Honey, this Mirror Ain't Big Enough for the Two of Us.

Chapter 13

Frank

Soon after I decide my drawing is as good as it’s going to get, the lady that welcomed us to the art room claps her hands and gestures to pay attention to her. “Attention, artists!” She trills. I choke back a laugh at her choice of titles for us.
She continues, “That’s all the time we have for today, but the art room is always open to you when your creativity strikes! Feel free to wander in and channel your emotions anytime.”
There are snorts of laughter at her eccentricity as chairs are scraped back and collectively most of the rehab patients stand up.
I weave through the crowd of people slightly confused as to where to go, to reach Gerard’s side. He is still in his chair and bent over his drawing, sketching furiously. I stay several feet away until the room is mostly emptied, just a few stragglers milling about, not paying attention to the two of us. Having a moment of blind courage, I slowly approach Gerard and quickly peck him on his cheek, stepping back just as fast afterwards. He jerks up, looking around. His eyes fall on me and I can just barely see his pink-tinged face before he shakes his head and his ink black hair falls into his face and covers the majority of it. I roll my eyes at him. “You look like a fucking sheepdog with that haircut, Gee,” I declare, sitting backwards in the chair next to him. The room is now empty besides us.
He rolls his eyes right back, half in mimicry. “Hello to you too, Frankie. And it’s been years since my hair has been cut, I don’t think this qualifies.” I brush it out of his face slowly, expressionless. He raises an eyebrow at me and laughs a bit nervously. “Uh, can I help you?” He says. I can tell he’s starting to become a bit uncomfortable under my gaze. I ask in a low voice, “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
He avoids my eyes and laughs, a hollow and dry sound. “Yeah, sure.”
Frowning, I scoot my chair closer to his and softly hold his chin, making his eyes meet mine. “You don’t believe me,” I say, a statement more than a question.
He huffs out air, a harsh exhale. “Well, of course I don’t believe you! I’m skinny as fuck, pale enough to be dead, my arm resembles a murder scene, my nose looks like it should be on a fucking fairy, you deserve so much- mph.” I cut him off by pressing my lips to his firmly, trying to show him all my feelings for him with this kiss. He relaxes from his rant on himself, loosely looping his arms around my neck and leaning forward. I bring a hand up to his neck and softly stroke his pale skin with my thumb. We stay like that for awhile, showing our love for each other with a passionate yet pure kiss.
Our lips disconnect when there is a need for air. Gerard starts to open his mouth, probably to continue to hate himself, but I lightly place my finger over his lips to stop his words, speaking myself. “You are perfect, whether or not you can see that. It pains me to hear you bash yourself like that. Don’t do it, please.”
I take my finger away from his mouth. He hunches over and says in a tired voice, “I don’t deserve you.”
I glare at him and hop out of the chair to sit on his lap. “Shut the fuck up, or I’ll have to kiss you again,” I say, hating that he thinks he is not good enough for me. If anything, it’s the other way around. He looks up at me, lacing his arms around my waist. “Is that meant to be a threat? That’s a fucking shitty threat, Frankie.”
I choose to ignore his remark and change the subject, “What were you drawing?” I ask, trying to look over his shoulder to see his illustration. He turns to pick it up and hands it to me. “It’s not much, we only had about fifteen minutes after all.”
On the paper is a black and red sketch of a face, half Gerard’s and half a bloodied and fanged repulsive creature. Scrawled across the bottom of the paper are the words ‘I Am A Monster’. The detail is amazing, right down to the creases on his perfect pink lips and the shine in a drop of blood. It is beautifully horrible, or horribly beautiful, I cannot decide. He’s a stunning artist. I tell him that, and he blushes, putting his head on my shoulder and nonverbally disagreeing.
After studying the artwork, I ask him a question. “Gerard, why do think like this?” I say quietly, leaning against his chest.
I can feel him tense up. “Think like what?’ He asks, overtly nonchalantly. I poke him in the chest accusingly. “You know what I mean.” He ignores me.
“Why do you hate yourself?” I ask him, casting my eyes at the door to make sure no one walks in.
He rests his head on mine. “Sugar, that’s a long story,” He sighs.
I reply, “I’ve got time. I’m not fucking going anywhere.”
He draws in a deep and barely shaky breath. I can feel his chest expand against mine. “Well, to start off, I think I was an accident. My parents didn’t particularly like me or make an effort to be supportive of their firstborn child. I told them I was gay when I was 13, and they were so ashamed of me. My father couldn’t even lay eyes on me. I… In middle and high school I turned to relationships to give me self worth. I was an easy target for school bullies, and I always was being used for some massive jock’s questioning. Forcing me to give them blowjobs in a storage closet, and then calling me a faggot the whole time. Things like that. And I let them use me, because I ‘loved’ them. You don’t know what that does to you, month after month, year after year.
My grandmother Elena was the one who really raised me, and the one who I turned to when I was upset or angry. She accepted me, homosexuality and all. Mikey and I were both really close to her.
She died when I was eighteen, the year before Mikey killed himself. We were both so alone. I holed myself up in my basement room and shut the world out. My brother was getting bullied, I knew that. But I...I was selfish, and stayed out of the bullies way so I wouldn’t be hurt too. I always the emo faggot. I pretended not to notice the signs. A split lip here, a bruise there...I drowned it all out selfishly in alcohol and painkiller pills. My brother has started cutting. First on his hips, then he moved on to his thighs, and then finally his wrists. He just needed some….someone to talk to, who would listen…”
Gerard’s voice cracks and breaks, and I hug him tightly. He takes a few deep breaths and continues, with his eyes screwed tightly shut.
“You already know he killed himself. My parents were the ones to find him. They came down to my room in the basement, and told me that it was my fault, that I as the reason he was dead, that I was such a bad influence. They kicked me out.
