Three Words You Never Want To Hear

After the conversation I had overheard between Gerard and my Mom, I had been feeling a little down. I felt betrayed that he had told her before me, his boyfriend, and also painfully curious as to why he was determined to keep the secret from me. He had said that it would hurt me to find out, but to be honest I couldn’t think of any scenario that would make me feel worse than I already did.

Maybe I was overreacting, but Gerard had promised to tell me the secret eventually, and had sworn that it was hard for him to say. If it was so hard for him, then why did he tell my Mom, who had had only just met?

You have to understand why I eventually decided to forgive him. At the time, we were nothing too serious, despite what he might have said. Of course, I knew that I loved him for the moment his lips had touched mine, but that wasn’t to say that he felt the same way. And why should he? Compared to Gerard, I was nothing. No one could compare to him, not in looks or in personality, with his kind and caring nature that drove him desire to keep the secret from me.

Anyway, I’m getting away from the point. My point is, Gerard, although I’m ashamed to admit, at the time was just another boyfriend who I was now certain would eventually leave me. Although he didn’t seem too sure himself. As much as I didn’t understand the situation, I trusted him and I knew that he would tell me when he was ready.

And that’s when it hit me.

Who else knew of this oh-so-terrible secret of his? Who had suffered alongside him, with whatever he was dealing with to make him feel down? Who was probably caring for him now, sat in his living room, knowing exactly what was wrong with Gerard?

Mikey Way.

It was a malicious plan, one that was bound to go wrong. Of course I knew that Gerard would find out that I had pressured Mikey into telling in the end, but at that moment all I cared about was the truth. I wasn’t going to sit around and pretend I trusted him. Who could trust someone that was planning on leaving you right at the start of your relationship?

And so, I headed off to Gerard’s place.

The drive was short, and when I arrived I found that Gerard was already outside the door, a cigarette in his hand.

“You know that’s bad for you,” I commented, nodding towards the lit stick.

He puffed out some smoke. “Yeah, but what have I got to lose?”

I knew it was a rhetorical question, but I answered anyway. “Oh, only your lungs.”

The idiot that I am, I hadn’t realised the reason behind his grimace at these words. I had only meant it as a joke at the time, but every time I look back on that moment my stomach heaves at the thought of those words leaving my mouth.

His grimace etched onto his face, he dropped the cigarette and stamped it out.

“I was only kidding,” I commented.

“Oh, no. I was done with that anyway,” he smiled, putting an arm around my waist. “So, ice skating it is then?”

But that would have meant the end of my plan. I stroked my chin playfully, whilst thinking of a way to divert our departure. I needn’t have bothered however, as at that moment a red eyed Mikey stepped out into the doorway.

Gerard looked surprised to see his brother, despite the fact that he lived with him. By this point I wasn’t shocked to see that he had been crying, but just as the first time I had seen him look this way, I was curious as to what would make him so upset. Perhaps it had nothing to do with Gerard, and he had been lying when he told my mom that Alicia and Mikey were fine. At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself out of fear of the information I was about to force from the crying man in front of me.

“Mikey,” breathed Gerard, the look of shock still visible on his face; “What are you doing out here?”
Mikey sniffed. “Thought I’d get some fresh air.”

“Oh, well, me and Frank were about to leave, is that okay?” The concern in his voice was evident. For a minuet I wondered if it was Mikey who needed looking after, and not the other way around.

Mikey went to speak, but I interrupted; “Actually, why don’t we hang out here a little bit before?”
Gerard seemed reluctant, but Mikey seemed pleased that I had suggested it.

“Frank, I don’t think-”

“We haven’t booked any tickets have we? It’s not like we’re going to miss our time slot.”

“Oh, alright, but only for ten minutes,” he looked sympathetically towards his brother, who was now rushing inside the house.

I know it looks cruel, the way I was using Mikey for information when he was in such a state already, and seeing how eager he was to spend more to with his brother, I vowed that I would visit Mikey separately from now on, as it looked like he needed company.

We followed Mikey to the living room, where he sat down opposite to us. I thought about the plan that formulating in my mind and with every glance I cast towards Mikey I felt guiltier and guiltier. However, I had achieved the first part to my plan, so I wasn’t about to back down.

The problem would be getting Gerard out of the room. Although he had seemed reluctant to enter it in the first place, I could think of no way to make him leave us alone. At that moment, Gerard took my hand and began gently stroking it with the tips of his fingers.

“How are you doing, Mikey?” I asked as casually as I dared.

