I'm not Okay

Monday I’m a total mess. The day starts badly immediately. Mikey and his friends all go off on some field trip to look at a monument or something I never knew existed. I walked into the school gates and before I could even adjust the bag on my back Logan and Chase drove up right behind me, I had to jump to the right, into a wall, to avoid getting hit. The two boys laugh in the car.
I walk as fast as I can but the baseball players manage to run faster even though I got the head start. They slam the front door as I try to open it. “Where are your gay knights?” Chase grins in my ear.
“The protectors of the Gay are gays,” Logan laughed as if he just made a funny joke or clever remark. I push against the door yet again it was slammed closed.
“Are you in a relationship together,” Chase growls, “is that it? A three way buttsex party. Sinners. No wonder they’re the only people who will be seen with you.”
“I’m not gay,” a gruff voice says from behind, “but I want to get into the school but there seems to be a pair of fuckbrains in my way.” I turn around to see Bob Bryar standing behind this. He’s not as tall as Chase or as buff as Logan but his voice seems to knock the two boys into submission. They both stand out of his way. I open the door and scurry in.
“Don’t let them talk to you like that,” he mumbles to me. Then louder, “I swear if I catch you two trying to be dickheads to someone like this again I’ll shove you both up each other’s assholes so far you’ll wish you were fucking gay.” And without that my new fucking hero, Bob, walks away.
Chase and Logan leave me alone for the rest of the morning, at least, but they’re not the only people who aren’t my biggest fans. For example, French class. The first class of the day and the teacher says “pair up” for oral work. Who in the class would ever want to do anything oral related with the sinning homosexual in the corner. No one offers to be my partner so the teacher ends up pairing me with Miranda.
“Bonjour,” I say as she sits down angrily opposite me. She nods. “We’re supposed to talk about our interests… Comment… est ce-que tu…” I try to think of the way to begin my question. If it’s not already obvious, French isn’t my forte.
To be honest, school isn’t my forte.
Miranda rolls her eyes and sits up straight. “J’ai beaucoup de passe-temps,” she begins in a rich, practised French accent. “J’adore la mode.” And with that I completely lose track of everything she’s saying as she relays her long stories about fashion week in Paris.
She doesn’t stop speaking until the teacher silences the room. “Okay, silence! Now. I’m going to ask you to tell the class what your partner told you. Okay… first may we have Gerard and Miranda please? Miranda what are Gerard’s pass-times?”
Shit. “I’m unsure, Madame, Gerard point-blanche refused to co-operate. He never said two words to me,” Miranda makes a hurt expression.
“You didn’t give me a chance to speak!” I protest and the teacher shoots me a daring look.
“Okay, if Miranda spoke so much why don’t you tell us about Miranda’s interests?”
Shit. “Um,” I clear my throat. “Miranda has a great interest in fashion.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s not even what I said!” Miranda frowns, “I never even mentioned fashion.”
“Yes you did! You didn’t shut up about le mode being your amore! You even mentioned fashion week in Paris!”
“I said I had an interest in Geography and travel! You’re just making things up because you didn’t listen to me!”
I can protest no more because the teacher stands up and calls for silence. I hadn’t noticed people talking. Something in their glare told me they don’t believe me. “See me after class Gerard.”
I lose my lunch Money to Chase on my way into the canteen. I’m literally two steps in the main door, fiddling in my pockets for my money. “Don’t scratch your balls in public,” was the only warning before a punch landed me on the floor beside a chair. Disorientated, I look helplessly upward. In tables around the cafeteria I see students eating, and some praying before they eat. All see me on the ground but just carry about whatever they’re doing as Chase crouches next to me and asks for my money. Nobody cares. It’s just sick how they can sit by and fucking watch as I hand up my money. Maybe if I left forever the only noticeable thing would be the decline in Chase’s weekly expenditure.
I pull myself to my feet and leave the canteen. I don’t really mind being hungry.
In the halls people make random remarks at me as I pass. I attempt not listening to them. Anytime I raise my gaze to try and see who said it my eyes are met by dozens of staring and condemning pairs. I guess no one person is responsible.
I slink off as quietly as I can.
Therapy isn’t exactly what I’m up for so I dodge Mr. Corgan’s corridor and walk straight to the physics rooms. Inside the usual one Frank is reading a newspaper.
“Hi Gee! Did you know this was happening?” he said pointing to an article about the troops being sent to Iraq, months ago.
“Frank, do you live under a fucking rock,” I growl.
“I can’t talk about the specifics,” he says.
“What is that supposed to fucking mean,” I say, not ask, sitting down on a desk. Frank looks up at me with big puppy eyes, seemingly actually hurt.
“What happened, Gee?” Frank asks softly, abandoning his old newspaper.
“Nothing,” I say, dramatically lying down across two pushed together desks. “I just hate life.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone sucks and I suck and school sucks,” I sigh, “and no one will ever suck me.” I didn’t expect to say that.
When I look up Frank is standing inches from my face. “Why are you here constantly Frank? Are you insane, or is it me?”
“I think we’re both insane, Gerard.” I sit up and let him sit down next to me.
“Are you real?” I ask stupidly.
“I guess?” He looks down at his crossed legs, “I mean I feel pretty solid right now.”
“Right now?”
