Tell Me I'm A Bad Man [Teacher/Student Frerard]

Nineteen - You Can Run Away With Me

~

"Where exactly are we going?" I asked, looking out the window at the disappearing Belleville scenery.

"I don't know." He replied, his voice sounding strangely hollow.

I glanced at him, and I noticed, for the first time, the frown on his face. His hair was freshly washed, but in dire need of dyeing (as it was going slightly orangey now), hanging around his face. His eyes were fixed straight ahead of him, and as I watched him, he heaved a sigh, slowing down at a red light. He turned to face me, and smiled a genuine smile, making my heart flutter.

"Don't look so worried, sweetheart." He said, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. "I'm not gonna kill you and dump your dismembered body in a river."

I forced a smile as he began to drive again, the sign for Belleville slipping past us a few minutes later. I didn't know where we were going, and I didn't think that he knew where where we were going. Maybe he was just driving until there was a town that took his fancy. Maybe he was gonna drive and drive and drive, and we'd end up in a completely different state, and we'd stay there.

We'd been driving for some time, at least an hour, in complete silence, when he pulled over. We were on the freeway, headed God knows where, and cars sped past us, oblivious to everything but themselves. Gerard was so quiet it was almost scary, leaning his forehead on the steering-wheel, between his hands.

"I want to run away with you." He said, after a few minutes, and it sounded like a confession. "I know we haven't known each other for long but already you mean more to me than anyone has before. I want to take you away from judgement, from everyone that's hurt you, from everything that's hurting you now. I want to quit my job and take you out of school and just drive. We can go anywhere, be whoever we want. We won't be illegal. We won't be frowned upon. We won't risk going to jail. We won't have to hide or be careful. We can just be...us."

"Then why don't we run away?" I asked, and he raised his head, looking at me with a half-smile.

"We'd get into so much trouble. I'd be kidnapping you, for a start."

I scoffed. "I'm eighteen. And like anyone's ever gonna give a shit enough to look for me."

It started to rain, the tiny drops battering the windshield and the rest of the car. "And that's what pisses me off."

"I'm used to it by now, seriously. I've given up caring." I looked straight ahead, at the road, at the disappearing cars, at what I could see through the rain. "If we ran away, I wouldn't look back. I'd probably even be happy."

"I know, baby, but..." He sighed. "It's not that simple."

I looked down at my lap. "Nothing ever is."

He took my hand, running his thumb across the back of it. "You know I like you, Frankie. I'm just...torn."

My eyes met his. "I like you too, I really do; what the hell do you have to be torn about?"

"My job. My friends. Mikey would go apeshit if he found out I'd been fucking a student."

I snorted. If he did, then that would be a little hypocritical. "You say that like we're just fuck buddies or something."

He exhaled. "That's pretty much what we are."

"So what happened to us 'not being anything'?"

"'Fuck buddies' is technically nothing." I folded my arms, consequently breaking the hold his hand had on mine, turning my gaze to the window. "Frank, I didn't mean -"