Ghost In The Snow

Chapter 32: Well-known words

Back to school. Or 'back 2 hell' as Frank texted me the night before. I don't think he was going to meet up at eight o'clock. Especially because he sent me a picture of his dog. At 4am. So if he was lucky, he could get like three hours of sleep. Anyway, Frank had been practising playing guitar a lot this summer. I heard that him and Ray played together once a week, plus the normal band practise on Fridays.

Ray had been practising with Frank a lot, but he had also gotten a girlfriend, well Ray had. So we didn't see him every day, but we did meet him on the Fridays as always. He didn't tell us a lot about her, but he seemed really happy with her. His eyes always lit up, when he mentioned her, so that was a good sign.

Mikey had been playing loads of video games. Every time I walked past the living room or his room, I heard the noise and sounds from the consoles. He didn't seem to do anything else, and I was lowkey starting to get worried. But he said that he was okay, and he sure seemed to be happy, though he was on his own most of the time.

Gerard and I had been together a lot this summer after the camping trip. We walked around in town hand in hand almost every afternoon and then slept at his house every night. I hadn't actually slept at home more than twice since the camping trip. To my surprise, my mom didn't really care, that I only went home to change clothes once in awhile. Soon I wouldn't even have to do that, because I had a pile of clothes lying on Gerard's floor.

At this point I was almost living at Gerard and Mikey's house. Their mom, Donna, didn't seem to care either. I often sat in the kitchen talking to her, and helping her with housework. She always talked about the cute things Gerard had done as a child, what stupid things Mikey and him had done together. I enjoyed listening to those stories, because then I could tell Gerard and he would always blush, then trying to explain what happened from his perspective in his low, shy, hoarse voice.

Gerard had been at my house once this summer. That was when my mom had told me to invite him over for dinner. And I did as she said. I think that was the first time, Gerard met my dad. He was always busy with work, so though Gerard and I had been together for several months, they never had the chance to meet. Gerard was really charming that evening. A constant smirk on his lips, which made me believe he would do something unexpectedly, but he didn't. He only things, he did was eating, talking to my parents in a positive tone, and of course holding my hand under the table.

Gerard's hair had also been growing a lot the past half year. When I met him for the very first time, his hair reached the mid of his cheek. It was always messy and didn't usually stick to his face. But now it was almost shoulder length, and strands of the jet black hair often stuck to his pale skin, creating that mysterious contrast. He didn't plan to cut it though people were starting to call him, us, things.

When Gerard and I walked our routes, people stared at us. Maybe they thought he was a girl, or trying to be one. Even though that wouldn't matter, I love Gerard anyway.

The jocks, the fuckboys, who had attacked me, had also seen us walk in the area. They didn't say or do anything, some of them sometimes sent a small, compassionate, confused smile, as if they wanted to apologize for what Daniel Jackson did. I haven't seen Daniel drive around with them anymore. Maybe he left them. But if he was stronger on his own, I don't know.

I will know.

It was a new school year, and everything seemed to be okay as always. Gerard and I were holding hands, the rest of the boys walking slowly next to us. They had to walk slowly, because Gerard and I had all the time in the world. We didn't really care about being the first people in the classes so we could get our favorite seats. We didn't have any classes together anyway. But I did have a lot of classes with Mikey and Frank, just like last year.

But we were marching down the busy hallways, as the cool kids we thought, we were.

We completely forgot about the boys like Daniel Jackson and other fucktards.

"Hey trannie!", some jerk yelled and pointed at Gerard. "Fucking lesbians!", the jerk's friend yelled at us. They laughed their asses off, still pointing at us. Gerard gripped my hand tighter. Not sure if he wanted to comfort himself or me. I looked up at him, and he swallowed a lump in his throat, focused on ignoring the things they called us. I could see on Ray, that he wanted to yell something back to those bastards, but when he opened his mouth, Frank was already screaming at them: "Fuck off motherfuckers! Mind your fucking own goddamn business!" The boys shut up and ran down the hallways, close to the lockers. They didn't wanna fight with that punk rock kid. They had probably heard about what he did to Daniel.

I really liked Frank.

He would always protect his friends in these situations.

And people had fucking respect for him.

After he yelled, the hallway was silent for a moment. Of course, he was also screaming his lungs out, really raging. He then smiled at us like nothing happened.

The rest of the day Frank's voice was usually quite hoarse.

-

"Okay, today we will read the text on page 121!", the female teacher shouted to the class. She was smiling as always. I opened my book and skimmed the page. I furrowed my brows and poked Mikey. "We've read this before", I said confusedly. Mikey shrugged, looked at me like I was insane. "But when?", I mumbled to myself.

We can deal with things that are real. Things that happen. Like people shouting at us. We can shout back or choose to ignore them. But we can't do anything about those things, that lurk in the dark. It has to be real. And sometimes you don't know if it's real or not, until it's too late.

What did I just read?

I was about to read it again.

"You're on the wrong page", Mikey mumbled, sighed, and suddenly flipped my page onto page 121. "Oh", I whispered, looking at the seriously long text. I wanted to look at the text on page 81 again, but then I forgot about it, not thinking about it anymore.