The Sharpest Lives

Chapter Twenty-Five: It'll Never Happen, So Just Stop Dreaming

[Frank]

The glare Mikey threw his brother could've melted steel. When he turned to me, his expression was blank, as if he couldn't figure out what expression to put there. The glare for Gerard  must've been a stretch.

He left us alone to sort things out.

He told me everything. How he went to see me even though he wasn't supposed to. How much shit he got for it. How he managed to convince the hospital to let him go. How he hid from all of us, until Mikey went out and hunted him down. How he begged Mikey to help him hide from us. How much he hated himself but thought it was better this way.

He told me how he tried to forget me. All the girls he met, then the guys, always trying to find someone else so he wouldn't be tempted to ruin my life again. Here, his hands suddenly couldn't stay still, his eyes couldn't meet mine any more. How once, he almost did forget me. How this one girl seemed to understand for once, stayed with him…how it seemed so likely that he would never come back to me.

"When I figured out why it worked so well with her," he said softly, his voice so ashamed, I almost took one of his shaking hands to comfort him, "When I told her…it was like…she wouldn't look at me the same way again. She told me she couldn't stand people who used her…I wasn't, I swear I wasn't-"

"Why did it work so well with her?" I dared to ask, knowing that the answer I'd get wouldn't probably really hurt me. But I'd been so hurt at this point…and being with him right now made me feel so much better at the same time…it was like putting a bandage covered in acid over a fresh wound. I needed him, yet he hurt me.

He finally met my eyes, his full of self-hatred that I knew so well. "I couldn't' t forget you, Frank," he told me, "I just…couldn't."

He told me how she left him and how he hadn't heard from her since. He wouldn't tell me her name, though my asking was obviously half-hearted. He told me how Mikey pushed him to focus on something else. He took up art again. He moved to New York to be closer to work. Mikey came with him. One morning he stopped by a small café for

breakfast.

He told me that when he found me, his first thought was to leave.

But he couldn't.

He didn't tell Mikey. He didn't tell anyone. He tried to stop thinking about it. He avoided the whole area for a week.

He came back.

And here we were, sitting on opposite ends of his couch in his apartment in New York, his eyes on the floor and mine on the top of his head.

My turn.

My first thought was to let him have it. To be as cruel as possible with my words. To watch him flinch at everything I said. To make him feel everything he'd made me feel.

I think my hug hurt him more than that. Because he was expecting me to tear him apart.

I love him too much. I couldn't.

"You hurt me so much," I whispered into his shoulder, and he squeezed the life out of me, "You have no idea."

He was gasping so much he couldn't speak at first. I held him tighter. I felt a gradual dampness spread on my shoulder where his head leaned against it, but I didn't care. I tried squeezing my eyes shut, but that didn't help me.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, over and over again, "I'm so sorry."

I think Mikey might have walked in at that point to ask if we were okay. And he must have walked out again pretty quickly when he saw what messes we were, because he wasn't there when I looked up to check.