You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In High School

He was being dragged into a black amiss of smoke, falling until voices of the creatures chasing him echoed in the emptiness of his head. He was travelling up, or down, he couldn’t tell, but the force of the ice cold wind peeled away at his skin and creeped into the tiny cracks of his bones, stretching them with every hiss. It whipped through his hair, tearing away strands that streamed behind him as a cloak of human bits and pieces, and eating chunks of flesh as it licked his body like a frozen flame. He kept falling, or flying, being swallowed, but didn’t feel any pain. Just numbness he couldn’t express and a lack of form that would eventually crumble into a whistling, lost soul.
Gerard woke. The nightmares had returned. His over-heated body glistened with beads of sweat in the darkness. He could never explain what his dreams were about, all he knew was that they took place in a surreal land of confusion. Sometimes they were similar to his most recent one, sometimes he was drowning, sometimes he was trapped in a tower that never stopped rising up, and sometimes he hopped from scene to scene like in a freeze frame, but he knew they were always set in the same place and left him lying in bed trying to make sense of what the hell was going on. Gerard didn’t do weird shit, or emotional confrontation, he just kept to himself and got on with things as well as he could. Sometimes he succeeded in his methods, but sometimes he longed for nothing but the blissful fog of alcohol or some kind of panging pain.
He checked the clock. 02:47:16. Forty seven minutes and sixteen seconds after two AM. The clock ticked on, piercing the night-time peace with every second. A grandfather clock upstairs bonged and Gerard lay flat, letting the time consume him, and allowing his thoughts to wonder towards the acknowledgement that every second, Gerard was edging closer to his death bed.
Dark thoughts. No. Happy place. Frank.
Suddenly all the air left the room and Gerard remembered how soft Frank’s lips felt against his own.
03:09:52. 53. 54. The texture of Frank’s black, limp, beautiful hair.
Tick, tock, tick, tock. You’re dying. The air refilled the room, flooding it with poison.
***
The sunlight warmed Gerard’s back as he drank his coffee in the kitchen the next morning. Mikey was tottering about, making toast and packing his school bag. Gerard must have exhausted himself and slipped back into unconsciousness around four. It was now twelve minutes past seven.
***
Gerard arrived at first period class, his eyelids threatening to drop him to the floor.
‘Class,’ the teacher started, but nobody noticed. ‘Class,’ a bit louder.
‘Shut the hell up!’ Someone yelled, and Gerard’s eyes moved towards the sound of the familiar voice. To his surprise and somewhat amusement, it was Frank who had yelled at the students, and everyone had shut up.
‘Okay, thank you, Mr Iero,’ the teacher muttered. ‘Today we are studying pay-back time and U-Values…’ Gerard tuned out when the teacher started talking and his gaze shifted outside, to watch a squirrel go about its life. It was no less significant than his own.
***
Gerard stood awkwardly in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs the next evening, unsure of whether or not to press dial. He was nervous, but Frank had been brave enough to make the first move and Gerard felt compelled to return the favour. He pressed dial, and listened to the loud ringing, hoping Frank would pick up, and dreading it at the same time.
‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice crackled down the line. It must have been Frank’s mother. She sounded so timid.
‘Hi? Um, is Frank there?’ Gerard asked, his stomach suddenly churning.
‘Yeah, I’ll get him.’ The woman whispered, before there was a muffled scream for Frank’s name. Wow, she was anything but timid. She put her ‘quiet voice’ back on and muttered that Frank was coming. There was a long pause, and Gerard looked down at the floor, tapping his foot to an unfamiliar rhythm.
‘Hello?’ A quiet voice said.
‘Hi? Frank? It’s Gerard.’
‘Oh, hi. What’s up?’ Frank responded, coolly.
‘Uh, nothing, I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out. I didn’t see you at school today.’
‘Oh yeah, I’m not so well really, so I wasn’t at school, but I’m feeling a lot better now if you want to hang out?’ Suddenly Gerard was feeling anxious, unsure of whether or not he was pressuring Frank into doing something he didn’t want to do. What if he didn’t actually like Gerard? What if he simply wasn’t at school because he didn’t want to see Gerard? Wait, but he said he was ill. Stop over-thinking. But he could have been lying. He was telling the truth. He was lying. Truth. Lie.
‘Gerard?’ A seemingly concerned Frank snapped Gerard back to reality.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ll see you at four?’
‘What?’
‘I’ll come to yours at four.’
‘’Okay.’
‘Cool. See ya.’
‘Yeah.’ A loud click indicated that Frank had hung up, but he was coming at four. Had Gerard forced him? He couldn’t have. Or could he? Maybe he forced everyone to do things.
***
Frank arrived at four thirteen. Late, but at least he hadn’t stood Gerard up. Gerard couldn’t blame him, he was late for everything. Well, he didn’t do much, but he was always late to anywhere he needed to be. School, for example. Gerard waited, slumped in his desk chair in the basement, sketches and drawings scattered everywhere.
‘Gerard! Someone’s here for you!’ Donald, Gerard’s dad yelled. Gerard stood up, eager but anxious to see Frank again. He had seemed weird on the phone, and Gerard felt sorry for him, having to live with a mother like the one he had heard down the line. Gerard trudged up the stairs and into the wallpapered hallway. Frank was standing in the doorway, but Donald was nowhere to be seen. He was wearing red, skinny, too-big jeans, a plain black t-shirt with a burn mark on the side, his hair falling over his eyes and an old winter sweater hanging loosely in his arms.
‘Hey,’ He said quietly.
‘Hi. Come in,’ Gerard replied. Frank stepped inside. He seemed more nervous than usual. ‘Frank, are you okay?’ Gerard placed his hand on Frank’s shoulder, but he flinched wildly so Gerard pulled it away. An awkward silence lingered in the air and wrapped itself around Gerard’s throat, squeezing his voice into his gut. It tightened, blocking the bloodstream to Gerard’s brain, an invisible tourniquet. Frank took Gerard’s hand in his own and squeezed lightly.
‘Sorry,’ He squeaked, then piped up, and the silence was gone. ‘So! What do you want to do?’ Although the room was no longer quiet, there was an elephant crouching in the corner.
‘I don’t know, want a drink?’
‘Coffee please. Black, two sugars.’ Frank requested.
‘That’s how I have mine,’ Gerard mumbled a smile beginning to tug at the corners of his lips. Now Gerard was a little happier and less sceptical, the elephant was beginning to shrink into a mouse that could dart from the room as soon as its existence was properly acknowledged. The two boys headed down to the basement, armed with hot mugs of caffeine. Once they were submerged in the dim, warm light, they placed their coffees on the desk. Gerard pulled the chair out and swung it round, then sat down and spun from side to side while eyeing up Frank, who was still standing in the middle of the floor.
‘You can sit!’ Gerard half-pleaded.
‘Okay.’ Frank grabbed one of Gerard’s spare pillows and slumped cross-legged on the dirty carpet, hugging the soft cotton to his scrawny chest. This was nice, the pair of teenagers hanging out in the comfort of Gerard’s basement, out of reach of the jocks or the shallow cheerleaders. Hiding from deadlines and exams and school in general and stress and crazy mothers and rusty garden gates and the tight grasp of alcohol and the intrusive thoughts that tackled Gerard’s brain cellsand the urges and the crying and the numbness and the black smoke. Gerard rested his hand on Frank’s head, patting him gingerly like a dog. Frank smiled and pulled Gerard off the chair. Gerard slid to the floor and stared into Frank’s beautiful eyes.

Notes