the lights are always off

Ⅳ

FRANK'S P.O.V.

My eyes fall on Mikey's clasped hands between his open knees as he sits across from me, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. I glance over at Gerard, whose expression is hard to read. I look away quickly.

"Was he always blind?" I blurt out, not sure if Gerard is listening, but if he is, he doesn't show it. Mikey opens his mouth to answer, then decides against it.

"No," he replies. I raise my eyebrows but Mikey doesn't elaborate on the topic. His face flushes bright pink and he breaks eye contact. "Shouldn't you be asking him about this type of thing?" He jerks his head in Gerard's direction.

I'm sure he doesn't mean to sound rude, but there's something a little too snappy about the way Mikey says it.

"Yeah," I say, looking back over at Gerard. He looks so lost and my chest tightens.

"I need to go practice anyway," Mikey says, motioning vaguely to the silver, glittering Fender bass still propped up next to him. My eyes focus on the way it reflects the ceiling fan above us as it spins quickly.

Mikey grabs his guitar and leaves me alone with his older brother. I stand up, my joints cracking as I do so, and walk the three steps it takes to stand next to Gerard.

"You okay?" I ask Gerard, touching his pale wrist. He nods and shifts, throwing his legs out over the edge of the couch.

"Yeah, I think I just wanna go lay in my bed for a while."

"Um... would it be alright if I joined you?" Once the words leave my lips, they hang on the air for a moment and I realise I probably sound like a fifteen-year-old fuckboy. But when I look up at Gerard, his lips pull up a little and he nods.

"Sure. I feel like I haven't really got a chance to talk to you today." He holds his hands out and I hesitantly take one in mine, not sure if he needs help getting to his room. In any case, he doesn't complain and we walk hand in hand down the short hallway and into his room.

We sit on his bed for a while before either of us talks. It's me who breaks the silence.

"Mikey said you, um, weren't...," It takes me a moment to figure out how I want to phrase the sentence. "Well, he said you haven't been blind all your life."

"Oh, that. I haven't," he confirms with a duck of his head. "I had my retinas removed about two months ago."

"What — what happened?" I ask, though I feel like I'm being too intrusive. I watch his fingers as he splays them out on his thigh, curling them into a loose fist, then uncurling them again, his pale skin contrasting against the dark jeans he's wearing.

"Retinoblastoma," Gerard says simply as if I'm supposed to know precisely what happened from the one word. We're both quiet for a second before he launches into a story.

"When I was three, I was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, but it was in its early stages, you know? Retinoblasoma doesn't always end with the patient being completely blind, so I had a few procedures, chemotherapy, took some pills, had brachytherapy, and they thought everything was fine, yeah?" He lets out a dry laugh. "It wasn't."

I look down at my thighs and touch his hand like I did earlier. I don't say anything.

"It spread from my left eye to my right. Last year, I noticed my vision worsening significantly. I mean, I went blind, pretty much. I was legally blind, but..." He trails off. "My mom scheduled me an appointment with my doctor, and he told me to see another doctor who told me to see another one, and so on and so forth." He shrugs as if it's nothing. "So in July, I had just finished school, you know, and everything was going great. Until the doctors called and said the surgery was imminent."