2nd September 1998 - Wenesday
Frank was smiling so much the next day that Pete swore to the rest of the guys his face was going to break in half. He even ignored Gerard which, okay, was totally not normal. Gabe had even asked if he was coming down with something and when Frank called Bob 'Robert' and Andy snickered, Bob swore on his mother's life that he would kill them both, yet Frank was still smiling.

Yeah, Frank was totally off.

At the end of the day just as he was hurrying out of the main entrance dying to go home Pete had called him. He sighed and frowned but turned around nonetheless to talk to Pete.

“Yo dude what's up with you today,” Pete started “You're peachy as all goddamn fuck.”
Frank just smiled at him. “It's just that I'm moving to my new house today and I really fucking hated my old one. I kind of have to go now, my mom's kinda waiting outside.”

“Oh okay that explains it.” Pete said nodding understandingly to himself. “See you around Frankie.”

“See ya Pete.” Frank said, immediately after running towards where his mom's car was.

“Hi mom.” He said getting into the car and giving her a slight peck on the cheek.

“Hi Frankie,” she smiled. “The van's already arrived at the house so we can start unpacking as soon as we get there.”

“Awesome.”

The car drive to their new house was silent as Frank mostly stared outside the window smiling. He felt as if something was familiar as his mom was pulling up to their new house and, oh.

Shitty cocksucking fuck. There they were. The Way brothers getting into their house, the house Frank had been to so many times as a kid. The house that was right next to Frank's new one. Fuck.

Time Lapse
Frank had been moping all afternoon. He moved in right next to the Way brothers' house. Yippity fucking yay. He was unpacking the living room boxes since he had finished his room and his mom was still doing hers, when he came across a few photo albums. Yeah, he thought, this will put me in a better mood.

He loved seeing old photos of him as a kid. He just looked so happy and carefree. He had been looking at them for approximately 10 minutes and had just finished another photo album. He picked up the third one of many and as soon as he opened it his breath caught. It was a picture of him and Gerard. They were at the beach and had their arms around each others shoulders and Mikey was in the background making a sandcastle. Frank remembered taking this photo. His mother and father were still married at this point so he wouldn't spend every summer in Italy. Come to think of it that was his last summer he had spent in America. He had begged his mom almost every day to go to the beach with Gerard so every time him and his parents would go, his mom would ring up Donna and ask if her, Don and the boys would like to come along. And they always did.

As he looked at the little space next to the photo where you could write a caption he could see his messy kid writing in crayons saying “Gee and Frankie, best friends forever”. He flicked through the rest of the album quickly and could see all of the photos were Gerard related. He had no idea why his mom had kept them, and it certainly didn't do any good to help his moping. He quickly put the photo albums away and continued unpacking the rest of the living room.

---

Gerard had locked himself in the basement for 2 hours. Mikey had said he swore Frank sitting in the car outside the house next to theirs, which had just been sold. If Gerard's luck was that bad, which it totally was, Frank had moved in next door, and now not only did he have to endure him at school but also in his own neighborhood. To add on to that his mom would know he was getting bullied and she would worry even more than she already did. The only reason Gerard turned down working at a record store, even though it payed better, and went to work at the comic store was because it would've been more likely to find Frank buying records that buying comics. Not that that even mattered now since he was going to be seeing a lot of Frank anyway.

Thinking of work, Gerard realized his shift was due to start soon. So he got his hoodie and
finally unlocked himself out of his room. He shouted a goodbye to whoever was listening and got out of the door, tucking his hands in his pockets because wow, yeah, the evenings are much colder.

He vaguely looked at the house next to his and when he glanced through the window, There was Frank, staring right back at him. He moved his gaze so he was looking forward again and continued walking to the comic store.

“Fucking fuck.” He said to himself thoughtfully. “Frank Iero has moved in next door and I'm dead.”

It wasn't even the fact that Frank had moved in next door, Frank wouldn't be stupid enough to bully his childhood best friend in front of his mom. It was the fact that as soon as their mom's found out they were living next to each other they would be having gatherings and what not. Forcing Frank and Gerard to be together.

“Fuck.” he said once again, just for good measure.

He soon got to the comic store and started his shift straight away. He had a nagging feeling the whole way that someone had been following him but hey, it was New Jersey, you were bound to get that feeling if you ever went out after dark.

When he got into the store there weren't many people there, 3 actually, and they all seemed to be together. One of them with a mad afro he swore he knew from somewhere. As soon as he got behind the counter, the dude with the afro came up to him and started speaking.

"Hey I'm Ray." He said in a cheery high pitched voice, throwing his hand out for Gerard to shake.

"I'm Gerard." He replied shaking the dudes hand, and still trying to figure out where he knew him from.

"I go to school with you if you're wondering where I'm from." Ray said. Either the dude was fucking psychic or Gerard's confusion was really obvious. Most likely the latter, although being psychic with a fro would have been pretty awesome. "Anyway I never see you with anyone and I was thinking you could use some friends." Ray continued. "I'm a junior, I'm pretty sure you are too. Those two love birds over there are Ryan and Brendon. They're sophomores" Gerard looked briefly over to where Ray had said Ryan and Brendon were, and sure enough there was a really girly looking dude with a scarf and some other dude laughing hysterically, with a really dorky laugh Gerard thought, to something the girly dude was saying. "Oh," said Ray as if he had forgotten something. "The dude with the scarf is Ryan, that's his boyfriend Brendon." Gerard nodded, they seemed good together. "So as I was saying, you're never with anyone so if you like you could start hanging with us at breaks and having lunch with us."

"Yeah," Gerard said. "That would be really great, thank you."

"Awesome," Ray replied smiling. Just before he went out the door he turned around. "Look for us tomorrow in the cafetria at lunch then, you can chill with us."

