Gerard

I wake up with cottonmouth, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. As I come to, I slowly realize how much the back of my legs hurt, feel a pulse above my left eye. Wincing, I get on my knees and grab the side of the couch I'm lying next to for aid in getting up.

Well, shit. I gaze around, take in my surroundings. I'm in a living room, sitting among scattered pieces of paper, whiskey bottles and bottle-caps, two pairs of underwear, and other paraphernalia.

I'm wheezing a little bit when I get up, I must have strained myself somehow; I don't remember last night so I don't know how I could have.

Giving myself a pat down, I find I'm missing my cigarettes and also the smiley face lighter Mikey had bought me a few weeks ago. Frustrated that I'm missing the lighter, I get up on my sore legs and scan the littered ground for it.

I get stupid and sentimental over minor things like this. I know it's pathetic, but I've kept almost every drawing any young fan ever drew me, kept every heartfelt letter, kept the old action figures I got from my childhood birthdays. Even when I use up the most likely fifty cent lighter from my brother, I'll probably put it in the same drawer as my sketch books so I can see it every day.

If I can find it.

There's someone lying by the sliding balcony doors, they stir as I step over them.

“Yo.” My voice rasps, my tongue barely drops from the roof of my mouth enough for me to speak.

“Nmnh.” It's the host, hungover and smelling like vomit. He's one of the people working under our record label, and I've had some good conversations with him on quite a few occasions, although he had a tendency to be a douchebag to women.

“I'm missing my lighter.”

There's no response. I pick my way over him, my frown deepening.

I look for a half an hour before I give up; for all I know I could have eaten the lighter or tried to put it down someone's pants. Thankfully, my car keys are in a bowl with several other sets and my phone, last night some of us must have been wise and put them aside.

Stinking of weed, sweat, and alcohol, I make my way to the elevator and once inside, lay my head forehead against the door. My phone pings, a friendly noise that irritates my headache further.

In my line of work, if I don't silence my phone I'll be bombarded with probably ten different noises a minute from all my texts, emails, business inquiries, tweets, and other notifications. I put a special ring tone for my friends texts, which is this soft noise among all the angry, loud noises.

Frank: it's ten already, man! You said you were going to come with me

Gerard: yes

Frank: well? I've been waiting two hours

Laughing hollowly, I stare at the text before tucking my phone back into my pocket.

I cover my face with my hands, dig my fingertips into my hairline. I don't know lately what I've been, why I've been like this. We all get hit hard, but usually make a way to pull ourselves back up again. And to be honest, lately I haven't felt like I got up even once.

Oh sure, I can pretend. Last week I woke up on my bathroom floor in my own vomit, only cleaned myself up to go to practice. Started waking up with blood on my pillowcase but went through the same pill routine every day as soon as I couldn’t handle it. The best thing in all this isn't the feeling or the high, but that no one knows.

Frank: are you ignoring me, Gerard?

“No,” I whisper.

Gerard: I just had a little bit to much to drink last night, I'm gonna get some breakfast then I promise I'll meet you. Give me the ward she's in and I promise I'll be there

Frank: did you think maybe she wants to see you, too? If you gave a shit you'd have been here early, don't act like I don't know you

As my car warms up, I turn on the radio. Loud.

It's going to be a warm day today, highs in the sixties and...

I stop at a gas station, and once inside buy one of those cheap roses they have; I try to find whatever one doesn't have rotten tips and looks the most presentable. I get three large coffees, fill the tray with sugar packets and creamers.

It comes in waves.

By the time I pull into the parking lot I'm a mess; clutching the steering wheel like it's my last life line keeping me afloat.

I was happy last week, the happiness when you're so excited and you don't really know why. The happiness you get when you make a friend, get accepted into the college you wanted to get into, when you complete something you'd been trying to for a long time. Maybe it was because I saw Lindsey, because I talked to her again. She felt new.

And maybe she didn't really care about seeing me because I haven't heard from her since.

Today I'm battling myself, battling the contempt I hold against myself. The only thing keeping me from veering off the road is the rose, the only thing keeping my eyes on the traffic is the promise I made that I might have a chance to put back together.

