Where There’s Life, There’s Hope.

Frank knew that voice. He’d heard it all too many times before in his dreams. Those reoccurring dreams that would wake him up with shivers and shakes. Frank stared up at his face in the mirror now jet-white like a ghost from all the color flushing from it in a panic.
Never in a million years had he ever expected to hear that voice again, much the less in the same room as him...calling out his new band-mate. Bandmate. Fuck.

Frank’s head finally made the connection. He thought back to the day he first met Gerard’s grandmother:

"That's what he's good at I suppose. Something you can get lost in. You should hear him sing. " The old woman smiled truly proud of her boy. The perfect grandson.

"Wait. He can sing?" Frank was truly shocked by this.

"Can he sing? Do angels fly? He's got a beautiful voice. He was Peter Pan in the musical a few years back." The woman smiled a warm, wide, smile.

Frank panicked. Full out panicked. He hurried back into a stall and spilled what was already in his stomach into the toilet and fell to the ground next to it. He couldn’t do this. He had nightmares about this day ever since he left New Jersey. The day that he relapsed because of the man he loved to hate. Gerard had been plaguing the poor, boy’s dreams ever since he’d left New Jersey for California. The smell of the booze, the look of hopelessness that was given off in that bedroom, the hallway humiliations so many years before...he couldn’t take that again. If Frank were to let himself be treated like he was in high school, he would relapse into the same pit of nothingness he struggled to escape from.

How could Frank had let himself be so naïve? He shouldn’t have come back to Jersey...or at least asked for more information about the band he was flying all the way across the continental states for. Fuck, but, maybe he was just a passing person. Maybe just an old acquaintance to Ray...maybe he was getting overworked for no reason at all. No, that would be all too perfect and Frank’s life was anything but perfect when he was in Jersey.

He raised himself and walked away from his spot on the floor back towards the window. What was a boy to do? Was he supposed to just pretend nothing happened? That probably would be the best thing to do, huh? He pondered it for a second then brought the decision into the forefront of his mind. He had to just suck it up. He had to last just long enough to get Gerard alone and talk to him, and save the awkward situations...either that or just long enough for a cigarette. They always seemed to help him in times like this.

Taking a deep breath, he put his hand on the door of the bathroom, preparing his mentality for what was sure to lie behind it. He had more faith in himself compared to what he had in High School. He could do this, he came here to help Ray and that’s what he was going to do. He wasn’t about to let his troubled past come back to haunt him and make him loose his best friend and his only shot to be in a band again.

The room seemed slightly darker as he wandered out of the bathroom towards where Ray was seated. The table was now crowded with two new people hidden behind menus. They’d taken up residence in the side of the booth Frank had originally sat at, but he didn’t mind. He slid in next to Ray and looked up at him trying to hid the fear in his eyes.

“Dude, you look like shit.” Ray said in a quiet voice to him.

“I feel like shit. I think I’m still jet-lagged.” Frank lied in a similar hushed tone. The menu’s lowered across the table and Frank was staring at two men he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. Then, the one directly across from him spoke in a voice that chilled him once again to the bone.

“Frankie?”

Notes

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