This Is How I Disappear

It’s dark. I’m not sure what happened. My head is pounding painfully. Am I hungover? Where am I? Where’s Gerard? Why can’t I move? Am I in a chair? My wrists hurt. Why are my arms behind my back? Am I tied up? “Gerard?” I whisper in a panic.
“Frank,” his voice sighs from somewhere beside me. “You’re okay.”
“What’s going on?” I hiss.
“I’m sorry,” he says. His words slur a little.
“Sorry for what?” I wonder anxiously. Something is terribly wrong, my brain warns.
“I dragged you into this mess,” he replies, sighing again.
“Where are we?” I ask, not sure what he’s talking about.
He is quiet a moment. “I’m sorry,” he repeats eventually.
“Gerard—” I begin but he interrupts me with:
“You’re going to be okay, I promise.”
I can’t speak for a few moments. All I feel is dread. Why is he saying this?
“G-Gerard, what—” I finally stutter out, but a door slams open. I look around, but I can’t see anything. I think there’s a bag on my head.
“Well, well, well,” a villainous voice chuckles, footsteps echoing closer. I visualize mustache twirling and evil hand rubbing. “Gerard fucking Way and his boyfriend.”
“Who are you?” I demand, angling my head toward the sound of the voice. Don’t act tough, stupid! my brain snaps. That’s just asking to get beaten up.
What the hell else am I supposed to do? I retort anxiously. The bag flies off my head. In front of me is a large thug who cracks his knuckles. Behind him are two others, just as intimidating. I swivel my head to look for Gerard and find him slumped in a chair a few yards away, bound but with no bag over his head. I almost wish his face was covered. His nose is bloody, he has two black eyes, and a split lip. His jaw is swollen. Horrified, I turn back to our captors. “What did you do to him?” I try to shout, but it comes out as a ragged whisper.
The thug in front cracks his neck. “You wanna live, kid?” he asks.
I don’t answer right away, suspicious, but then nod cautiously.
“Good choice,” he growls. “We don’t have a problem with you, so how about we make a deal here? We’ll let you go, and you don’t say a word to anyone, alright?”
I pull my eyes away from his towering figure to look at Gerard. “What about him?”
The thug chuckles again. “He stays with us.”
I find the will power to glare. “I’m not leaving without him.”
The thugs sneer together. “Don’t be an idiot, punk,” the front guy tells me. I consider the possibility that the other two are mute. “You don’t have to die today.”
“Frank,” Gerard mumbles through his swelled jaw. It looks painful to speak. “Just go.”
I glare at him too, then back at the thugs. “Why are you doing this?” I demand, fuming even as my heart rate escalates in fear.
The thugs exchange a loaded look, as if to decide whether or not to disclose any information. The speaker of the house finally addresses me. “Ronald Garcia, Freddie and Martin Roark. These names mean anything to you?”
I furrow my eyebrows. Why do they sound so familiar? I don’t know anyone with those names personally. Something on TV? The news…? Oh. It dawns on me. “The men killed in the Triple Belleville Murder,” I say. “You’re friends of theirs.”
The main thug nods.
“But he didn’t kill them,” I blurt, nodding towards Gerard.
The thugs exchange another wary glance. “You were there, kid?”
“Yes,” I gasp. I don’t know how I’m speaking through this paralyzing terror.
“Well, then who did?”
“Me.” My mouth forms the word without thinking. Gerard looks at me sharply.
The thugs guffaw. “You?”
“I had a gun,” I insist.
Gerard is squinting at me through his puffy blue-black eyelids. He says nothing, but his eyes are pleading with me. Stop, they seem to say. Don’t do this. But he doesn’t speak a word. Why doesn’t he deny it?
You don’t want him to, remember? my brain reminds me.
I feel stung, unable to find a suitable argument. To stop my lower lip from trembling, I go on, “This guy was being chased by three other guys. They were running toward me, so I lifted the gun and fired. The guy owed me so he hid me out for a while, set up some bogus ransom. Then things just went to shit from there.”
There is a silence. Then one of the mutes speaks up. “You shot them?”
I nod, my gaze glued to the floor.
The first thug grabs my chin with his ham-like hand, forcing my head up. “You’re not lying to me, are you?” he thunders.
“Why would I lie to get myself killed?” I mumble as his vice-like grip tightens painfully.
“This your boyfriend, faggot?” he chortles, gesturing to Gerard. His rancid breath sticks to my face.
I glare at the offending man. “You’re the one practically kissing me, buddy,” I reply bitterly, evading the question.
Pain lances through my head as his fist comes down on my temple. Dizziness assails me.
“Stop!” someone yells irately, and I realize it’s Gerard. “He’s a fucking liar! I shot your stupid fucking friends, okay? Leave the fucking kid alone!”
“Shut up!” another voice orders, and there’s a sickening grunt succeeded by a whimper that I know is from Gerard.
I’m not a kid, I think, and I don’t know why this feels so much like a betrayal.
He’s just defending you, my brain tells me rationally.
Well, he shouldn’t, I snap angrily.
When he wasn’t, you were upset, my brain mutters in exasperation. And you call me fickle?
“So you both claim you’re the one who killed our friends,” thug #1 summarizes. He lifts his arms like he’s shrugging. “Why don’t we just kill you both then?”
Gerard strains against his binds. “He’s a stupid fucking kid that thinks he’s in love with me, okay?” he growls. “Just let him the fuck go!”
I swallow hard. I’m not going to cry in front of them. I won’t let them see me weak.
He’s just trying to save you, my brain recites. He doesn’t mean it.
You don’t know that.
If he didn’t care about you, he’d let you take the blame, my brain insists.
Just because he turned out to have a conscience, doesn’t mean he gives a shit about me! I shout at my brain.
“So he is your boyfriend, faggot,” the thug says pleasantly, leaning down to my eye level. I glare at him, feeling nauseous. “Oh, did he hurt your feelings, cocksucker?”
I drop my gaze to the floor, trying to slow my breathing.
“Let’s just get this over with,” one of the wingmen grumbles.
That hand grabs my face again, squishing my cheeks so that my mouth opens. Cool metal on my lips, pressing against the back of my throat. Was I always meant to die this way? Fate, you are conniving. A voice, Gerard’s, yelling and cursing and spitting obscenities at the thugs. “Frank!” he says, and I’m touched that he would move his swollen jaw around so much for me. Enduring pain for the sake of last words. “I’m so sorry! I lo—”
I hear an earth-shattering bang and the rest is silence.

Notes