Chapter 21
They Don’t Believe In Us
I gasped, and by now had the full attention of all five people, including Gerard – who looked ashamed.
I extended my hand, and knew that even in the dim light of ‘Bert’s Comics’ you could clearly see the drying liquid.
My heart raced, and I could hear all of us breathing heavily.
That’s when Mikey burst into tears.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I mumbled, not sure whether to comfort Mikey or Gerard. I was never good in social situations; why doesn’t God understand that?!
Alicia grabbed onto Mikey, which left me, Frank and Jamia stood there cluelessly. Frank was still slightly keeping Gerard steady, but his grip had loosened drastically and we were all just staring disbelievingly.
“Oh Gerard,” Frank breathed, tenderly wrapping his arms around the slightly confused and slightly hung over Gerard.
“Oh Gee,” Jamia joined in hugging Gerard too. I looked deeply into his eyes, finding hurt, pain and tiredness in his hazel orbs.
“Group hug,” I muttered more to myself than anyone else, and also wrapped my arms around the fragile boy, it reminded me of that first day I had met him at high school, where we had both spilled our emotions out to each other - strangely, in a store cupboard – and then I had hugged him after, it was a fragile ‘broken’ person hug, quite like this one.
I thought the days of the unhappy sixteen year old boy I had met all those months ago was gone. Oh how wrong I was.
I noticed Mikey was still silently crying, but him and Alicia came over to contribute in the delicate cluster that we had made around Gerard.
If emotions were objects, we’d be drowning in them right now. They’d be pouring out of us like blood from a wound.
“Stop your crying, helpless feeling, dry your eyes and start believing.” Gerard whispered his gaze fixed on Mikey.
“I am so sorry,” He looked sadly at all of us, once the hug had been broken, “I-I’m sorry, please forgive me.” He looked so small and scared; nobody deserved to feel like this, even if only for a second and especially not for a long period of time.
“Gerard, never say that, ever. We don’t blame you for what you’ve done, we don’t blame anyone,” Even Lindsey I added in my head. “We love you, and we understand what happened, why? We don’t know, but you’re hurt I understand that, never say sorry for what you did yesterday, nobody blames you just remember that. Always remember that.” I smiled, even though I felt sadness – I had to stay strong for everyone, especially Gerard.
“T-thanks Hope, I didn’t mean to drink all that I did, it felt better and kept the darkness away, or maybe it just brought it closer, but I never wanted to kill myself, never think that… I just wanted to hurt myself, for failing her.”
“Oh Gerard, baby!” Jamia cut in, “You haven’t failed her,” Her being Lindsey, “Please don’t do it again Gerard, I know that alcohol can consume the brain and make you think saddening thoughts, and you may be young, but I understand how much you can love someone, even if you truly don’t know what ‘love’ is yet.”
“I want to thank all of you so much, I-I wasn’t thinking straight I guess, I know it won’t get easier,” He sighed deeply, “But we’re young, and thanks Jamia, but maybe I am too young to understand love I could be over exaggerating.”
I could tell Jamia disagreed, maybe Gerard thought he could move on but we had seen him and Lindsey together and how much they meant to each other, I guess we need to find out her side of the story first.
“Maybe I did something wrong?” Gerard garbled, “Have you spoken to her yet?” He asked, hope glistening in his eyes, oh he truly liked her, even after what she made him feel last night; here he is wanting to talk to her and sort it out.
“Fuck her.” Frank said snappily, “She made you fucking depressed man, and I never want to see you like that again it hurts, dude, for you, and for all of us too. It motherfucking hurts.” Frank glared, whoa, what was his problem? I saw Jamia give him an interrogative look, but he ignored it.
“Don’t you understand Frank? I love her. Why can’t you be happy for me? You’ve got Jamia; imagine if she hurt you, you wouldn’t give up on her that easily. I know you wouldn’t.” This was the first time Gerard had raised his voice this morning, it seemed like he was channelling his hate to Frank, which I guess is better than letting it out on himself.
“Look what she did to you!” Frank shouted, “You cut yourself over a girl, you got yourself drunk over a stupid girl who doesn’t give two shits about you!” Frank cried and stormed out of the comic shop, Jamia in hot pursuit.
I saw small tear prick at Gerard’s eyes, as me, Mikey and Alicia all stood their shell shocked.
“What’s his problem?” Gerard sniffed, all his anger becoming replaced by, yet again, more sadness.
“I have no idea, what right does he have snapping at you in this current situation, that’s low dude.” Mikey sighed, rubbing his red eyes slightly.
Oh god, so much sadness.
“He had no right to say that stuff,” I agreed, “We’re meant to be sticking up for our best friend and helping him through this, not arguing and making it worse.” I complained.
