Boy In My Class [Gerard Way]

Chapter 27: So Long and Goodnight

"Well if you and Gee are getting married, I'm sure babies will come pretty soon!" Holly grinned.

***

I was lying in my bunk, trying to sleep. It was 3 in the morning, and we were parked outside a service station for the night because we were hours ahead of schedule and Brian, who was driving the bus, wanted a few hours sleep. I felt unusually cold, so I decided to sneak into Gerard's bunk so that I could cuddle up to him to get warm. When I went to his bunk, it was empty. Confused, I looked around for him but he was nowhere to be seen. I opened the door and stepped off of the bus to find him sat on the curb of the pavement, his head in his hands.

"Gee are you okay?" I asked, sitting beside him and trying to take his hand, but he refused to move. "Did I do something to upset you?"

"N-no," he said. He was shaking and his voice was unsteady.

"Gerard what's wrong?" I asked. "Please tell me. You're freezing cold out here and it's the middle of the night!"

I put my arm around him, trying to warm him up but his entire body was shaking and cold. 

"Gerard you don't have to tell me what's wrong," I said quietly into his ear. "But if you say something I'll know that you haven't frozen to death."

"M-m-my..." he began. "M-my grandmother died."

I felt my heart sink as he told me this. His grandmother meant the world to him and to Mikey. She had bought them the van that we had toured in for nearly a year. She had encouraged Gerard to start the band and had been encouraging him to sing his entire life. They were so close and I knew that this would crush him. I couldn't find the words to say so I just held onto him tightly, trying to warm him up.

"Where's Mikey?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.

"He's sleeping," Gerard said, sounding devastated. "I haven't told him yet. Izzy how can I tell him this? It's going to ruin him."

"You need him," I said. "Do you want me to bring him out here?"

Gerard nodded feebly. I climbed back onto the bus and snuck into Mikey's bunk, shaking him gently until he woke up.

"Mikey, Gerard's outside. He needs to talk to you," I said. Mikey climbed out of his bunk and left the bus to talk to Gerard. I decided to keep my distance and watched from the bus window as Gerard and Mikey spoke. They were talking for about half an hour and I could see that Mikey was crying. Seeing them upset was so painful for me because I felt like they were members of my family. I decided to get back into bed and give the two of them some time together, but an hour after I got into bed Gerard crawled into my bunk, snuggling his body close to mine. He rested his head on my chest and I could head him sniffling.

"How's Mikey?" I whispered, stroking his hair and pulling my blanket over him to warm him up.

"Not so good," Gerard replied through tears. "Izzy I don't know what to do."

"G," I whispered. "My father died when I was young. The only thing I could do to get through it was to busy myself with other things. I don't have any good advice for you but that's how I dealt with it."

"I just wanna look after Mikey," he said. "He's young, he's not even twenty yet."

"He's got you," I replied. "He'll be fine."

***

The next morning I woke up in my bunk to find Gerard had gone. We had a few days off between shows and were staying in a hotel for a couple of nights. I looked out of the bus window to see that we were still on the road. I got up and went to make a cup of coffee, where I found Gerard sat at the tiny kitchen table.

"You want a coffee?" I asked. He was smoking a cigarette, which I hadn't seen him do in a while. He was writing in his sketchbook and he had clearly been crying.

"No thanks," he said. "I'm working on some songs."

I looked over at his sketchbook. The only words I could read in his messy handwriting read So long and goodnight.

 "Gerard are you sure you're alright?" I asked, sitting opposite him with my mug of coffee. "If you want to talk, you know you can talk to me right?"

"Yeah of course," he said, reaching his hand across the table and taking hold of my hand. "I'm just trying to busy myself with other things to get through it. I'm just trying to focus on the band."

I squeezed his hand tight and gave him a reassuring smile, before finishing my coffee and heading to the back of the bus for a cigarette. I saw Mikey curled up on the couch at the back of the bus, staring out of the window.

"You okay Mikes?" I said, sitting down beside him and lighting up a cigarette. "You want a smoke?"

"No thanks," he said, but his voice was faint and barely audible. I didn't often chat to Mikey- we didn't yet have a strong friendship but he still felt like my little brother. "Can you tell Gerard I don't want to play any  more shows on this tour? I don't feel like it."

"Mikey," I sighed. "Your grandmother bought you your first van so that you could tour the country. She believed in you. She bought you your first bass guitar. How do you think she would feel if she saw you now, giving up on it?"

He looked at me and all I could see was a ten year old boy who had lost his grandmother. He looked younger than I'd ever seen him look before, and he looked really upset.

"You're right," he sniffed.

"You could help Gerard write some music for the new album?" I suggested.

"I dunno," he shrugged. "I'm meeting a girl at our next show...we met in Chicago, uh...she's kind of my girlfriend."

"That's great," I grinned, happy that Mikey had found somebody, whilst also super curious about what she was like. I got up and went back into the kitchen area to find Gerard drinking straight from a bottle of vodka.

"Uh...Gee...it's like nine in the morning," I said awkwardly. "What are you doing?"