“I’m… I’m alright. How are you?”

“I’m pretty good, thanks,” I was aware of the boring tone of our conversation, so I decided to change tactic. “It must get pretty lonely, hanging out here alone.”

Gerard shot me a look that said ‘what are you doing?’, but I just smiled at him before turning back to his brother, who, to my horror, now had tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I-it can b-be,” he choked, and Gerard leant forward to place his hand on Mikey’s hand instead of mine.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Mikey. It’s just, I couldn’t help but noticing that you don’t go to work anymore.”

“I- I took a small break. Thought it’d b-be good for me.”

“Good for you?” Gerard shot me another pleading look. “But don’t you want to earn a living? Don’t you want to see your work colleagues?”

“You sound like my m-mom,” Mikey croaked, a hint of a smile on his face. “I- I have to stay with G-Gerard.”

“Why-?”

“-Okay, that’s enough.” Gerard interrupted, looking stern. “Frank, if I could see you in the kitchen please?”

I followed Gerard reluctantly into the untidy kitchen, dreading the following conversation. I knew that he had discovered my plan as quickly as I had thought of it. To be honest, I hadn’t really planned it all that well, and starting the conversation with Gerard in the room was probably a dumb move.

Gerard turned to face me, hands on hips. Although at the time I had found him funny and even cute when he was angry, now I can never get that look out of my mind, making me feel all the more guilty about trying to use Mikey for information. If I had known what they were both going through I never would have said a thing.

“Frank,” he began, sighing. “I know what you’re up to, but it won’t work. He won’t tell you.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m not up to anything.”

“Please, don’t lie to me,” he pleaded, sounding almost as broken as Mikey. My insides turned and I unfolded my arms automatically. “I know you want to know, heck, you have the right to know-”

“Then why can’t I?”

“Frank, please, you said you trusted me,” he stepped closer to me, so close that I couldn’t breathe.

“I- I know what I said-”

“So trust me,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me to his chest. I buried my face into him, trying to hold back tears. Why wouldn’t he just tell me? Did he not realise how frustrating it was to have to wait whilst my mother already knew? Of course, he didn’t know I had overheard them.

For a moment, I considered telling him that I had overheard their conversation, but one glance at his eyes told me this was not a good time.

If I could go back to that moment, I’d stop being such a dramatic cry baby and I’d spend every second in Gerard’s company, making him happy, not reducing him to tears. All the time I wasted trying to figure out the truth meant less precious time with him, and the guilt of that fact mingles with my guilt about Mikey.

Gerard pulled away, giving me a watery smile. I smiled back, trying to keep myself from crying, and we walked back into the living room, where Mikey was sat waiting. The television wasn’t on, and I wondered for an embarrassing moment whether he had heard every word we had just said.
If he did however, he did not show it.

“You two should get off,” he attempted a smile, but it looked more like a grimace to me.

“What?” Gerard looked at his brother with mixed shock and concern. “No, we don’t have to be there yet, I mean, we haven’t ordered any tickets or anything.”

Mikey shook his head. “Aren’t you the one that wanted to leave? Go. I’ll be fine.”

Gerard looked like he wanted to argue, but before he could I was dragging him from the room and back into the kitchen. I knew that Mikey would be lonely, but I also wanted to spend time alone with Gerard. Did that make me a bad person? Yes. To this day I feel guilty for leaving Mikey behind.

“What are you doing?” Gerard asked, as I opened the front door.

“We’re going ice skating,” I said pointedly, and when he continued to look confused I said; “I thought you were the one who suggested it? If you don’t want to go…”

Gerard shook his head frantically, looking into the living room. “I- I can’t leave him here.”

“Why not?”

“He- he needs me. You don’t understand-”

“So let me understand!” I shouted, slamming the door behind me.

To this day I don’t know where this sudden outburst came from. Perhaps it was the fact that I had been planning to find out his secret from Mikey, and Gerard had put a stop to it. Perhaps I was still angry from what I had heard the night before. Or perhaps I was just getting frustrated with the both of them, why did they have to be attached to each other? Couldn’t Gerard spend one night alone with me?

At the time it didn’t matter to me that Mikey had been the one to set us up in the first place. I was angry, and I knew that this was my chance to let out just how angry I was.

“Fr-Frank…”

“No! No, Gerard!” I yelled, slamming my fist against the table next to me. “I’ve had enough! Do you think I like being left in the dark? Do you think I enjoy it?”

