Unapologetic Apathy

Prologue

I look up, and there they are. He’s holding her in his arms; they’re laughing. They kiss, slowly and sweetly. Grabbing her hand, he turns with his back to me and starts walking down the narrow path in the park with her. What a picture perfect moment.

If I can’t have him, nobody can.

He takes her to her car, and kisses her one last time before she drives home. As she drives away, he waves to her. When she is gone, he looks down at the ring on his finger and smiles a perfect, beautiful smile before getting into his car and driving to work.

If I can’t have him, nobody can.

I look at the knife in my hands and know what I have to do. As if in a trance, I get in my car and drive to their house, where I find her unlocking the front door. She turns to me. “Oh, hey Frank!” What am I doing? With jealous rage I run toward her, knife in hand.

“If I can’t have him, nobody can!”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Frank’s POV*

“Frank! Frank!” I hear Gerard’s voice, beckoning me to consciousness. I open my eyes to see him holding me in his arms, a worried look on his face. I’m sweating, and I realize that I must have been screaming in my sleep again. Ever since it happened, I’ve had these terrors…

“Oh, I- I’m f-fine. G-go back to sleep Gerard.” I say, still breathing hard.


“No, Frank. This is serious.” Why did he have to be so caring? I don’t deserve him.

“No really, it was just a dream. Go back to sleep, you have a big day tomorrow.” I reply. Gerard sighs and turns on the lamp next to our bed. Our bed. He sits up and stares at me.

“Well if it’s ‘just a dream’ then why do you wake up screaming almost every night, and refuse to tell me what it is? I’m not going to sleep until you tell me what’s up.” He crosses his arms. Shit. Don’t get me wrong- when I murdered his wife, I totally expected to live in miserable guilt for the rest of my sad life. What I didn’t count on was Gerard falling in love with me three years later.
I was planning on telling him, of course. I was. Wasn’t I? Well anyway, telling Gerard that I murdered his wife out of jealousy is completely out of the question now, because he’s in love with me. I can’t tell him what a monster I really am. I ruined him once, I can’t do it again. The thing is, he deserves the truth. I’ve made up way too many crappy excuses for the terrors that it’s simply ridiculous now. Besides, your love is the one person you’re supposed to be able to tell everything. Was this love or lust? Love, I decided. I sigh and pull a notebook out from my sock drawer. Maybe I can tell him, but without telling him. Makes total sense.

“Is that your dream journal?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. Ugh that’s adorable. I shake
the thought away and open it to one of the last pages. I clear my throat, unsure of what to say. I decide on the truth.

“Uh, yeah. But I stopped writing down my dreams a long time ago, since they’re all the same anyway.”

“So are you going to let me read it?” he inquires, genuinely curious.

“Well, uhm, sort of. No. Uh, I still don’t feel comfortable with it, but I wrote a song, so maybe I could show you that?”

“Hm. It’s progress I guess.” He nodded, and scooted closer to me so he could read the lyrics as I sang. I cleared my throat and started, hoping he wouldn’t catch on to the parts that were about him.

A drink, for the horror that I’m in.
For the good guys and the bad guys,
For the monsters that I’ve been.
Three cheers for tyranny, unapologetic apathy.
‘Cuz there ain’t no way that she’s coming home again.

And through it all, how could you cry… for me?
‘Cuz I don’t feel bad about it.
So shut your eyes, kiss me goodnight,
And sleep. Just sleep.
The hardest part- the awful things that I’ve seen.

“So yeah. I also was playing around with a couple more phrases, too, but I haven’t like arranged them into a verse or anything.” I say nervously. He looks me in the eye.

“Will you show them to me?” he asks. He puts a comforting hand on my back. I don’t want his comfort. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve him. I deserve to feel like a terrible person because I am a terrible person. Why can’t he see that? I shake the thought and flip the page and half sing, half speak a couple lines.

“Don’t you breathe on me, underserving of your sympathy.” He takes his hand off my back. He knows that line is about him. I continue anyway.

“‘Cuz there ain’t no way that I’m sorry for what I did.” I close the book and stare into my lap. As guilty as I am, I’m not sorry that I did it, because it brought Gerard to me. I would do it again if I had to, and I hate myself for being this way. I am a monster. I am a monster. I am a monster.
I am a monster, and I deserve to die. Scratch that, I want to die, but I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve such sweet relief from my guilt. The only thing that keeps me from taking my life- and has been keeping me from taking my life for the past three years- is Gerard. He already lost one person, I couldn’t take away somebody else that he loves.

He caresses my face in his hands. There’s no point in ignoring what he’s already figured out.

“Didn’t I just say I didn’t want your sympathy?” I say, half-joking. A small smile appears and disappears on his face. He looks me dead in the eyes.

“Yeah, but I don’t get why you don’t deserve it. You’ve never wronged me, never cheated, never done anything to hurt me.” he says, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. He pulls me into a hug, and I let a single tear fall from my face onto his shirt.

“You have no idea.”

Notes

welllll that's it. It turned into random psychological babble a lot faster than expected. Also I KNOW I CHANGED SOME LYRICS PLS DON'T HATE ME. I just wanted them to fit the storyyyy.
kthxbye