“I can be a great deal less solid. Look,” he touches my hand and slowly he begins to feel… weird. Like he’s half hologram. I shiver. That’s it, I’m definitely insane.
“I’m fucking crazy!” I exclaim and burry my face in my palms. “Why… why is there so much fucking wrong with me?”
Frank placed a solid, comforting hand on my shoulder. I didn’t realise I was shaking. Today is just a bad day. One more, bad day.
“It doesn’t have to be a bad day…” Frank says. I hadn’t realised I said it out loud. “If I tell you something now, will you keep calm.”
“I can’t make any promises,” I say shakily.
“I’m dead.”
I stare at him. What else could I fucking do, that was such a weird thing to say. I tell him as much. “Yea,” he allows, “It is a pretty weird thing, but it’s true.”
“How? You’re here.”
“Remember the first day we met I fell out your locker.”
It took me a while of asking questions and bringing air back into my body before I agreed to let Frank prove his deadness. This is fucking crazy.
We both stand before my locker and the large crucifix above it.
“I’ll show you,” Frank says as he unlocks my locker. My coat is hanging inside it and he pushes it to the very edge. He then makes the symbol of the cross on the back of the locker and suddenly it just falls away.
“Wait,” I say before climbs inside, “the cross, does that mean Catholicism is… real?”
“Eh, not quite… The cross isn’t really… it’s not the crucifix like, it’s hard to explain. The cross is really a key and the Christians use it…wrong?”
“Oh,” I say, pretending that makes sense.
Frank smiles, meekly and takes my hand. I watch him disappear into the pitch black space. My arm follows and then my body.
We fall. A scream is caught in the back of my throat but it’s silenced by Frank who grabs my other hand and pulls me closer. He kisses me for a split second before pulling us apart. I can’t explain our landing. It’s as if we were never moving at all. And when we stand we don’t really stand. And when my vision adjusts it happens so gradually and fast that I never notice it does. I blink.
“Are you okay?” Frank asks me.
I nod. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
There are roots of a massive tree right above us. All around us is orange rippled with black. Above us beside us and bellow us. It’s like there is no up or down. I guess there isn’t. I kneel down and touch the ground. It has the same vague solidarity as Frank’s hand had.
There are people all around us when I look up. Like a crowded market appeared when my eyes were averted. Frank notices me staring at a group of women in their sixties dressed like the women from those cowboy movies. “Everyone who died within a fifty mile radius of your locker in the past few hundred years is here. I don’t know the exact count but I think this level is nearly full. Would you like to go for a walk?”
We begin moving through the throngs of people. I’m getting so many weird looks. Probably because I’m solid. Or maybe it’s because I’m breathing. Or the fact that I’m constantly blushing under inquisitive stares.
If everyone here is dead then it’s upsetting how young a lot of people are.
“What age were you Frank?” I ask as we enter a slightly emptier patch. There’s a weird serene feeling and the less people there are, the more trees. Yew trees literally everywhere ahead.
The home of the dead is weird. “Eh, eighteen.” He looks uncomfortable. “We probably shouldn’t keep you here too long. You have, like, a body, that’s why everyone was staring. Anyway a body isn’t meant to be here. You can tell by the trees.”
I look at the trees who seem to be breathing. Well that’s disturbing. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be able to tell. “How did you d-” Frank cuts me off by kissing me. We fall onto the ground gently. If you could even call it that.
A silent, eerily calm few minutes pass as we lie between yew trees.
“We should start back,” Frank says after a while, helping me to my feet. I turn to walk back the way we came but Frank keeps forward. When we start to speak again it’s about really normal topics, considering we’re in the land of the dead.
“I took home ec for a while in middle school,” Frank says. “I learned to make a really good lasagne but that was about it.”
“What else do you need to know in life,” I smirk. “I can make coffee and toast and that’s it.”
“I wish I could make you lasagne then,” Frank smiles. We keep walking for a while.
The yew trees begin to thin out and the throngs of people begin, “Frank,” I say looking upward, “is that the tree that was above us when we got here?”
He nods. When we make our way through the people to stand bellow the tree. “Jump on the count of three,” he grabs my hand, “one, two, three.”
The school is dead quiet. It felt like I was down in the world of the dead for maybe a half an hour, forty-five minutes at most. Not three hours. When we jumped Frank murmured various things before making the sign of a cross. We went from a feeling of being suspended in mid-air to one of being sucked forward.
We hurtled forward from orange to black to unbelievable white.
And that was it, we brushed over my books and past my coat directly into the metal of my locker door. Frank lands with practiced grace and I fall.
I get my books, talking pleasantly with Frank as if we had not just made out surrounded by souls. Only as I leave the school do I realise what just happened. I am really fucking out of my mind.

Notes

So I was sick today that's why I actually got this written. Yesterday I had my school Christmas concert. My throat is sore and after seeing all the talent in my school is just insane. I mean seriously there are two rock duos in second year (age like 13/14) and they're insanely good. Then first years... Oh god I'm so talentless XD
My teacher also made my class perform Coldplay so i had to sing and play the bells. The Bells. Anyway here is le chapter and i hope you enjoy this. It's a little weird. And yea..
I'll update soon (as I can)!