Gerard nodded briefly at him and waved at the guys before they left. Awesome. He had made his very first friends that weren't Frank, and they seemed nice. Gerard didn't think they'd pull the shit on him that Frank did. They didn't really seem popular, or like they had any desire to do so. They were just really dorky, and happy. Huh, happy. That's something Gerard could use more of at school.

He went back to work, still basking in the fact that he had actually made friends. Soon enough it was midnight so Gerard locked everything up and went home with his paycheck.

---

“What the fuck was that?” Frank murmured after snapping out of his few seconds of shock. Gerard had just passed his house and Frank had just stared at him, and Gerard stared back.

What was he even doing out at this time? It was like 7pm. Could Gerard, the king of loners, actually be going to parties every night, or clubs or whatever. He always seemed tired at school so who knows.

Frank doing the most logical thing his mind could come up with at the time, which was totally fucking stupid, decided he would follow Gerard. Pulling on his hoodie, he told his mom he was going out and then left, thankful that Gerard was still visible at the end of the road.

Once he saw Gerard go into the comic store he vaguely wondered why he had come to buy comics at this time and not earlier, he stood there for a few seconds contemplating this so when he decided to pass the store and casually glance its way to peek in, he was surprised to see Gerard behind the counter talking to a dude with a sick afro, answering a customer's question he assumed. He turned around and made his way back home, not exactly wanting to be caught spying on him.

As he made his way back home, he wondered who was actually that much of a loser to have a job at 16. Especially a job that was at partying hours. He figured Gerard probably worked from 7 to midnight, a half shift, and that's why he always looked like a zombie at school. Not partying, no, that would be way off for Gerard.

When he got home he sat by his bedroom window and opened it. It was facing the front of the house so if Gerard spoke to anyone when he came home he would be able to hear. He picked up his guitar, Pansy, from the corner of his room and started strumming some tune softly.

Time Lapse
He had practiced guitar for around two hours and then picked up a book when his hands started to ache slightly. He had no idea how long he had been reading but he figured it must have also been 2 hours since he saw Gerard walking home, just a few houses away from his. He heard the Way's door opening and saw Donna making her way towards Gerard, and they both stopped right outside Frank's house.

“Hey mom,” Gerard said. “Are you off to work?”

“Yeah hun, how was your work?”

“It was good.” Gerard started looking for something in his pockets then pulling out a white envelope and handing it to his mom. “There you go, they gave me my pay check early this week so you can get some of your bills payed.”

Donna smiled sadly at her son and took the envelope. “Thank you Gerard. You and Mikey have been so good to me since dad died. You just work so hard and you never even complain.” She looked on the verge of tears.

“Hey mom, shh don't it's ok.” Gerard said, pulling her into a hug. “I couldn't just leave you hanging taking care of 2 teenage kids and working at the office during the day and the motel at night.”

“Thank you so much.” She whispered back to him.

“Hey it's okay. I'm gonna go catch up on sleep now, school tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” His mom replied wiping away the few tears that had spilled. “You do that, see you tomorrow son.”

“See ya mom.” And with that Donna carried on her way whilst Gerard made his way into his house, and Frank just stood there in shock.

When had Gerard and Mikey's dad died? Frank had just thought Gerard was a complete loser for having a job at sixteen when he was really just helping his family to keep from starving. Frank was a horrible person. He had bullied Gerard for the last two years so he could carry on being popular, and he had been fine with it, not caring if Gerard got hurt or not because he was too worried about who in school knew his name. All whilst Gerard was having a tough time out of school because his dad had died and his mom worked two jobs just to feed her kids.

He felt as if he should make it up to Gerard. Would they still even get along? They had the same tastes Frank guessed. He knew Gerard must still be into comics and superheroes since he was working at the comic store and Frank had seen him with some cool band tees.

But they had probably both gotten into different groups of friends. That's when it dawned on Frank. Gerard didn't have any friends. He had spent the last 4 years alone because of Frank.
He sunk down on to his knees and gasped for air, he felt as if his heart has just swollen up with so much pain and guilt that it was squashing his lungs. Gerard was always the quiet weird kid. The only person who brought him out of his shell was Frank and once Frank had betrayed his trust Gerard had closed off to anyone else. He didn't let people get too close because he thought they would end up abandoning him for popularity and then bullying him to stay on top of the food chain.

How could a person even do that to someone who had been their best friend, Frank wondered. He had been calling Gerard names and pushing him into lockers for the past 2 years. The same Gerard that he had spent so many hours with during his childhood, the same Gerard who would spend forever drawing vampires and werewolves onto his many casts so he wouldn't mope about having them. The same Gerard who would speak to him and he would ignore just to listen to someone who was saying something more interesting, the same Gerard who he would ditch at breaks just to hang out with the popular kids.

He didn't even realize he had been crying until he felt the tears drop down his neck and onto his clothes. He had left Gerard all alone at breaks to be with more popular people. Not people that he liked, no, just more popular people. He had left his best friend being ignored to listen to something more interesting, like who was having a party and when. Gerard could have been being picked on by other kids whilst he was hanging out with someone else and he hadn't even cared. Hell, he had been the one to pick on Gerard not much longer afterward. He had broken his best friends heart into tiny pieces and not even cared. Why not? Because he had what he wanted, being popular. Did he still want it though?

Frank numbly made his way to his bed, still crying, and felt the exhaustion from so much emotional pain. This is what Gerard had been through, he thought, only on top of that his dad had died and his mom was working herself stupid just to provide food. That night, he just cried himself to sleep, and promised himself he would at least stop picking on Gerard, if he couldn't reconcile their friendship.

Notes

Chapter Title Credit: Ignorance - Paramore

Also thank you all for the lovely comments