Drop Dead Beautiful

“Twenty-four...” Gerard hit his head against the wall again.

He had drank seven bottles of beer in the past 4 hours, it was now 3:45, according to the digits on his cell phone.

The body was still laying on the couch, unmoving.

Gerard had not left him sprawled on the item of furniture, but had lied him down gently on his back, folding his hands across his chest. It reminded him of his grandmother, Elena.

Oh, Elena. She was Gerard’s sunshine. And as he was told many times while she was around, he was just as much to her.

She had taught him beauty and art and had helped him with his drawing, dancing and singing. No family love could advance theirs. But she was an old lady, and as all old ladies do eventually, she died.

Gerard hadn’t taken it lightly.

flashback time wooooo

“Can you sing it for me, sweetie, just one more time, from the top?”

Elena placed her delicate and withered fingers atop the white keys. Gerard smiled in fondness and delight.

“Of course, grandma!” he giggled.

He was perched atop the grand piano in Elena’s living room. They could remember the day they had saw it in the thrift furniture store.

------

“Elena, It’s not going to fit! Your house is tiny!” Don had expressed, agitated. Elena only laughed and waved him off, beckoning for the “men in red polo shirts”, titled by a seven year old Gerard, to carry the instrument into the room, looking rather nervous.

The old lady sucked in the smoke of her cigarette, laughing croakily.

After having squeezed the grand piano behind Elena’s couch, the men had taken their pay and left hurriedly. The woman was determined, and Gerard’s utter inspiration.

“Come on, Gee, your play is tonight! You’ll want it to be fabulous, yes? Okay, one and two and-“

The eleven year-old sang, his sweet voice like a nightingale, but much more unique and raw.

Elena grinned and played the notes on the instrument that carried not only melodies, but memories.

------

“Thank you, mom, you’ll be at Gerard’s play tonight at six, yes?” Donna asked her mother.

“Oh, absolutely, of course, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, dear. Belleville Elementary, right?”

“That’s the one. Gee!”

Gerard came running from the kitchen, carrying two tubs of Elena’s spaghetti bolognaise she’d prepared the night before to give to her daughter, as she couldn’t eat it all herself. Gerard leaned up on his tippy-toes and planted a kiss on Elena’s soft and aged cheek.

“I love you, grandma, see you soon!”

“I can’t wait, honey!I love you too!”

Donna started the car and they drove off for young Gerard to get ready.

------

Donna’s palms were getting sweaty, clasped together in her lap.

Elena hadn’t yet turned up.

Gerard was on stage already, halfway through the play and performing well, but Donna knew something was up. She knew her own son, and she could see in his eyes that he wanted to cry.
Not because boys in his class who were in the audience were pointing and laughing at him, insensitive and listening not to his angelic voice. Everyone else was oblivious. Elena would never let her beloved grandson down.

Maybe she forgot the time? No, surely she’d have called Donna.

(Gerard’s POV)
I crashed through the white-painted hardwood, my throat burning and bleeding from my screaming and howling, I was blind from white-hot tears stinging my eyes my forehead ached from my eyebrows knitting themselves together. My tongue grazed against my grinding teeth, my neck shaking from my angry growls. I clutched my head in my hands, sucking in gasps of breath. I kicked out at everything, probably breaking a few things. I strode over to my window and ripped the curtains from their pole, I tipped over my bedside table, sending comic books flying around the room like large and heavy and superhero-themed confetti.

(30 Minutes Earlier)
Gerard and Donna arrived home, Donna sighed and pulled out a cigarette, her husband gave her a confused look, an eight year-old Mikey in his lap, which she returned with a “don’t ask” look.
Gerard sat with his head in his hands, not thinking of anything. He wasn’t angry at his grandmother for not turning up, just confused. Elena was sincere, she wouldn’t lie.

There was a knock on the door.

Gerard leaped from his seat, his grumpy frown turning immediately into a giant grin. “Grandma!” he screamed, and sprinted to the door. Yanking it open, he was met with the sorrowful face of, not Elena, but a Policeman who clutched his copper cap in his pudgy hands. He regarded Gerard with kind eyes, filled with worry.

“H-hello, son, do you have a parent or guardian with ya?”

Gerard felt a poisonous lump in his throat.

“Mom. Someone’s here,” he said coldly and monotonously. Donna rushed in, seeing the policeman and forcefully ignoring his reason to be at the door.

“Yes? How can we help you?” she said, shakily.

“Mrs Way, I presume?”

“Yes, yes, go on!”

“Sorry.. yes, sorry.” He said nervously. “I’m afraid I have some news... you might wanna take the kid somewhere else.”

“No, I’m pretty sure whatever it is, Gerard has every right to hear it.” She replied

“Yes...well, I’m very sorry...” he trailed off, swallowing. He had been in the force for thirteen years and not once had he been the one to declare one of the many occurances in Belleville.

