They Don't Believe In Us

chapter xxii

I could tell Jamia disagreed, maybe Gerard thought he could move on but we had seen him and Lindsey together and how much they meant to each other, I guess we need to find out her side of the story first.

“Maybe I did something wrong?” Gerard garbled, “Have you spoken to her yet?” He asked, hope glistening in his eyes, oh he truly liked her, even after what she made him feel last night; here he is wanting to talk to her and sort it out.

“Fuck her.” Frank said snappily, “She made you fucking depressed man, and I never want to see you like that again it hurts, dude, for you, and for all of us too. It motherfucking hurts.” Frank glared, whoa, what was his problem? I saw Jamia give him an interrogative look, but he ignored it.

“Don’t you understand Frank? I love her. Why can’t you be happy for me? You’ve got Jamia; imagine if she hurt you, you wouldn’t give up on her that easily. I know you wouldn’t.” This was the first time Gerard had raised his voice this morning, it seemed like he was channelling his hate to Frank, which I guess is better than letting it out on himself.

“Look what she did to you!” Frank shouted, “You cut yourself over a girl, you got yourself drunk over a stupid girl who doesn’t give two shits about you!” Frank cried and stormed out of the comic shop, Jamia in hot pursuit.

I saw small tear prick at Gerard’s eyes, as me, Mikey and Alicia all stood their shell shocked.

“What’s his problem?” Gerard sniffed, all his anger becoming replaced by, yet again, more sadness.

“I have no idea, what right does he have snapping at you in this current situation, that’s low dude.” Mikey sighed, rubbing his red eyes slightly.

Oh god, so much sadness.

“He had no right to say that stuff,” I agreed, “We’re meant to be sticking up for our best friend and helping him through this, not arguing and making it worse.” I complained.

“Do you think what he said was true? That she never liked me anyway?” Gerard uttered as we exited the shop. I shook my head, and Alicia added,

“No way, I’m sure Lindsey had her reasons you know, because she definitely liked you,” Alicia revealed.

“How do you know? How does anyone know?” Gerard quizzed woefully.

“What do you think girls talk about at slumber parties?” She replied, and I remembered back to those times we had gossiped when we encountered each other. She can’t have been lying then. Mikey made a coherent sound, almost like a clearing of a throat and a cough.

“Can we not talk about this? Let’s not dwell on it right now; can we please get Gerard home?” We all nodded, well Gerard didn’t, I guess he brain was a little full right now.

We made the tiresome walk all the way back to the estate, and back to Gerard and Mikeys house. All that time I couldn’t stop thinking about what had gone down today, and Gerard’s… cutting, surely that needed some sort of addressing? Everyone was just pretending it hadn’t happened.

It might not be deep, it could be simply surface scratches, but judging from the blood that had rubbed onto my hand it seemed the cuts must have been deep enough to bleed, at least a little bit.

He should never have had to be in that pain, and it made me feel so bad that I had assumed he would be fine, even after texting me about that failure of his question to Lindsey. I thought I would have seen him the next day, done the comforting best friend bit, maybe spoke to Lindsey and that it would be fine, that it would all get cleared up, and we would back to how we were yesterday.