He's passing by me when I'm walking into the lobby.

“She's asleep, now.” His eyes are hard, and he doesn't stop. I'm not worth even stopping to talk to, I'm breezed over. “I thought you were better than this. Drug store roses and shitty coffee aren't going to mend anything.”

The hardness in Frank's eyes scares me; he's not like that.

When I was in college I drew the most beautiful picture in the world and my mom hung it in her room when I came home during Christmas break. Once I recorded this song for a friend and he said he listened to it whenever he was far away from home. Once I let some kids into a concert for free and they smuggled in weed and the venue told us we couldn’t play there again and when we got big they begged us to come back and I said shit no, man. Once I slept for forty eight hours and I think I died but my brother didn't realize I was in a coma because he was smoking most of that time and didn't stop playing video games.

I give away two of the coffees to two homeless men on the curb; the liquid is lukewarm now but they are glad for it anyways. I ask them how they are doing, and they say well. I ask if they want coffee, and we sit together for a few minutes and they ask me what I do. I say, nothing cool. I ask them what they do; they sit on the curb waiting for people like me to come by.

I end up giving them my pack of cigarettes also, along with one of my extra lighters. If I didn't leave when I did, didn't stop making small talk, I'd probably have given them the coat off my back.

And my head keeps spinning.

*

“Gerard, you have to come to practice.” Mikey's face looks drawn. “Frank sang for you last time. You can't neglect your recording sessions for so long. How are we even going to get an album out of our singer won't come and sing for us?”

“You don't get it.” I'm dragging myself around my kitchen, looking for food because I think I should be hungry even though I don't feel it. “If I feel like shit, I'll sound like it.” My brother follows me closely, pleading, coaxing, trying to convince me to come out of my apartment.

His sharp jaw looks sharper when he gets mad, like his teeth are gritting down hard. “Have you looked at yourself today? Or yesterday? Or any of the days you've locked yourself in here?”

“I try not to on most days.” Frustrated and with nothing to show for my scavenging the kitchen, I lean against the counter and frown at the floor. I'd barely eaten the past week, nursed my stomach with nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol. I knew I should have went out and at least bought groceries, but the inside of my apartment was kinder to me than the world outside it was.

My head jolts up when I hear my brother slam his palm into the center island. “Look at me!”

When we were kids, my brother had serious anger issues; think about middle school age. He'd be suspended for weeks at a time, and almost got sued by some kid's parents for an injury as serious and breaking the child's nose enough that they needed plastic surgery to fix it. As he got older, he mellowed out and became soft spoken; anger released on stage. I'd seen him enraged very, very few times after grade school.

Shocked, I stare at him. His face flushes, eyes narrowed and finger pointed accusingly.“God, I'm so sick of your shit. I don't know what's wrong with you, why you have to act like this. You're not the only one who has bad days! You're not the only one in the band who has issues, and we all pull ourselves together to put on a show for those kids! You're one of us, and you have no right to act like a pussy and force us to extend ourselves when you won't!”

I'm mute, trying to open my mouth to defend myself but can't. Everything he says punctures my mind, and I fight to tell myself it's not true. It's not true.

I rush to defend myself though, stupidly. “Fine, Mikey.” Is all I can manage. “Fine!”

“Are you that stupid? Are you even listening to me? Don't you get it? Sometimes I wonder who the older one is, me or you.” He's to close to my face, I see one of his shoulders tense up and his hand is turning into a fist at his side.

“If you're going to hit me, do it. Get it out of your system.” I meet his gaze, suddenly calm. I realize that my brother is going to hit me, and I patiently wait for it, crave it.

Please just do it.

Mikey turns slightly pale, like he suddenly realized what he had been saying, what he'd been about to do. “I'm going.” He pulls away slowly, turns around. “I'm not going to lower myself to fighting with you anymore. Come back when you care.”

And now you know what I truly am behind the facade I put up.

Notes

oh boy oh boy oh boy i hate myself and i wanna throw up :(

enjoy pls read like 4 like lol jk I literally don't care. But seriously if you liked comment or something and maybe I'll actually start updating, yeah?

xX