Wishing You Were a Ghost

The Calendar Hung Itself...

Is it spiteful to learn that your ex-boyfriend's new boyfriend lives in the apartment right next to yours and start blaring songs about heartbreak and anger while you know that they're having sex?

Yes.

Does Frank give a shit?

No, thanks for asking.

Frank moved his couch to the other side of the room just to get as far away from it as humanly fucking possible, and he's been sleeping there, since the wall next to his bed is the only thing separating him from whatever debauchery the couple next door are partaking in (the kind that fucking bumps their bed against said wall in a very distinct sort of rhythm).

He swears Gerard is doing it on purpose. They could very easily be at Gerard's apartment. Whatever cutesy little artist's den he has on whatever side of the city that Frank doesn't fucking care about because at least it's not here. It's not anywhere that Frank has to see him or hear him.

Luckily, with Frank's job there is a discount, and he's able to get some high quality noise canceling headphones. This means that on the third day fucking straight of Gerard staying over next door, Frank is able to drown everything out as he closes his eyes and reminds himself that he doesn't care.

He doesn't care about Gerard's moaning, because he is over it. He has moved on. He has a fancy job, and a great apartment, and a dog, and friends, and he's happy with his life for the first time in a very long time, and it doesn't fucking matter that he has to hear Gerard moaning someone else's fucking name through his walls.

None of it matters, and none of it has anything to do with the reasoning behind why Frank, for the second time, blurs the lines of his own morals and comes stumbling down the hall of his apartment building with a person on his arm who's name he literally learned about fifteen seconds ago on their way up the stairs.

"Hook-ups aren't my thing," he'd told Mikey once, and it's true. In his right fucking mind, Frank doesn't care for hook-ups. They're disingenuous, and cheap, and he doesn't like them, but he heard Gerard fucking singing through the wall this morning, so he'd blared The Calendar Hung Itself, and left for work with Lois on a leash and dropped her off at a pet hotel.

He figured at the time that it was best to let someone else yell at Gerard for being an inconsiderate asshole.

Does he know that place below your neck is your favorite to be touched?
And does he cry thought broken sentences
Like, "I love you," far too much?
Does he lay awake listening to your breath
Worried you smoke too many cigarettes?
Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?
For every speck of tile, there's a thousand more
You won't ever see, but you must hold inside yourself
Eternally

And having someone else yell at Gerard has given Frank time throughout the day to finish work, and make his way to a bar - knowing damn good and well that tonight, he is going to live in the lap of terrible decisions.

The stranger tonight is tall and in platform boots, with ripped jeans that reveal fishnets laid over dark brown skin littered with tattoos, and he has his hands beneath their crop top, pressing kisses into their collarbone while they giggle and Frank isn't sure which one of them trips, but they nearly go down together.

Frank doesn't mean for the pair of them to end up essentially slamming into the wall outside the wrong door, but he's not paying attention. There are hands in his hair, and nails tracing along his scalp, and a sultry voice in his ear murmuring all sorts of filthy things.