The Thing About Pain

Wow, you utter out a string of eight words and suddenly it's the apocalypse. We had Mrs. Lark fall off her chair, Ryan gasping, Bert choking on his own spit and having a coughing fit, Alex paralyzed with his eyes wide and mouth hanging open, Hayley, who also choked on her spit and was trying to stabilize her breathing and working on not dying, Bob, who looks like he's been slapped and is completely dumbfounded, and last of all theres Gerard who's staring at me in disbelief, whether it's because I spoke, or what I said, I don't know. I couldn't place it. I studied his facial expression as if time froze and gave me all eternity to decode him. I saw he was slightly shaking, suggesting he was anxious, disbelief was written clearly across his facade and his eyes were glazed over, so I take it that it was what I said that shocked him. I could see his confusion as well, about why everyone was shocked.
Well, my fucking friend, they are all horrifically shocked right now because I am an asshole who keeps to himself. I don't speak to anyone. If you ask why, it's because my parents shipped me off here when I was sixteen, and I wanted nothing to do with them, or anyone for that matter. Gerard is an exception and I knew it. Time will prove that though. He's not comfortable with anyone here. Who would be? All of them are psychopaths. Let me rephrase that, most of them are psychopaths. Worst of all, this isn't everyone. There's fucked up people in here, way more fucked up that this lot.
And this is when time unfroze itself and Mrs. Lark got up and brushed herself off, Ryan had the colour return to his face, Bert recomposed himself, Alex regained composure and wasn't under extreme shock paralysis, Hayley managed not to cough up her lungs, although entirely impossible to actually do so, Bob looked like he finally realised that he hasn't been dreaming and that I actually talked, gulped down whatever spit was in his mouth and remained pale, and Gerard just whispered, only loud enough for me to hear.

"Liar." It brought my world down. One word crushed me. This is why I was an asshole to everyone, if I wasn't, they'd hurt me more. Then louder he repeated. "Liar." Then he began fuming. "Who the hell gave you the right to tell me what I am, and how much I'm worth. You don't even know me." He spat. "All you are is a psychopath. Why else are you all here? I don't need to know what's wrong with you, you're just fucked up and you know it." He hissed and bolted out of the room after collecting his drawings. The enigma left me in tears. Silent tears.
How I view it, is that a child, or adult, cry for attention, when you hear their sobs, but when one cries silently, something is truly wrong, unless you can't contain it, your breath hitches with every time you try to breathe. Your chest feels tight and swollen, and you can't help the whimpers that escape your trembling lips.
It wasn't like that for me. At least not this time. Tears flowed down my face like a river, my lip quivered, and my chest was in pain. 'All you are is a psychopath.' The words echoed in my head. I stood up with the smithers of energy I had left and began to walk out of the room. I looked up one last time and noticed a small paper at the foot of the door. I knew that if I were to pick it it, there was a chance I wouldn't stand up again, but I bend over and reached for it anyways. Scrawled across it in handwriting you'd possibly need a cryptologist to decrypt were five words and underneath them were two more.

'Frank - Plays guitar - Likes alone.
Leave alone.'

This is when I slowly began to understand. Yet, I missed that he ever wrote this. I guess he was good at hiding things, even from me. I stood up, my face tear stained and blotchy, and my eyes bloodshot and puffy, and looked back as if awaiting an explanation. All I got were the following words.

"I guess now's a bad time to tell you that you'll be sharing a room with Gerard Way." Seriously? They assigned him to my room? Tears welled up in my eyes once again. The staff here had a hell of a way of ruining my life, not that a had a particularly good one. I stormed out of the therapy session, wiping away the tears that flowed down my cheeks. I didn't want to go back to my room, or should I say; the room that now belonged to not only me but Gerard as well. I could just shower, however shower time wasn't until later and I had to shower alone because of my condition. It was supervised though. Supervised by the biggest cocksucker himself, Dan. He pissed me off, not only because of that one time he tried to watch me. That's not even important.
I'm not insane. I just need time to myself, time to figure out why I'm here, and time to figure out why they thought it was a good idea to place the mystery in a room with me. Me. This is bullshit. I didn't want to go to lunch. It was in exactly seventeen minutes and forty two seconds, and after what I've just been through, I don't feel entitled to going. To my- Our- I grit my teeth- room. I shuffle my feet and head off to the direction of the god forsaken room. I hope Gerard isn't there. As much as I want to unravel this mystery, I 1. Don't want him to see me at my weakest, and 2. Don't want to see his fucking face until he apologizes for his shit attitude. Despite that, I find myself in front of my room. There is a voice coming from it. It's him. No, not this soon... It can't- I stop myself. It's not his voice. It's melodic in a very nostalgic way.

"It's the tearing sound of love-notes,
Drowning out these gray stained windows,
And the view outside is sterile,
And I'm only two cubes down
I'd photocopy all the things that we could be,
If you took the time to notice me,
But you can't now, I don't blame you,
And it's not your fault that no one ever does." That voice would be the death of me. I swear it on my miserable life. How stupid was I to open the door? Very. As I poked my head through the door frame a very fragile Gerard was sitting on the floor, looking up at me wide eyed as if I'd caught him stealing the last cookie. "D-don't" His voice broke. Don't worry I won't make you bawl your eyes out. I began to sit down next to him, and through my blurred vision I looked at the boy who'd change my life, for better or for worse. I slightly opened my arms to see if he would accept my offer of hugging him for a while. Surely he leaned in, and as his head rested on my shoulder. "Don't cry. It doesn't look good on you." He sounded almost genuine. Almost. He made me smile through my tears.

"You have a beautiful voice." I whispered to him. I felt him bury his head deeper into my chest. I'm sure he heard my heart beat over one hundred beats per minute. Not normal. With a small sigh, and a small smile forming on his lips, despite the tear stained cheeks he whispered back to me.

"Our little secret, Frankie." I smiled at how oddly lovely I found the nickname tumbling off his lips. My one question; when did he become so sensitive and warm?

Notes