I'm not Okay

I don’t like therapy. I guess it would help if I wanted it to. It’s coming to the end of the first week in October and every session I’ve been to is a series of metaphors and me answering honestly even though he doesn’t believe me.
“Gerard, this only works if we’re both honest,” Mr. Corgan says, for like the hundredth time.
“I’m fucking serious, I don’t care about the physical bruising,” I sigh sinking into my chair. I should be with Frank right now.
“How could one “not care” about being black and blue all over Gerard?”
“Because the bruises are just a reminder.”
“A reminder of what?”
“Of the fact that I’m a gay loser who nobody likes.”
“And you like that?”
“I never said that I liked it. I just said that I don’t care about the bruises. They’re just there. They’re just like my skin now.”

Frank is always in the physics room waiting for me after my forty minute counselling sessions. It’s only supposed to be a half hour but I usually exasperate him so much that he continues the session until we “get somewhere” which we never do. All we’ve really managed to establish is that I hate everyone especially myself.
That last part seems to seriously worry the school councillor. Like he honestly thinks I will kill myself so I keep lying in that point saying things like “That would just let them win”.
“How’d it go?” Frank asks the second I walk in the door.
“Okay,” I mumble.
He slides himself directly in front of me when I sit down. “Gerard,” I accidentally lock eyes with him, “how’re you today.”
“Not as dead as I wish.”
“You do not wish to be dead,” he sits beside me and pats my thigh. It takes every thinkable image of naked old ladies and guys screwing dogs not to get it up. “Being dead would probably be boring.”
“What do you mean?” I grimace, thinking of naked old people humping.
“I mean, what would you do all day, other than wait to talk to people… Like you can’t sleep anymore. One of the best things about living. And you can’t eat, or drink. Literally the pleasures in life leave with life. And if you die hungry you have to spend eternity basically starving. Even worse if you die needing to pee. Unless you do deals with faith, then you have to do some weird ass task to end eternal suffering. And there’s no music, only singing because there are no instruments unless you’re holding it in your final seconds your spirit can’t bring it along.” I stare at him. “And then there’s the horrible possibility of getting stuck on your way out, y’know. There is nothing cool or fun about haunting. At first you might think oh yea great you get music and shit but you have no social interaction. You get to spend your own little eternity trying to catch peoples attention because oh man you have no idea how weird it is not speaking to anyone for months. That’s why those ones go crazy and like try to kill people, so that maybe they will get caught on the way out and they’ll have company. And that shit about Ouija boards… Every time some kids think it would be cool to try all the surrounding spirits are sucked together for a possible communication, and you get all your hopes up, and then someone else gets it and it’s like all the spirits go on pause. And you think at first “Oh yea everyone dead is here, and you go off looking for your idols but you will basically never find them. The other side has you categorised into massive spaces where everyone who died in a certain area go. So instead of making friends with the Ramones as you hope, you end up being stuck with people who died hundreds of years ago which is not as cool as it sounds.”
I continue to stare at him when he’s finished. He looks flustered and sad. “That’s my opinion anyway.”
“It’s a really good theory,” I admit slowly. “It’s a fucking well thought out theory.”
“Yea well, death always interested me.”
“Yea. Same.”
“Can we listen to music now?” he looks anxious next to me. His eyes dart from mine to the ornate crucifix hanging above the teacher’s desk.
“Sure, yours or mine?” I ask lying in an awkward position to try and get my phone out of my pocket.
“Yours,” he says, “I don’t have my… phone.”
“Do you ever,” I sigh, finally pulling my phone free, “Lets listen to Bowie.”
“But Bowie is so… Can we not listen to something new?”
“Like what,” I scroll through the songs.
“That one about guys falling.”
“Fall Out Boy?”
“Yea.”
“They’re not new.”
“Newer than Bowie.” And with that I search through my phone for some fall out boy.

The crucifix above my locker stares at me as I get my books. I just want to go home now.
Frank is yapping away cheerfully about something that happened in 1993. I nod and as I shove books away.
“How do you even know all this?” I ask slamming my locker shut.
He winces at the noise, “I’m just interested is all.”
“The nineties were boring as fuck,” I say pulling my school bag on my back, “no offense. You walking out?”
As usual he shakes his head.
Just as I turn the corner into the main hall I feel myself being sandwiched between two guys. “What the fuck,” I say. To my left Jack is grabbing my hand and Alex is doing the same to my right. “Guys… What?”
“We have been tasked with keeping your ass safe!” Alex says and does a mock salute. “We’re going out to visit Mikey anyway so Zack asked us to keep you in one piece.”
“It is our pleasure,” Jack grins and begins swinging our arms.
Everyone smiles, fucking smiles, at the unbelievable trio of gayness as Jack and Alex skip through the car park, pulling me along awkwardly. They never let go of my hands, even when we stop at a car for them to talk to Rian and his girlfriend. Or when they dart around the corner and make out for a minute.
That made me so uncomfortable you wouldn’t believe.
They hold my hands all the way home, chattering giddily about music, specifically Blink-182, and thing that happened in class.
“No, no this one’s pretty fucking funny. Right so I was in geography and we were learning about rocks and whatever and then this one girl in the front of the class started asking some really stupid questions. So after like four in a row I get really fucking sick of it. So she goes “but why does that make them so hard” and before the teacher answers I jump up and say, “Don’t judge other’s fetishes”,” Jack grins.
Alex bursts out laughing. I grin too and we turn a corner onto one of the richer neighbourhoods, where we live. We’re not that rich really, we just got a house in a will and a scholarship to the private school because of our “strong catholic faith” and apparently my art. I never really believed that to be as relevant to the decision as the large cash donation to the church my granny made when she died.
The boys let go of my hands at the gate. Alex stops his tale about some moon on some planet to announce, “Mission success!” to Jack. They high five and the three of us walk in to my house together. We all get something to eat in the kitchen first. Mikey, who has been sick all week, is delighted to see his friends and even happier when he finds out they guarded my journey. After a while I leave Mikey to have his friends alone and go up to my room to draw a picture of a guy on the moon for Alex.

Alex expressed his gratitude when I showed him before they left by staring at the page, squeaking a bit and then sitting down on the doormat to stare some more. It’s a pretty rough and awkward sketch. To be honest I wasn’t even going to give it to him it was so bad but he seems to love it anyway.
I finish my homework and then go into Mikey’s room to hear him practising the bass. He’s getting better. Especially in the past week when he has had all day to practise.
Sleep comes to me remarkably quickly and I dream about haunting Frank. Everything he told me about his theory today was real and I had to spend my own eternity trying to get Frank to notice me.

Notes

This is taking me irrationally long to write, I'm so sorry. This chapter is incredibly short (for me) and it took what, four days? I'm very sorry i hope y'all haven't lost interest! Anyway the next chapter is the first unveiling of the plot so if you can remain interested until then, i'll try write it as quick as i can. Thanks for reading :*