“earlier this evening your mother’s car was found crashed and turned over on the side of the road- I- I’m sorry, ma’am but your mother she- she was found in the wreck... d-dead.” he said apologetically as looked Donna Way straight in the eye.

Donna didn’t need to request that he repeat the words. Never in her life did she want to hear something like that again.

“Okay.” She said, patting the man on the shoulder and shut the door before he could open his mouth again.

She turned around to look at her son, but he was already crashing up the stairs.

She fell to the floor, curling up against the door.

No tears came. She couldn’t cry. It hadn’t hit her- Elena Lee Rush, her mother was- dead? It couldn’t be. Her heart ached though it wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of completely breaking.

She heard crashes upstairs in Gerard’s room. He needed to be alone.

(Gerard’s POV)
I curled up on my side near a pile of laundry on the scratchy carpet of my bedroom floor. The tears still came, but my screams had muted me, my body too tired to destroy things anymore.
I got up quickly, an idea coming to mind. My parents were in bed and were heavy sleepers. They wouldn’t hear me. I tip-toed down the kitchen and opened the fridge, staring unblinkingly at the red cans, the white-lettered logo printed across the putrid liquid.

I remembered the big kids in my school saying how beer made you feel good. I felt horrible. I snatched a can from the cold cupboard and pulled my jacket from the banister of the stairs, leaving.

---

Donald found his son in the woods near their house, curled up under his yellow rainjacket, beer can crushed in his hand.

Eleven.

His eleven year old son had embraced self-destruction.

flashback time over wooooo

“Three-hundred and sixty-two” Gerard continued counting.

The body was still there.

Alcohol wasn’t sufficient right now, and he had no pills left. Hitting his head against his plaster walls and swimming in his tragic past wasn’t exactly helping, either. He picked himself up, balancing himself with his clammy palm against the wall. The drunkard trudged over to the TV, nudging it out of the way so he could sit adjacent to the body on his couch. He picked up blank and crumpled printed paper from under a mouldy noodle box. He had a pencil in the breast pocket of his rotten leather jacket.

Gerard began, for the first time in months, to draw the beautiful figure before him. Maybe he’d get dressed smart and have a private funeral for him? He smiled at the thought.

*

(Frank’s POV)
I woke up.

No “light at the end of the tunnel” or some shit, nothing, I just woke up. How long had it been since I got punched in the dick? Why wasn’t I dead? Was I dead? Was this heaven?

I regarded the room around me, empty beer bottles, some full six packs near him, a cigarette pack, comic books?

It was heaven for me.

I sat up.

Fucking hell. Bad idea.

My bones creaked in their flesh shell. I put rested my dirt-clad hand to my head to rest upon my throbbing headache. It was crusty. I pulled my hand away, scrutinizing the red substance in the dents of my fingerprints. Woah, good job, those guys beat me up good.

I remembered everything, every feeling, every blow to the stomach and chest. The knifes, the vomit. The blood. So much blood. I should be dead. I remembered them running off, laughing gleefully and leaving me under a fuckin’ tree.

A tree.

Where was that tree? I was on.. a couch. Had they come back and taken me home? Doubt it. I was probably the lucky day for a necrophiliac who need a new toy.

Gross.

I shrugged it off, getting fucked by a creep while I was unconscious wasn’t exactly as bad as a near-death experience. Not me, one who suffered.

I cracked my bones and turned around groggily in the couch, leaning my chin against the armrest, my eyes were met with those of a young man, dressed smart, in a suit? He better not be some fucking FBI dude, I was not doing that shit today.

Waistcoat- nice.

“Hi” I smiled.

He was drawing something, I knew, from the grey strokes against white paper that fell to the ground as he jumped in shock. Man, he had pretty eyes. A pretty face, was “he” a “she”?

He didn’t say anything. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

I stopped smiling. Did I seriously say “Hi” to my potential... I don’t know.... captor? It’s not like I came here willingly.

Or unwillingly, I was unconscious, after all.

Why was I in here? What? Who was he?

I began to panic and sat up in my chair. He made no move to follow me, still frozen in place in the chair.

I was frozen, too, it seemed. He didn’t look harmful. Honestly, he looked like a fairy. My body was still confused, though, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t run. I had no idea where to go. I’d get killed again if I left.. wherever the hell I was.

“You’re alive!”

Huh. He talked.

Wait.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I blurted, still planted to the ground, my escape route outside the door to my left. I could leave right now. Why wasn’t I leaving? Why wasn’t he stopping me?

He huffed out a shocked laugh.

“You- you’re you-I-“ he spluttered. “You’re dead! You were dead! N-no pulse!”

I looked down at myself, I had bruises up and down my arms, hidden only slightly by my tattoos.
If I was honest, I was just as confused as he.

A/N: I’m sorry for the shit ending of this chapter, I’ll try harder in the next one!

Notes

I’m sorry for the shit ending of this chapter, I’ll try harder in the next one!