“Do you think what he said was true? That she never liked me anyway?” Gerard uttered as we exited the shop. I shook my head, and Alicia added,
“No way, I’m sure Lindsey had her reasons you know, because she definitely liked you,” Alicia revealed.
“How do you know? How does anyone know?” Gerard quizzed woefully.
“What do you think girls talk about at slumber parties?” She replied, and I remembered back to those times we had gossiped when we encountered each other. She can’t have been lying then. Mikey made a coherent sound, almost like a clearing of a throat and a cough.
“Can we not talk about this? Let’s not dwell on it right now; can we please get Gerard home?” We all nodded, well Gerard didn’t, I guess he brain was a little full right now.
We made the tiresome walk all the way back to the estate, and back to Gerard and Mikeys house. All that time I couldn’t stop thinking about what had gone down today, and Gerard’s… cutting, surely that needed some sort of addressing? Everyone was just pretending it hadn’t happened.
It might not be deep, it could be simply surface scratches, but judging from the blood that had rubbed onto my hand it seemed the cuts must have been deep enough to bleed, at least a little bit.
He should never have had to be in that pain, and it made me feel so bad that I had assumed he would be fine, even after texting me about that failure of his question to Lindsey. I thought I would have seen him the next day, done the comforting best friend bit, maybe spoke to Lindsey and that it would be fine, that it would all get cleared up, and we would back to how we were yesterday.
I never realised his feelings were so deep he’d want to hurt himself because of them, and it made me feel awful that I was supposed to be his best friend and support him yet I only came when it was too late.
If Frank was so angry just because Gerard still wanted to go back to Lindsey – I still wasn’t sure if that was a good idea or not, who knows what Lindsey could be feeling right now? I needed to be there for him, as Frank was most definitely not doing a good job at that right now, in fact he was just making it worse, and Mikey couldn’t stop crying his eyes out, which was totally understandable but Gerard needs someone strong to lean on, and I guess I’d be taking the main role for that job. After all it literally broke my heart to see him hurting - I’d do anything to stop his pain.
We arrived back at the Way household, and Gerard finally spoke up.
“I can’t face mom, not now, not like this.” Mikey swung open the door, but Gerard planted his feet to the ground.
“It’s fine, I don’t think anyone’s in.” Alicia stated, after nobody inside reacted to the opening door.
“Okay, okay.” Gerard breathed deeply, and entered the house. Donna and Donald would understand, wouldn’t they? I didn’t know them extremely well, but I always imagined them as such carefree parents.
“Don’t tell mom.” Gerard said as we entered the house, Mikey was about to respond when a female voice cut through our thoughts.
“Don’t tell mom what?” Donna appeared in the door way, and nodded in acknowledgment to both me and Alicia.
She looked towards Mikey, then Gerard, and immediately spotted something was wrong. Her mothering instincts kicked into overload,
“Michael, why have you been crying?” She frantically rushed up to the brothers, “What wrong Gerard? You look pale, and I saw you took the two bottles yesterday, what was that all about? And- oh my god.” Me and Alicia where still stood awkwardly in the door way, but I followed her eyes as she finished her sentence.
She was looking straight at Gerard’s arm, where we had unfortunately rolled up the sleeves to avoid stinging of his incisions. Bad idea.
“Gerard, oh dear god. Gerard, what happened, Mikey? Tell me?” She repeated ‘Oh God’ about ten times, before launching into another round of questions. Both Gerard and Mikey looked completely lost, and I was feeling totally awkward standing there interrupting a family scene, they probably needed to sort this out together properly – not like this.
“Stop asking me questions, I'd hate to see you cry,” Gerard choked, glancing into his mother’s eyes.
“B-but Gerard, honey…” Donna looked so lost for words, as did Gerard.
“Mikey, please, tell me what happened?” Donna turned to her youngest son, by now I think that they had forgotten about me and Alicia.
“I’m sorry Gerard, I have to, and she has to know.” Mikey looked so stricken at betraying his brothers trust, but Gerard nodded.
“I’m so sorry mother.” Gerard said plainly, and made a move to walk upstairs cradling his wounds.
He beckoned for us to follow, but Donna interrupted.
“I’m sorry girls, it seems that today is quite a bad time for this family, I believe we should sort it out ourselves first.” I completely understood, so I nodded, but Gerard swiftly interrupted.
“Can they come upstairs for just five minutes? Please.” He stated sadly, Donna wouldn’t even look in his eyes, but she agreed none the less.
Alicia declined,
“I’m sorry I really should be, uh, off, bye. Stay strong, Gerard.” She was gone before any of us could react, so I just trod up the stairs, following Gerard’s shaky movements.
