“Oh. I also have some friends coming over today, and I think you’ll like them Frank. But before then, we’re going to go out and get you more than one pair of clothes and other stuff. You also need a jacket, considering last night you had no jacket cause you came in shivering.”
“Well can this day get any better?” I ask myself really, just out loud. But not of course, without a huge mouthful of donut.

*Frank’s POV*
I chug down the rest of my coffee and head to my room (and I didn’t get lost this time) to get my shoes on. I just pulled them on real quick and headed back towards the kitchen to find bert with a jacket on and his keys in his hand, ready to head right out the door.
“Ready?” He asked.
“Let’s go.”
We headed outside to his driveway to find a small black car sitting there. I’d always walked to school, so it’s been more than twelve years since I’ve been in a car.
Walking towards the car, I timidly reached a hand out to touch it, just making sure it was real. By this time Bert was already around the car and sitting in it waiting for me to hop in the passengers seat, so I reached down now to grab the handle and sat in the car, closing the door behind me.
“Never seen a car before?” Bert asked chuckling while putting the car in reverse.
“Over twelve years.” I replied simply, feeling the excitement bubbling up in me, actually realizing what was happening. I was in a car, heading to a store, so that I could get multiple sets of clothes and a real jacket. Then I was going to meet the friends of the owner of the house I’m living in. Everything seemed too surreal, but I was finally convinced that this wasn’t a dream.
We pulled up by a huge store labeled ‘Walmart’ a few minutes later. We both headed inside the store in silence, mostly because I was too excited to even for a couple words. Heading to the clothes section, I saw a bunch of symbols on shirts and stuff, and only recognized a couple of them as being superheros or tv shows from my childhood.
“What size are you?” Bert asked me, already thumbing through a selection of clothes on a rack.
“Uh…. I don’t know, I’d always just picked whatever looked like it fit.” I answered truthfully.
Bert came over to me with a bunch of plain black shirts labeled ‘small’, and held it up to me saying “Yep. You’re a small.” He then headed over back where he was and just picked up like 20 or 30 shirts throwing them all into the cart we had simply saying “Don’t worry. I know you’ll like these.”
We then headed over to the pants and the same process happened over again, with Bert deciding my size and getting me a lot of pants in that size saying I’d like them. We went over to shoes and got my a pair of what Bert called ‘knock off vans’ that were comfortable and looked really good.
After we’d finished that and were heading to the register with my clothes and some food items that Bert had picked up, he started to run away from me towards the women’s section yelling a ‘one sec’. After a couple of minutes of me thinking he wasn’t going to come back, he came back with three or four thin black pencils in his hand, simply saying ‘I’ll show you later’.

