Wake Me Up When September Ends (Adopted by Gerard Way)

1: loss

It was September 23, 2004. Almost midnight. The heart monitors beeped. Machines whirred. Fourteen year old Y/n sat silently in a chair next to her dying father, drawing on a notepad.

"You know... Y/n..." he started. "I love you. Why don't you go get some water?"

Her eyes flicked up to him. She nodded and put her hands into the pockets of her black Hot Topic hoodie, hoping for some change to get a beverage.

She was a sight to behold. Dark bags under her eyes from not wanting to leave her father's side, messy, unwashed hair loose around her face with faded red dye still staining the ends. She wore paint-splattered blue jeans riddled with holes and her feet were adorned with dirty converse that were held together with duct tape.

She found three quarters and left the room, searching for a vending machine.
Once she found one, she pulled out the quarters and realized that she didn't have enough for a water bottle. On the verge of tears, she asked the man next to her- a taller guy in his early twenties with glasses and brown hair- for a quarter.

"Yeah, I have one," he said. "What's your name?"

Mikey was the name of her savior. She introduced herself and opened the bottle of water.

"So what are you doing here?" Mikey asked. They sat down in the lounge chairs to chat.

She began her story. "My dad has multiple myeloma. It's a kind of cancer, in the white blood cells in your bone marrow. He's, erm, he's on his last legs. What about you?" she asked.

"I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm here because one of my friends kicked my brother in the ass and he fell onto some kid's head. The kid was fine, but he wasn't, so he's getting looked at right now. I got bored. What kind of music do you listen to?" he asked.

Y/n smiled. Music was the only thing she could cope with. Right now, she was really into f/b (favorite band) and she told him. "I really like My Chemical Romance too. I'm just starting to get into them, but they're super cool. When my dad's doing chemo, listening to music's basically the only thing I can do. It's kind of like therapy. How about you?"

"I really like the Smiths, Black Flag, Misfits, stuff like that. I'm actually in a band. Do you play any instruments?" Mikey asked.

She nodded. "I play drums. I took lessons for a long time and my dad got me a kit, but we had to sell it to afford the treatment. Speaking of treatment, I should probably get back to my dad. It was nice talking to you, Mikey, I hope I see you around." She stood up and shook his hand, then went back to her dad's hospital room.

It was just past midnight on September 24, 2004. The heart monitor hooked up to Y/n's father no longer beeped, and instead was replaced by a high ringing.
People rushed in and out of the room. "Time of death.. 12:01 AM, September 24, 2004," someone said.

Y/n stood next to the door, not crying, not moving, just watching. She was in shock. She knew already that this was going to happen a long time ago, but it still hurt.

Her mother had died a few months before. Car crash. She had no one. Well, she had an aunt, Marie, but Marie didn't want her.