Scabbed X-Ray Blues

Now, listening to the dull, pounding thrum of loud music above him years later, he wasn’t so sure. One of these compulsory teenage parties he wasn’t attending was being held in his very own home, by his younger- and much more popular- brother. That sure rubbed salt into the wound. 

With a laden sigh, Gerard paused in his drawing to take another gulp of his lukewarm, flat beer sitting on the untidy nightstand beside him, and lit up a smoke; long, pale fingers shaking slightly from lack of food and a stomach sloshing full of watery alcohol. Once it was lit, he took a long, deep drag of the cigarette, letting the hot, tugging smoke fill his lungs- before exhaling bitterly and returning to his uncompleted drawing, still trying to ignore the sharp, malicious feeling swelling in the pit of his belly, threatening to engulf him. 

Gerard clenched his charcoal-stained fists furiously; teeth gritted, as upstairs, the sound of laughter drifted down from the party, conducting the soundtrack to his smoked-loneliness. 

He despised the gaudy, immature laughter and yells that always emanated from high school parties- but he despised himself even more for wishing he could share them.

It wasn’t like there was anyone he actually wanted to be friends with, though- he found his peer group so boring, so predictable. He took great pride in being able to instantly categorise them into stereotypical boxes and leave them there to stew, contemptuous and uninterested. 

But try as he might, Gerard could not deny how much he missed the feeling of having someone who cared. It wasn’t like he’d always been alone.

Gerard wrenched his gaze from his drawing, eyes glazed with the stinging emotion. 

In that moment, alone in the flickery candlelight of his cluttered basement, the black rain rolling down the window, the stereo crying, Gerard wondered if the limp cigarette in one hand, the half-drunk beer can in his other and the blade lying on his nightstand were the closest friends he’d ever get. The thought was bleakly gratifying. 

Three sharp raps at the door abruptly sliced through the stale silence of Gerard’s smoky basement bedroom. He winced slightly, but otherwise did not acknowledge it at all, returning to his drawing. His grip on his pencil tightened slightly as he bowed his head over his work, hair falling in disenchanted ringlets across his shadowed eyes. 

The door opened, but Gerard still did not look up- though he tugged in annoyance at his long sleeves before returning to his drawing. 

“Gerard?” 

He gritted his teeth and continued to draw determinedly, adding a little more pressure to his charcoal strokes than necessary, so as deep grooves dug into the white paper with the black. 

“Gerard, please speak to me.”

He still didn’t look up, eyes fixed furiously on the page which he was beginning to lacerate with the intensity of pent-up pencil strokes. 

A sigh. “Are you ignoring me?”

He snorted bitterly, the first acknowledgement that he was no longer alone. 

“No, Mikey, I’m temporarily incapable of speech,” he sighed tiredly. “What do you think, genius?” His tone was wearily sarcastic. 

There was a silence, excluding the heavy thud of the party upstairs, until Gerard sighed, slumping, the dark sarcasm wiped from his face, making it look hollowed in the stagnant candlelight- as though someone had suddenly wiped its makeup away. 

“Look, just go away, Mikey,” he mumbled eventually, rubbing tiredly at his forehead. “I’m not in the mood.” 

“Are you ever?” was the dark mutter of response, accompanied by a frustrated huff of breath.