A Black Flag on my brothers' side, a Misfits on my sister's. A Smashing Pumpkins on Jude's, an Against Me! on Margot's. I felt like a proud mother whenever I took notice of those. It was nice knowing that I had passed down something I love to my siblings, and that they enjoy it just as much as I do. Plus it kept an element of my existence in the house that I was expelled from...which pissed our mother off to no extent. It gave me a kinda rebellious jubilee type of feeling, which was really amazing.

"Nice. Take me to get one someday?" my brother asked, poking my lip ring. "Ow. Stop, man," I said, moving my ring back into place. "You're having to sneak me fucking food because mom doesn't like my existence. Do you think she'll love me more if I get my 14 year old brother a piercing?" I snapped back, sounding a little more sharp than I intended. "Sorry, Judas," I said, taking the opportunity to make fun of his full name at the worst time. "But it's not the best thing to do right now." "It's okay, I get it. She's a psycho. You're brave, Frank. Can I just live in your 'shed of the excommunicated' with you?" he asks with a hopeful look on his face. That's when it actually hits me that my brother really misses me. I consider it strongly, then decide all for it. "Sure...yeah. Yes. Yeah!" I say. It's a hell of an idea to actually let him stay here with me, but I miss him.

The truth is, I miss family.

But Linda wasn't my family. Linda removed me from family.

That's when she lost Jude, and I gained him.

At the same time, my sister covertly kicked a backpack of food into the room while walking to the upstairs bathroom. She turned back, gave me a quick and what would usually be called an "awkward guy hug," and continued on.

I was picking up the backpack when Jude spoke again. "I'm writing a note to Margot. She'll understand. I'm leaving it here," he says, stretching upwards to the hollowed out bible where my sister kept her junk food. He slips it in then shifts it back into place. "There."

I smile. I have such great siblings. We argued, we fight, but we care. We miss the arguments. We miss the fights. But we still have the care for each other, the love...we held onto that, we held onto that in the space between the house and the shed.

"Move your stuff in any time. It's my space, so just lay off my stuff and we're good," I say.

"Got it. Don't need most of this, I'll be half done in an hour." Jude slaps the dust from his hands off, then runs one through his hair. He realizes his error and harshly shakes his dark brown mop of hair. "And by the way, who did that? Y'know, the lip?" he inquires as I make my way down the side of the house, backpack slung over one shoulder.

I grin. 

"Gerard. Wanna meet him?"

"Yeah, Frank."

"Then get your shit in the shed and find me!" I laugh, descending farther. He chuckles along with me. We fist bump, and he closes and locks the window, flipping the blinds and closing the curtains before I see his faint shadow move away. As it happens, I plant my feet firmly on the grassy turf.

Things are changing for me.

I have a feeling that Jude moving in is the beginning of a string of great decisions.

Decisions that are going to change the life of a teenage raisin named Frank Iero.

A/N:

YO I ACTUALLY WROTE SHIT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN LIKE 2 MONTHS WHOA

I usually write on my iPod so I can immediately jot down stuff whenever I get the vibes for writing, but it's broken and has been for about a month, so it's kinda difficult. 

1421 words...insane. Especially for a chapter written in a single sitting. I'll consider this an accomplishment. Yeah, I think I will.

But yeah. I'm dedicating this chapter to Luna Davis, MCR's album Bullets, and the Fill 'N Go down the street that gave me a free cappucino.

This author's note is too long, and no one's interested in it or ever pays attention to these anyway, so that's it.

(((( writing vibes, ))))

xoMay.