He collapsed onto his comic filled bed, breathing heavily.
“She hates me now. I’m a disappointment of a son, who cuts himself and gets wasted.” He sighed, “I never meant for her to find out this way.”
“She’ll understand Gerard, she’s your mother!” I knew Donna well enough to understand she wouldn’t abandon him now, especially not in his state, she wasn’t a monster.
“I could have been a better son.” He stated, “I look in the mirror and hate what I see. I’m a disappointment. I ain’t no son of hers, not anymore.”
“Oh Gerard, I’m sure she loves you just the way you are, like all of us do. You need to believe in yourself, and believe in the love that others have for you. It’s not the easiest thing, to process that someone you love wants to cause themselves pain, you’re her son, how do you think she’s going to feel that you are hurting and she didn’t do anything to help it? She wasn’t there to help her baby boy. She’s going to regret that, although she couldn’t help it, not one bit. But she’s here to help you now; she just needs to think about everything, and how to help you. It’s not an easy thing to process.”
“I don’t want her treating me as a monster, even if I am one.”
“She won’t, and you’re not one, you’re an angel.” I smiled at him, just wanting to see his beautiful smile light up his face.
“And how do you know that she’ll need to process the fact I was hurting and she couldn’t help it, maybe she doesn’t care? Maybe she doesn’t even want to process it?”
“Trust me, she does. I know how it feels, remember my little brother.” Great Hope, bringing up the past again. He nodded. “Well, my mother, and me, we didn’t know how much he was hurting but, he was hurting, a lot. And we couldn’t help it, because we never realised until it was too late. I know my mother will never forgive herself for that, although she couldn’t help it, nobody knew. Yet she blames herself. I blame myself. At least your parents know now, and they can help you, before you spiral down so deep that even they can’t pull you out of it. Let them help you now, before it’s too late.” I smiled sadly, as Gerard hugged me loosely.
“I know it hurts to bring up the past, about your brother, but thank you Hope, thank you so much. You don’t realise just how much you’ve helped me today.” I beamed at him, pushing thoughts of my brother to the back of my mind, and solely focusing on Gerard.
“And, I’m sorry to bring this up, but we should probably clean your, uh, cuts.” He blushed slightly at the mention of what he had done.
“It’s embarrassing, these cuts, I wish I’d never done it.” He muttered, as he gave me his wrist.
“Never be ashamed of your scars, you can regret, but don’t be ashamed, in time they will fade and be only mere memories of a time in your life, no matter how hard that time was, at least you can look back at this and think of how you conquered this time in your life, and that now you are so much stronger and better.” I glanced quickly at them, “These will probably fade in time too.” He nodded slightly as I opened his clenched palm.
More little scratches littered his palm, and I stared at them cluelessly.
“I-uh-I,” He stuttered.
“Glass?” I questioned, seeing small shards lodged into open cuts.
“It stings.” He stated, flexing his hand slightly.
Luckily for him there wasn’t many fragments of the vodka bottle still stuck in his skin, so I easily cleared it up with a little bit of tweezers work and disinfectant.
“You should be a nurse.” He laughed, although not with much emotion, as I moved on his wrist, clearing the drying blood and applying healing cream.
“Nah thanks, I actually want to be a physiatrist, but not a horrid one or one that the person hates coming to, I just want to save lives and talk to them about it.”
“So kinda like what you did to me today? Talk to them and be there saviour?” He smiled, as I blushed, “If you ever need a job, get the employer to talk to me; I’ll put a good word in for you when I’m famous.”
It felt good to talk about normal stuff, such as our future ambitions, but unfortunately I remembered the current situation we were in.
“I better go now, Gee, talk to your mom – and remember what I’ve spoken to you about.” I hugged him cautiously.
“Thank you Doctor. Hope,” He smiled, “It suits you.”
I exited the room, a slight smile on my face, and I looked back at Gerard – he had a ghost of a smile on his face, yet it still lit up the room.
I walked out the door of the Way’s house, Gerard’s fresh cuts, and bloodied palm still fresh in my mind, yet our uplifting conversation outweighed the negatives, and I left the house in a good mood,
He will be okay.
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song to the side is Saviour by Black Veil Brides, i imagine that is what Gerard is feeling about Hope, she is his saviour, although she never meant to be, she is the one who has made him realise life is worth living. That will become more clear in the next chapters:)
Also did anyone notice the multiple references i put in this chapter, there must have been like four/five from MCR songs, I kinda reworded them though, but if you know what you're looking for you will find them;)
And this may not a be a very interesting chapter, but it was necessary, i hope i didn't bore any of ya'll too much, it does get better - i just thought i needed the emotion to get across, cutting is not something that can be taken lightly at all.