Now we are back at his house and we are both in my room filling up the dresser with all the new clothes. I am really excited because he was right. I did like all of the clothes he’d picked up and after he’d left, I tried some of them on and almost all of them ended up fitting perfectly, except a couple of t-shirts, but that’s okay. I threw on the hoodie that we’d picked up along with a white t-shirt that had really cool bird like wings on them from shoulder to shoulder, a pair of black skinny jeans and the shoes.
I went to Bert’s room and found him sitting there on his bed just staring at the door with the pencils in his hand again.
“I knew you’d put the clothes on. You look great.”
“Thanks! Now can I know what those are though?” I asked pointing to the pencils Bert was holding.
“Yes you can, but I’ll tell you after I use them.” He said getting up and walking over to me. I was getting a little nervous with that phrase, but Bert seemed completely calm, so I guessed that nothing bad was going to happen. He told me to just keep my eyes open, so I did, and he put the pencil up to my eye. A little later after he’d done something to both of my eyes, he stood back as if to admire his work proclaiming that he was done. He walked me over to a mirror and I looked into the mirror deciding that he’d done a good job, but the rest of me looked like shit. I’d changed a lot over 12 years on the streets. Either way I’d smiled into the mirror, because I’d decided that I did look pretty good for a guy who’s lived on the streets almost half his life.
“Okay.” Bert started. “The guys will be here soon and I’ll introduce you to everyone and whatnot, and then they’re just gonna hand with his the rest of the afternoon and maybe a little into the night. Okay?”
“Yeah sure. How many people will be there?”
“Probably around six or seven.”
And with that the doorbell rang and Bert ran out of the room to answer the door, while I just slowly walked to the living room behind him.
Everyone was already talking, and it sure didn’t sound like there were only seven people there, and I was right. There were nine, not including myself or Bert.
I just shyly stood in the corner by the doorway back to the hallway, debating on whether or not to just turn around to leave. I took a step back, but just a little too late as bert had started to introduce me, walking over towards me.
“Okay guys, this is Frank. Frank, this is Kellin, Vic, Ryan, Brendon, Pete, Patrick, Mikey, Ray, and Gerard.”
I looked around at everyone, everyone looked pretty cool, and Ray even had a big fro going on. Gerard looked really familiar for some reason, but I couldn’t place it.
Everyone exchanged small hi’s and we all headed over to the couches to apparently start ‘Let’s all ask Frank questions!”
“So Frank,, how’d you meet Bert?” a guy who I think was Brendon asked.
“Uh... “ I started glancing towards Bert for confirmation. He just gave a small nod, and I knew that there were going to be no lies told today. “He found me out cold behind Corner Music.”
“What?” Ray asked. So I just told the whole story from beginning to end, including everything about my shed and how I was living, to meeting Black Veil Brides and shopping this morning. everyone was quiet through the whole story, and it was quiet for a while after the story too with everyone sitting there trying to process all the information.
“Wow.” Pete breathed out.
“I know.” Kellin agreed, soon followed by mhmms from everyone else.
I felt a soft hand on my shoulder and jumped turning to see that the hand belonged to a sad Gerard. He just simply mouthed a small ‘I’m sorry’ and removed his hand, leaving my shoulder cold from where his touch had left.
“Well! That’s definitely interesting,” Ray started “considering the fact that you are not alone with being gay. The rest of us are. We have Kelling and Vic dating, Pete and Patrick, Brendon and Ryan, and me and Mikey. Gerard and Bert are single, but they’re both gay too.” Ray finished with a small wink causing everyone to laugh, the tension in the room completely disappearing.
So Gerard was single. Good.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful with us just talking and laughing watching movies and eating shit I hadn’t eaten in years like popcorn and chocolate. Gerard had seemed to take it upon himself to be my best friend here, not that I was complaining, and he just genuinely seemed interested by my fascination with everything that he considered modern.
Eventually everyone went out for a drink, but Gerard said he was trying to stay clean and stayed here with me, simply because I didn’t really feel like going.
“Was it difficult?” Gerard asked after a short silence after the guys left.
“What?”
“Living on your own. Was it difficult?”
“I guess. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
There was another short silence.
“What about before you were kicked out?”
“I don’t remember much about then. I had a dream last night about some stuff that I think might be about before I got kicked out. All that was in the dream were two little boys, one who I think was my boyfriend and another one who I think was my bully, and my parents, who didn’t like I was gay.”
Yet another silence happened between us, only this one was longer.
“Frank.” Gerard started, sounding so heartbroken I almost cried myself. “I think I was in your dream.”
“What?!”
“I recognized you when I first saw you. I think I was your boyfriend. I remember about twelve or thirteen years ago there was a kid who I really liked, and we started to date, and then one day he just disappeared, and I got so sad. I might be wrong, and I’m sorry if I’m causing you distress with this because forgetting about the past you are a really cool guy, but I think I’m the one who got you kicked out of your house accidentally.”
I processed this for a second before talking.
“No, I got myself kicked out. I was the gayboy that my parents hated and kicked out. If you just so happened to be my past boyfriend, then it’s still not your fault. You didn’t turn me gay, otherwise I wouldn’t be gay now, and I most definitely am. It’s not your fault or mine. It’s the fault of my fucking homophobic parents.”
“Okay.”
“Well. I think it’s been a long day and I’m going to go to bed now.”
“Okay.”
And so I left to get a good nights sleep and getting all of these annoying new ideas out of my brain.


