Gerard didn’t sleep last night. He was looking out his window all night until it was time for him to find something to wear to go to school in. He didn’t want to go to school but he never did. Why would you want to when you’re bullied all the time? But you’re bullied at home and bullied at school. It doesn’t matter where you are. You’re just going to be ignored or belittled, no matter what.

Gerard’s parents’ are normal people, almost too normal. His parents’ are doctors. His mom delivers babies and his dad works with the mentally ill. Gerard laughs at this, because they he doesn’t see what a basket case his own son is. Actually, he probably does, but he probably doesn’t care enough to try to help him out. He probably doesn’t see his son as someone who can be cured. He’s a lost cause. He’s only living in this house because he has no other choice to. If his parents’ had their way, Gerard Way would be erased from the family tree.

His parents’ are very ashamed of him. They don’t like brining him out to family functions, which the Way family seems to have a lot of, but Donna and Donald always “forget” to tell Gerard about them and Gerard so conveniently has to work that day. They always praise Michael, Gerard’s younger, much smarter brother. He’s the son they love, he’s the son who gets all the love that he deserves. In Donna and Donald’s eyes, Gerard doesn’t deserve love and affection. He’s weird, he isn’t smart. He’s stupid and doesn’t talk. He’s chubby and doesn’t care about himself. He’s just a lost cause.

Michael, also known as Mikey gets stupid high grades and he’s on the debate team and everyone likes him. He’s only in 10th grade but he takes all senior classes, let’s face it, Mikey Way is a damn genius and Gerard is the stupid asshole his parents’ are forced to keep under their roof until Gerard goes away to college. Mikey is the golden child, whenever Gerard actually goes and sees his family, his parents’ always bring up Mikey and they never once bring up Gerard. They don’t speak about him ever. They would rather talk about how Mikey is going to be going to NYU when he graduates and he’s going to become a doctor just like Donna and Donald.

Gerard is just the stupid fag artist.

Donna is the hardest on Gerard. She puts him down most of the time and always rides Gerard’s ass about getting good grades that he doesn’t get. Gerard is a fantastic artist, he can draw and paint pretty much anything and he always has been like that since he was a little boy. His parents’ frown upon art though. They don’t see it as a “real” job and a “real” career. She tells him all the time that he needs to get out of his room and make some real friends. That he needs to stop burying himself in comic books and Dungeons and Dragons and actually get out into the real world. She isn’t worried about her son, not in the least. She’s worried about her family’s name getting tarnished with the weird artist fag in her family. She can’t have that. She can’t have a fag artist in the family. The Way family are full off successful doctors and lawyers who have a totally clean nose. She can’t have this in her family.

Gerard hasn’t been to a family function in over 3 years because Donna always finds a reason for him to not be able to go. Telling him that his grades slipped so he’s grounded, that she needs the house cleaned so he’s got to stay home and clean the house, they scheduled the function when he has work and he can’t take off work on such short notice. He hasn’t been to a family Christmas since he was 15 years old. Donna tells her son that she doesn’t want to waste her money on gifts that she doesn’t approve of, and seeing Gerard shows no interests into things that she enjoys, Gerard gets nothing and Mikey gets everything. She even told him once that he doesn’t make her proud so why should she spend money on a Christmas gift for someone who doesn’t make her proud. He usually just stays in his room on the holiday and reads his comic books. He pretends he can’t feel the tears silently roll down his face while he’s alone in his room on Christmas morning, while everyone in the entire world is having a great time with their families.

He hears his family laughing and having a good time and he’s forced to stay inside his room, away from the world. Shunned for being who he is. On Christmas he’s not allowed to leave the room. He has to stay in his room, his family comes over on Christmas. They can’t show off the freak of the family.

School is no better for the teenage boy. No one likes him there, too. People think that he’s weird, he wears a lot of black and he likes weird things like D&D and role playing games and comic books. He draws most of the time and tries his best to blend in with the walls inside the school. He’s thought about running away from the school a few times but he wants to graduate so he can go to college in New York and start a new life without his family. He’s working to get away from Jersey, the state that sucks the life out of him. The place where his heart died a long time ago.

---

Gerard moans as he realizes that his car needs gas before he heads off to school and groans in frustration. He just wanted to go to school, but his light is on and he won’t make it if he doesn’t go to local Hess gas station and get 20 bucks of gas. He’s thankful he hasn’t really spent much on his paycheck and he can get some gas. He usually only spends his money on his car, food and the bottles upon bottles of Jack Daniels he stores safely inside his closet where no one can find it.

He drives a silver Honda. It’s nothing special, but it gets him to school and his job at Walmart. The good thing about his job is that he doesn’t have to talk to many people, he works in the back fixing the bikes and he puts them on display. It’s not a hard job, it pays more than a cashier and he isn’t bothered by many people. Mostly just his boss and some other coworkers asking him random questions. It’s rare that happens though, no one usually talks to him. He’s left inside his own thoughts.

Gerard gets his gas and heads off to school, if he speeds he will get there on time but he almost doesn’t care if he gets to his stupid school on time. He doesn’t feel like risking his own life in order to get to his damn History class on time. It’s just not worth it, according to him. He might get in trouble for it, but at this point in time he doesn’t really care.

So he gets a pink slip for being late to class, he told them he had car trouble but they didn’t believe him. Honestly, no one ever believes Gerard and he’s pretty much used to it by now. He sighs and just goes to class with his slip to let him inside the classroom. He wants to go home already, even if home wasn’t any better, he’s ignored at school and he’s ignored at home. It’s been like that his whole life. Ever since he was young he knew he was different than most boys. When boys wanted to go and play games at recess he didn’t want to join, he wanted to stay inside and draw.

