(Love)letters <<<ON HOLD>>>

2:30pm, only 20 minutes until Gerard would be released from this horribly dreadful place so he could go home and just lay in bed for the rest of the day. Because honestly, that was the only thing he was really looking forward to today. It was only the second week of his senior year and he already got beaten up twice. Not because of his looks, not because of his sexuality, but because he didn't talk. Gerard was a mute, and to a lot of ignorant people, being a mute seemed like a choice. Sadly, this included some of the teachers.

This was 'one of those' classes, Gerard always sat in the front with his little whiteboard and a marker so that he could answer the teacher's questions. But sadly he didn't have Mrs. Will for English anymore. The sweetest teacher ever was transferred to a much better school where they needed her help. Instead he got Mrs. Allen this year, and it's not that she's 'mean' or 'a bad teacher' she's just kind of uninformed and really loud and maybe overly excited. Every time she would slightly raise her voice, Gerard would jump, which, of course, caused all the kids behind him to laugh at him.

Another reason that he really disliked this class was that the only thing they had done since school started was practicing college essays because, apparently, these dipshits still did not know how to write a proper essay after all these years.

And that's exactly what they were doing right now, cleaning up each other's essays and correcting the spelling and grammar mistakes. Gerard got stuck with Bert's essay and he still was not sure where to start. It seemed like Bert didn't write one sentence without flaws.

"Okay class, finish that up please, i have an important announcement to make"

Gerard didn't even panic about not finishing, he just passed Bert his essay back without making eye contact and took his own. He immediately saw that Bert didn't correct anything and instead wrote some terribly bad, misspelled insults on his essay. And honestly, he was fine with that.

"Eyes up here everyone." Mrs. Allen said, "I've been making some phone calls over the summer with a teacher from another school and we both got permission to let our senior classes do something fun during their last year of high school. You guys will start writing letters next class and i'll make sure that they will get delivered to the other school. Every boy will be linked to a girl and vice versa. You will get graded on it but don't look at this like it's an assignment, think of it as an opportunity to meet new people and making a new friend!"

A lot of people were rolling their eyes and letting out sighs at this announcement but Gerard was actually really excited about this. He kept thinking about what he should write in his letter tomorrow while making his way home, and he was way too busy to notice Bert and his crew of idiots creeping up from behind him until he got pushed to the ground.

Gerard didn't even have time to think before he felt someone kick him right in the stomach. While he was gasping to get air Bert leaned over him.

"You were supposed to correct my homework for me, why didn't you?"

Gerard was still in too much of a shock to do anything. So he got two more kicks, one in his arm and one right in the ribs.

"Answer me! Is your writing as bad as your talking, Gee?"

Gerard absolutely HATED it when they called him by the nickname that his brother gave him. He shook his head.

"Guess you're still doing my homework then, don't forget Gee, it's due tomorrow"

He heard Bert opening his backpack, throwing some stuff across the streets and closing it again. Guess he put his essay somewhere in there.

He waited for about 10 minutes, until he was sure they all walked off, and got up. He immediately grabbed his ribs, that's gonna be a problem in gym class tomorrow. He grabbed all his stuff off the floor and quickly put it back in his backpack, hoping no one saw what had just happened.

When he got home he ran straight to his room, better to get Bert's homework done sooner than later.

He had just started on correcting the last paragraph when there was a knock on his basement door.

He quickly tried to find a place to hide the essay. If his mom ever found out that he was doing this she would try to 'help' him again. And he knows that she means well but she can't do anything to help him in school.

The door opened, and luckily it was his brother, Mikey. Gerard let out a sigh and grabbed the essay again to finish it.

"Bert again?" Mikey asked, he knew way too well what happened to his brother at school. But he was only a sophomore and he was as skinny as a toothpick so the only thing he could do about this was calm his brother down and help him to hide the bruises from their parents.

Mikey went back upstairs to get some coffee for both of them while Gerard finished the essay. There was no way Mikey could help with that since Gerard is like an English literature God.

By the time Mikey came down, Gerard was done and was doodling on a piece of scratch paper he found. His brother handed him the cup of coffee and Gerard happily took it from him. Mikey put on Nimrod by Green Day so their parents wouldn't hear them talk. And then he waited for Gerard to finish his coffee before asking him.

"How bad is it this time, Gee?" Mikey asked him, Gerard looked up at him and took his hoodie off, immediately revealing an already purple bruise on his arm. It wasn't too big but it's was a really dark purple color. Gerard made a guilty face, as if saying "I'm sorry" to his brother, and Mikey picked that up straight away.

"It's not your fault Gee, don't ever think it is. These guys chose to beat you up, nothing you could do. It's not your fault, okay?"

Gerard nodded his head but Mikey knew he still didn't believe him.
"That's not all, is it?" Mikey asked him.

Gerard shook his head 'no' and took his shirt off, he looked in the mirror that covered his whole closed and saw that the first kick hadn't done too much damage at all. You could barely see anything. But his ribs, they were not even purple anymore, they were black. Gerard saw Mikey's pitiful face and felt even worse. He let his brother down once again.

Mikey tried to touch it but Gerard flinched so he pulled back rapidly, scared that he had hurt him even more. Gerard shook his head and wrote on the piece of scratch paper "no pain, just cold"

So Mikey slowly tried to touch it again and softly pushed in some places, making sure none of the ribs were actually broken and when Gerard let him know that it didn't hurt too much he was satisfied and let him put his shirt back on.

"We gotta find a way to hide that one, Gee" Mikey told him. Gerard thought for a bit before he held up his finger telling Mikey to wait for a bit, and then walked to his closed. Gerard opened all the drawers and threw some stuff out until he found what he was looking for. He proudly held up a black long-sleeve shirt.

"Guess that'll do" Mikey smiled proudly at his brother.

Notes

I'll put chapter 2 up after dinner, let me know what you think!