I had no money, no savings, no place to go. So I went to the only person I could go to. My boyfriend at the time, Bert. I had just barely gotten out of high school, there was no direction in my life. I moved in with him into his shitty apartment.
“I knew that he was involved in the local drug trade but I had never actually saw him dealing or using. The first night I stayed at his house, he offered to give me a fix of heroin. I was tired of feeling the pain and disappointment that has consumed my life as of recently, so I decided not to feel at all. I tried heroin for the first time that night.
“At first it was weird, like it almost wasn’t working. Just fuzzy around the edges of my vision. Then it came all at once, I was flying, higher than I ever had with the pills or alcohol. I was completely weightless. All my problems were gone, and it seemed like they would never come back.
But they did. Worse than before. With additional shakes and vomiting and a fever that kept spiking. I thought I was going to die. I needed more, to feel alright again. Bert told me that the first fix was free, but I had to pay him from there on out. But...I had no money. So my body had to do. He grew abusive. I let him use me, until one night, I couldn’t take all the violent slaps and high fucks. I left him. He was...Is still my dealer, and unless I could pay, he’d do things to me. The night before I got brought here, he beat me up harder than ever before. Hence the black eye and bruises I had.”
I inhale air sharply at the horribleness of it all, how roughly Gerard was treated by Bert. He looks up at my sound of breath, and I can tell my facial expression is interpreted the wrong way. His eyes well up and start to spill over with tears.
He speaks in a broken tone, “I’m sorry, I know you probably hate me.I’m filthy and horrible.” I frown at him and kiss away his tears cascading down his cheeks, wiping at one of his eyes gently with my thumb. “No, you’re perfect. Everyone’s got baggage.” I cradle my face in his hands, forcing eye contact.
“And what did I just say about bashing yourself?” I ask, frowning slightly. He looks down. I give him a tiny peck on the tip of his nose.
I stroke the side of his face gently, and look, really look, deep into his eyes. “I love you, Gee,” I say quietly.
He smiles sadly, sniffling. “I love you too, Frankie.”
I rest my head on his shoulder and play with his messy black hair, trying to help him calm down a bit. After a while of this, I speak quietly.
“My story is not nearly as tragic as yours. My parents are your standard middle aged couple, living in the suburbs with their quaint little house and white picket fence. But they have issues, far more than most other families do.
“They are wildly religious. And I don’t mean just a prayer before meals, no. I’m talking six hour long mass on Sundays, lengthy bible studies monday through thursday nights, memorizing entire stanzas and randomly interjecting them into everyday life, rosaries everywhere.”
Gerard looks at me, shifting his vision so as not to disturb my head on his shoulder or hand in his hair.
“But their favorite way of devoting themselves to God was to lock their only son in his closet everytime he did something that was not considered holy and forcing him to pray to a Jesus figurine for hours on end….And I was a fucking punk brat as a teenager, so you can imagine who messed up my bone structure is from constant bowed over praying,” I say, trying to add a bit of humor into this horrible discussion. Gerard frowns and pulls me closer to him by the hips, a sign of protectiveness.
I blush and continue, “I was not allowed to listen to the music I wanted to listen to, talk to the people I wanted to talk to, wear what I wanted to wear, even eat what I wanted to eat unless it all strictly met the rules in the bible. And homosexuality...well. I’m sure you can guess what they thought of that.
“Anyways, they limited me from expressing myself or having friends who really understood me, or left me with any coping methods for it all. I turned to stealing cigarettes from convenience stores at around age 14. It all went downhill from there.
“Eventually, I progressed into harder and harder drugs, to try and numb the pain, or feel something in my horrible life, or maybe both at the same time. By 16, I was doing cocaine. My 19th birthday marked the start of my meth addiction. I’ll be twenty on Halloween, whenever that is. Which is actually funny, considering my parents felt Halloween was a day of sin and never let me go trick-or-treating.”
My voice has become harsh, bitter. Gerard is looking at me, concerned. I regret bringing this up, I should just finish this and be done with my stupid past.
“My parents found me on a high in my bedroom. It was a Sunday, which didn’t exactly help matters. Day of the Lord and all...Anyways, my father went ballistic. He called me a demon, and certainly not his son. I was thrown into my closet again….I don’t think I can ever go back. Especially because I am in love with a male, and a fellow drug addict. But mostly the part that you’re male.” I sigh heavily, closing my eyes to block out all the bad memories.
Gerard envelops me in a hug. “It’ll be okay. If they don’t accept you for who you are, then fuck them. You are legally old enough to not depend on them, after all, You could leave and never see them again,” He says quietly. I nod silently. He repeats my earlier sentence, “Everyone’s got baggage.” I say nothing, processing what the words truly mean.
After staying in his embrace for quite some time, I slowly extract myself from his arms and lap and get up, stretching my arms and legs to banish their stiffness. I offer him a hand up, and he takes it, standing close to me. He pulls me by the hipbones closer to him, bending down slightly to touch his forehead to mine. I loop my arms around his waist and look up at him, blowing away a lock of hair that had fallen in my face. He smiles softly at my action and kisses me gently, sweetly.
We stay like that, two lost and broken people in an abandoned art room, who have at last found each other.

Notes

It's been a rough few weeks.
Breakups make everyone feel upset, and one person very guilty.
I'm always the bad one.
Sorry for how late this chapter is,
next chapter up whenever i find the energy to write it,
the story will end, i wont just drop it, i promise.
kthnksbye,
XXX Mourning-Glory XXX