A cigarette hung loosely from my lips as I strummed my guitar slowly. We had five minutes till show time, and Gerard was no where to be found. Mikey was pacing back and forth, blowing Gerard’s phone up. Ray went off to look around the stadium parking lot.
“This is bullshit. He can’t be pulling this little stunts anymore.” Brain, our manager said. “You guys need to hold and intervention or some shit. What the fuck is up his ass?”

I just sat there quietly. I remembered what happened yesterday morning. It wont matter what we said, Gerard was going to do what Gerard wanted to do. None of us can say anything. I couldn’t shake the look in his eyes when I asked him where he went. It was like he was a completely different person. He scared me. His eyes were full of hate. It shook me too the core.

I was thrusted out of my thoughts by a door slamming and Gerard coming in. His face was covered in blood, but from where I had no clue. No visible marks were seen on his face or on his body. . I stood up, and so did everyone else. Ray came in behind him and just pushed past him.
“Jesus fuck Gerard!” Mikey yelled. “Where the fuck were you!”
“I was out Mikey…” He growled as he wiped the blood with the back of his hand.
“No fucking shit! But where?” Brain yelled.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Bull shit it is! You’re fucking late with only seconds to go out on that stage and you come in like this!” I shifted my feet awkwardly.
“Look what I do in my spare time is what I do. I don’t need you or the band shoved up my ass all the time. Now are we going to go out there and perform?” he pushed past Brian and Mikey and made his way out to the stage.

***

The whole show Gerard wasn’t there. He was physically, but mentally he was gone. I watched him as he sang, he looked lost. He refused to clean himself up, so through the whole show with him sweating, the blood glistened off him, making my curiosity grow ten times more with what, or who’s, blood that was.

As usual after the show, he left. And none of us said anything. Instead we decided to go out to a diner. I was craving a veggie burger anyway.

As we sat around the booth, it felt incomplete without Gerard. It was kind of quite, with just idle chit-chat. Nothing big. Until Mikey brought it up.
“He needs help…” he said quietly.
“What are we suppose to do?” Ray said as he took a drink of his coke.
“I have no clue… no fucking clue. But this is getting ridiculous, I don’t like not knowing what he is doing. And why he came to the show covered in fucking blood.”

I sat there quietly. I didn’t know what to say. I did know I wanted Gerard back. I wanted to hear is laugh, something I hadn’t heard in months. I wanted to see his smile, and watch him be goofy on stage. I needed it back. It was tearing me apart on the insides.
“Has he said anything to you Frank?” Ray asked, I could feel Mikey’s gaze staring a whole in my face. I swallowed the bite of veggie burger I had in my mouth and shook my head.
“Well…. I mean, I asked him where he goes and he just told me what he told Brian early, cept’ it was a lot meaner.” I kind of regretted saying anything.
“Why didn’t you say anything, did he like hurt you?” Ray asked.
“No… it was just kind of scary…” I mumbled and took a bite of my burger. “Look guys, can we talk about something else?”

The rest of our meal was silent. And so was the walk home. But it did give me time to think, think about how I was going to crack Gerard and find out what was wrong with him. I had too. I love him, he was one of the only people who made me actually happy, more than happy. I found myself smiling at my shoes as I thought about him more. And the happy memories we shared. Before he went to live in New York.

That’s when it hit me, even Mikey said something. He changed as soon as he came back from New York. He went to live there with a girlfriend. Surely the break up though couldn’t have affected him this much…. From my understanding he didn’t even really love her. He was the one to leave her.

Once I got to the bus I made my way to the back to where Gerard kept his things. I dug through till I found what I needed. His little black book full of numbers