The day is normal for Gerard so far. He gets shit for failing his math quiz and everyone laughs at him. Someone threw something at him; it was a piece of paper. He looked at what it said.

"Get out of this school, faggot! Kill yourself! We are better off without your kind!"

He rolls his eyes and sighs into his note book. The usual names and insults he’s called daily. Sometimes he thinks he should just end it all, he knows he won’t be missed. Maybe the other students were right, that he’s a freak and he should just kill himself. There’s not one person in this entire world that likes him. His family shuns him, people at school hate him, and his boss ignores him whenever he needs help with something. The only person that actually loved him was his grandmother Elena and she passed away when he was just a kid, nearly 12 years old when she died in her sleep. Gerard misses her dearly. She was the one who got him into art and comic books. He wishes she was still here; she was such a lovely woman. Elena was a truly lovely woman; she taught Gerard that no matter what, no matter who tries to tell him otherwise, to be himself, even if it hurt. That’s why Gerard has never stopped being himself, and enjoying art. He could easily have stopped art and tried to get good grades and try to be a doctor and make his parents’ proud, but he doesn’t want to let Grandma Elena down. She means more to him even though she’s no longer with her. She truly understood Gerard and even though she’s dead he’s going to stay true to himself. He doesn’t understand how his mom turned out so cruel and mean with a mother so nice and amazing like Grandma Elena.

Life isn’t fair like that.

“Hey, dude, can I take this seat?” a voice said, causing Gerard to snap his head up from his sketch pad, eyes full of fear and wide with sadness as he looked at who was talking to him in his lunch period. No one ever talks to him. The other student seriously caused him to have a very small anxiety attack from another person talking to him without insults.

“No, you can take it.” Gerard said back to the boy. The boy, also known as Frank Iero, smiled at Gerard.

“Thanks, man!” he said in a very cheerful voice, “what are you drawing?” Frank asked looking over to Gerard’s art and Gerard is shocked. No one talks to him. Especially boys like cool and nice like Frank Iero.

Why isn’t he leaving Gerard alone? Why isn’t he making fun of Gerard for sitting alone at lunch? Doesn’t he know it’s bad to be seen talking to him?

“Uhm – just a comic strip.” Gerard mumbled back to the shorter boy who is now looking at the sketch pad of his work.

“This is cool!” Frank said back, “comics are cool. Hey, I gotta go, but I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Stammering, Gerard said, “I – I guess so.”

With that Frank gave Gerard a wide smile, leaving with the chair he requested for and going to hang out with his friends.

Frank Iero is a cool guy, so why is he talking to a loser like Gerard Way?

Frank isn’t the most popular guy in school, but he’s not a loser like Gerard. He plays in a band called Pencey Prep and it’s pretty well known. Girls think he’s cute and guys think he’s a cool guy to hang with. He gets decent grades at school and has a really nice and supporting family. Frank’s band usually plays at the footballs games and he’s seen his family there supporting his band. It must be nice having all of that in your life, Gerard thinks. But he would never know that, his family hates him, they think he’s a freak and a faggot and they don’t like him and they don’t like who he is.

Frank gets along with everyone and anybody and he’s super sweet and nice. It always seems like the boy never has a bad day. Gerard is not a stalker or anything, but he’s noticed Frank a lot in his years at Belleville High and he’s always been really well liked. Frank has high self-esteem, but he doesn’t have too much where he’s overly cocky and a dickbag. He’s just a nice guy who thinks good of himself. He always has a lovely smile on his face. He envies Frank Iero. He envies how he likes himself mostly. He wishes he didn’t hate himself, but some people are born with luck and charm like Frank, and some are born to rot away, like Gerard.

He’s been depressed for some time now, for about 6 or 7 years he would say he’s been in a serious depression that no one seems to notice and he’s thankful for that. Truth be told, he doesn’t want to get better. He doesn’t want help. In a weird way, he really enjoys his self loath. He loves the painful feeling in his gut he gets when everyone ignores him. He likes it when his mom tells him he can’t come with him to the family BBQ because she’s embarrassed of him and he spends his day in his room crying as his family has a great time. It makes him feel alive. If he didn’t have the pain he wouldn’t feel anything at all. At least he’s feeling something, even if it’s just pain and nothing better than that. He’ll take it.

He doesn’t remember the last time he was truly happy. Sure, he’s happy when he’s drawing and he’s happy when he finishes a comic book that he’s wanted to read for the longest time. But he doesn’t remember when he had a smile on his face for no reason. People like Frank Iero smile for no reason. They smile for just being alive. That’s pretty cool, if you think about it.
There should be more people like Frank Iero in this world. He likes everyone and he doesn’t belittle anyone. He could have made fun of Gerard so badly for drawing a comic strip. He could have smacked the shit out of Gerard and no one would care, they would laugh at Gerard and high five Frank for making the weird kid run out of the lunch room. He would be a hero, everyone would roar Frank’s name and chant wild words. He would be known as the coolest motherfucker out there.

But he still didn’t do that – he told him that his art was cool. He liked Gerard’s work. He told Gerard he would see him around.

Gerard feels himself smiling for no reason now, but he knows it’ll go away soon and fast.
Nothing good last long for him. He’s just waiting for something to go to shit for him.

It always ends up like that.

Notes

I'm new on here, so I hope I posted this all correctly. I also post this story on AO3. under the same name, wearenotalright. If you don't wanna know what's gonna happen don't go there lol. Cuz there's already a few other captures up there. I just wanted to check out this site too. Enjoy xo