“No, Frank, please…”

“No! I’m done!” I saw the hurt look on his face, and a small pain hit my chest. I pressed on however, determined to let him know how I felt. “I heard you, goddamn it! I heard you!”

Gerard pained face mingled with shock and confusion, and for a moment he seemed to be battling with himself on whether to speak. “I… I don’t understand… what you’re talking about.”

I gave a shrill laugh. “Don’t play dumb with me! I heard you two last night, I heard you tell her!”

The shock on his face was now clear, and he gaped at me, unable to talk. I knew that I was hurting him, but I couldn’t help myself. I felt betrayed, used, and unimportant, why couldn’t he see that he was in the wrong? He was playing me around, like this was some kind of sick game.

I won’t even begin to tell you how much it hurts me to think about this moment in our relationship, now that he’s gone. I wish I could take it all back, tell him how much of an idiot I was, and I wish I could reverse time and not open my mouth in the first place.

“You heard? You heard everything?”

Now was my chance. If I agreed that I had heard everything, Gerard would undoubtedly reveal the secret to me without realising that I was lying. I tried to get my head straight, to think of something to say, but Gerard was already talking, and I couldn’t find my voice.

“I should have told you the moment I met up with you at your apartment, I should have told you so that you could make the decision yourself. Then you probably would’ve never have taken interest in me, you probably would have left me alone.”

“Left you? Why would I leave you?” My hands were still shaking but I had calmed down a little at his words. He thought that I wouldn’t have gone out with him if I had known the truth from the start. How could he think that? No matter what was wrong with him I would stay next to him and help him through it. “I was interested in you way before you contacted me again. I would’ve stayed with you.”

Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and now his voice was unsteady. “Y-you would? Frank, I know it’ll be hard for you, but you need to know how much yours support means to me…”

My head was spinning. ‘Support’? What was he talking about? I thought I’d go insane with curiosity; he had to mention the secret at some point, right? I couldn’t keep lying to him, telling him I knew when in truth I didn’t have a clue what I was meant to be supporting.

“I’ll always support you,” I croaked, looking away in shame. Did he know I was lying about knowing the truth?

He wiped his cheeks with his sleeves. “I know it’ll be hard for you, I know, look what it’s doing to poor Mikey! I- I didn’t want you to worry about it; I wanted you to be happy, to enjoy the time we have while it lasts. Who knows how long it’ll be?”

My heart was pounding in my chest. Now that the truth was so near, did I really want to hear it?

“It’s just… hard to think about… about what might happen if… if I…” he trailed off, putting his head into his shaking hands.

“Stop,” I demanded, and he looked up, eyes swollen. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him tell me this way, he at least deserved that. “I didn’t hear what it was. I only heard my Mom telling you that you should tell me. That’s all. I just… I was jealous, okay? It’s stupid, I know. But you told her before me, and you’ve known me for years, I’m your boyfriend, and you told her.”

There was a long silence.

He didn’t look angry, but more relieved. Tears still rolled down his cheeks however, and I wanted nothing more than to make him feel better. I stepped forward, meaning to hug him, but he shook his head, his eyes downcast.

“I wanted to tell you differently. I never imagined it this way.”

“Then don’t,” he looked up in surprise. “Don’t tell me. Not now.”

“You’ve waited too long, I have to-”

“No. Not today. Let’s just… go ice skating. Have fun.”

For a split second I thought I saw a smirk on his wet face, but when I blinked the smirk was gone.

“You amaze me. One minuet you want to know, the next you’re refusing to be told. What am I going to do with you?”

I stepped forward properly this time, embracing him in a tight hug. I felt his arms wrap weakly against my middle, and I could hear his snivels in my ear. “I…” Was it too early to say that I loved him? “I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted like that. I was a total asswhole.”

He gave a croaked chuckle. “We’re all asswholes sometimes. Hey, I was an asswhole too. I should have told you long ago, or at least, not told your mom.” He pulled away, but kept hold of my hand.
“I get it. You needed someone new to talk to. Don’t worry about it.”

“So, you still up for ice skating?”

“Definitely,” I smirked, which he returned. “But you can’t go looking like that. Here.”

I grabbed the kitchen towel and began wiping his face gently. He smiled and sniffed, clearly deciding that crying wasn’t going to solve anything. Once his face was back to its original colour, we bid goodbye to Mikey, who looked just as distressed as I had felt a few minutes ago, and left the house.