I woke up the next morning and immediately changed into new clothes because, one, I was excited to have multiple sets of clothes, and two, I wore these yesterday and as pajamas, and I don’t think that that is socially acceptable for people with multiple sets of clothes.
Heading back into the living room, I am startled to see a sleeping Gerard there, considering I’d thought that he’d left last night when I went to sleep. But apparently not.
I do have to admit though, that with his bright red hair in front of his face and his mouth parted slightly, he looked really cute. I hope that last night doesn’t ruin our friendship.
I decide to head to the kitchen and start brewing some coffee, which takes forever because I have never made it and I’m constantly checking the directions on the package, which sucks because without thinking I cut right through them and I have to line the halves up to read each time.
I guess I was trying to figure this out for a while, because a couple minutes after I walked into the kitchen, Gerard shows up, with his hair messed up from sleeping. It’s really hot to be honest.
He just casually walks over to the coffee maker, moves some stuff, pushes some buttons and yeah, and then next thing I know it’s brewing the coffee, leaving me with my jaw on the floor.
Geard casually turns around after pressing one final button to see me in my shocked state and he starts to laugh. Of course then I am brought to my senses and close my mouth, but not without turning a bright fucking red.
“Sorry, it’s just your face.” Gerard manages to get out between laughs after looking up and seeing me blushing.
“Yeah.” I say turning around to leave, but almost all of a sudden Gerards laughs calm down and I feel his hand on my shoulder, and it’s not as light as a touch as yesterday, showing that he’s not as scared, and now it’s really starting to comfort me and he hasn’t said anything yet.
“Frank. Hey.” Gerard says with concern laced in his voice.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry for laughing, I guess I just make coffee so often I can do it with my eyes closed now, and you looked really confused.”
“No it’s fine.”
“Okay.”
“Hey do you know where Bert is?” I ask after a small pause, turning to face him finally.
“No clue as usual. After they go out drinking, since he’s single he normally ends up either taking someone home or letting someone else take him home. Thankfully, last night was not an example of option one.” He says laughing and turning around to go get the coffee from the kitchen.
“Oh. Okay.” I say, a little worried about being home alone. I mean, I have been alone most of my life, but now I’m alone in a house that I could get lost in, and I don’t really know the surrounding area, so if I’m ambushed or something, I can’t escape very well.
“I can stay if you’d like.” Gerard says, pouring the coffee.
“Please.” I answer, opening up a cabinet to find the leftover donuts from yesterday, and grabbing only one today. “There are some donuts in here if you want.”
“No I’m good with coffee. I almost never have breakfast anyway. Just coffee.” Gerard answers, taking a couple sips of his coffee and adding a little ‘ahh’ for emphasis making me giggle.
Yes I just fucking giggled.
“So… tell me a little about yourself. I mean you know all about me, and I only know your name.”
“Well… I don’t do much really. I try to stay clean, I’m gay, single, and I’m 28. I also have a job at an art studio type thing that has like a bunch of departments, so I ended up on floor 9 and have a really pretty view.” He pauses. “Yep. Definitely gay.” and I end up giggling again.
“Wanna watch a movie?” He asks after I’ve finished my donut.
“Yeah sure. I don’t know any movies or anything, so you’re gonna have to pick.”
“Is horror okay?”
“The scarier the better.”

We ended up watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I didn’t think it was that scary to be honest, but i took advantages of the scares to keep moving slowly closer to Gerard. At the one jump scare that actually did scare me, I jumped so high I actually ended up landing on Gerard, but neither of us seemed to mind which was good.
We sat cuddles up for the rest of the movie until eventually it was over and while we were cleaning up, Bert came back, extremely hungover and just went straight to his room. Right now it was just about noon, so Gerard asked if I wanted to go grab lunch with him.
“What about Bert?” I asked.
“He’ll probably be trying to sleep off his hangover the whole time we’re gone.” Gerard replied simply.
“Are you sure. People have been spending a lot of money on me lately, and frankly, I can’t pay anyone back. I’m broke.”
“Dude, no one wants you to pay them back. It’s called being nice to a guy that hasn’t had a proper meal for twelve years. For me it’s called being nice to my new friend. Now throw some shoes on, you don’t have a choice anymore. I’m taking you out to lunch.”

Notes

Yay another chapter!
I'm really liking writing this book. It's just difficult to come up with chapter names sometimes...
Thanks for reading and commenting!
frank.is.love.frank.is.life