(Gerard’s point of view)
It hurt to open my eyes. I could feel the harshness of the light through my eyelids. I put my head under the duvet and opened my eyes. I felt really drowsy, almost dizzy. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and reached my hand out to the rest of the bed. Empty. It must have been a dream...
I am alone, Lindsey is gone, Bandit is gone... and no amount of dreaming can bring them back. I remembered my wrist, peeled back the sleeve and looked at it. It looked bad to say the least, and it was really itchy.
‘You awake bro?’ Mikey yawned.
I poked my head up from the duvet. ‘Yep,’
Mikey was sat in a chair next to the open window, which was displaying a deep orange sunset; he looked really uncomfortable, like he’d been sitting there all night, his eyes were red, and bloodshot. ‘You get much sleep?’ I asked, because he really did look terrible.
‘Yeah, yeah fine, you?’ he said dismissively, he got up, and yawned again. He proceeded to stretch as he stumbled over to the little coffee maker and fiddled with it.
‘Yep, I slept great.’ Which was not a lie; it was the waking up part I wasn’t so happy with. ‘What time is it?’
‘Uh.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s just coming up to 7 p.m.’
He came over to the side of my bed, holding two cups of what I hoped was coffee, he sat down and handed one to me, I took it with my unscarred hand.
‘Are you ready to talk about what happened?’ he asked me. The one question I really didn’t fucking want to hear. I really didn’t want to be constantly reminded that my wife and child were fucking gone, by my brother who was trying to play the role of a shrink.

‘What’s there to talk about?’ I spat. ‘There was a car accident. My family got killed. There was nothing the doctors could do. They’re gone. Forever. Thank you oh-so-much for the constant reminder.’
I felt angry now. I finished the coffee and got up, I went into the bathroom, and looked in the mirror. I splashed water on my face. Mikey came in.
‘Gerard. I’m sorry. They were my family too. We need to stay together, look after eachoth-‘
I cut him off. ‘You got any money? I’m hungry, and thirsty,’ he pointed to the bags by the door.
I went over to the bags and found his wallet and my own. I looked in both and found a total of about $350, it’s because we never spent anything. I stole his money and put it in my wallet. As I put his wallet back I found my pills, I took them. All the time I was doing this Mikey was talking: ‘yeah that a good idea, we should get something to eat. I fancy French fries, what do you want Gee?’
‘To be alone.’ I stated. I went to the door. I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do with all this money. All I needed was the pills. I hoped that they were strong enough to send me to sleep so I would never wake up...

‘Gera-,’ I slammed the door and took the elevator down to the lobby.
When the elevator opened, the first thing I heard was I high-pitched giggle which gave back many memories.
I walked into the lobby and saw Bert McCracken and Jeph Howard laughing uncontrollably at a joke I didn’t hear. Jeph caught sight of something in my direction and I saw Bert’s eyes widen. They came over and Bert hugged me so hard I found it hard to breathe. He smelled of stale cigarettes, and beer.
‘I’m so sorry man, I heard about what happened. It was on the news...’ He said with a dead serious tone, which was unusual from him.
Jeph muttered something about going back to his room and he left.
I decided to put on my smile and I hugged Bert back. We both smiled, ‘so how you been?’ I asked. ‘Want to get something to eat?’

So maybe hanging out with Bert wasn’t the best idea, but I didn’t care, it was hard to admit but I needed a friend right now, other than my band mates. And then there was Mikey, who was just pissing me off. And if he found out I was hanging out with Bert that might piss him off, which would not be a bad thing.
Bert nodded, put his arms round my shoulders and we walked to the front doors. The sun had now set.