Gerard was extremely quiet on the way there, but his hand never left mine. I knew that he was feeling just as guilty as I was, and we were both trying too hard to act normal again. He was unusually polite when he helped me put my ice skates on, (they were too small, apparently the woman at the counter thought it was funny to give me a child’s size), and he kept kissing my cheek every now and then.

We took to the ice rink in a slightly miserable spirit, but by the time we had taken a break at the half an hour spot, we were both acting like children.

“Did you see your face when that guy smacked into you?” Laughed Gerard, leaning against the stand of seats.

“Do you blame me? That guy was like a bulldozer! Did you see the size of him?”

Gerard laughed even harder, clutching at his stomach. “He’s only tall to you because of how small you are!”

I faked offence. “I am not small! I’m just… small boned!”

We both doubled into laughter, earning looks from an old lady next to us. Usually a stranger staring at me would have made me self-conscious, but in that moment I couldn’t have cared less.

“The immaturity of some people,” she muttered, shaking her head as she walked away.

“Yeah, well, some people just don’t know how to have fun, I guess,” shouted Gerard, still teary eyed from laughter. “Come on, we’d better get back out there.”

“Do we have to?” I whined. “My feet are killing me!”

He chuckled, grabbing my hand. “We’ve been in five minutes and you’re already complaining.”

He pulled me along to the side of the ice rink, picking me up and putting me on the ice when I refused to move. He then proceeded to drag me along, as I was refusing to move an inch. He pulled me along, his laughing face in front of mine, about half way around the rink until we collapsed next to two teenagers who were full out snogging.

“You’re so… immature!” He breathed, wiping his forehead of sweat.

“Immature spells ‘I’m mature’,” I laughed, sticking my tongue out childishly.

But his eyes were on the two teenagers, who were now pressed up against the glass. “You’d think they’d have more manners. Some people!” He flicked his fair in imitation of the old woman who had passed us before.

I smacked his arm playfully. “Don’t pretend you’ve never felt someone up in public!”

He gasped, as if taking offence. “Me? Do something so repulsive in public? There are children here, and I don’t mean just you, Frank.”

It took me a while to grasp his meaning, when I finally realised he was referring to my shoe incident. “You can laugh, but at least my feet are the only things I’ve got that are small, if you get my meaning.”

“Oh, who’s being disgraceful in public now?”

“It’s not like I’m showing you,” I commented, pointing to the two teenagers. “Although if someone doesn’t break them up soon, I’m sure we’ll see more than we bargained for.”

Gerard winked, and stood up suddenly, leaving me sat on the ice cold floor alone. “I’ll handle it.”

“No, Gerard!” I hissed, but he just laughed and skated away, spraying ice at me at the same time.
I watched in horror as he circled next to the two teenagers, who were still so engrossed in what they were doing that they hadn’t noticed him watching them. To anyone else watching, Gerard would have looked very… wrong, standing there smirking at them.

I wondered if he had been serious about breaking them up, when it happened. He soared straight between them, pushing the boy over in the process. The boy hit the ice with a thump, and the girl squealed in surprise.

Gerard circled around them once more, twirling and spraying ice at the boy. He looked livid, and the girl looked frightened as she attempted to help her boyfriend up.

“No public displays of affection, please!” Gerard called, and I heard the boy swearing at him as he sped back towards me, laughing.

“That was insane!” I exclaimed.

“Quick, it looks like he’s gonna beat me up,” Gerard laughed, pulling me up by my hands. “Well, he can try anyway, but we wouldn’t want a scene would we?”

“We most certainly wouldn’t,” I imitated his impression of the old woman. “That would be most immature.”

We decided within another hour that we’d had enough of ice skating, so we went up to Burger King for lunch.

Gerard insisted on paying, but when we got to the till I managed to distract him with the menu so that he could slip the waitress, if you can call a Burger King employee a waitress, my credit card. When he noticed however, he wasn’t happy.

“You should have let me pay,” he insisted for the third time as we took our seats.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s nothing,” I waved a hand dismissively as I took a sip of coke.

“That was a cruel trick, Mr Iero.”

“Mr Iero?” I laughed at Gerard’s folded arms and scowl on his face. “I’m terribly sorry Mr Way. Will you ever forgive me?”

Gerard pouted; “Only for a kiss.”

His face was completely serious as he said this, so I leant forward, my heard pounding, and pressed my lips hungrily to his. I could feel his smirk against my mouth, and suddenly he was grabbing my hair and forcing me so far forward that I nearly fell off my chair.

“No public displays of affection!” Hissed the boy from earlier, his girlfriend sniggering on his arm.

I flicked a fry at him.

Notes