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

Gerard valued sleep so it wasn’t that weird for him to spend his whole weekend in either his bed or the kitchen. Mikey was allowed in his room again and their dad had even bought them an alarm clock for in Gerard’s basement. They played Gerards records over and over again while playing stupid card games for two whole days. Mikey also kept asking him questions about Frank, so Gerard let him read all of the letters. “sounds like his life sucks pretty bad” Mikey had said. And Gerard agreed, and told Mikey about his plan to make Frank his best friend.

When it was finally time for the last period on monday, Gerard got some bad news. Mrs. Allen had not received Frank’s letter. She just gave Gerard the opportunity to write a fictional story that he had to turn in for a grade. The story turned out really depressing because he had been looking forward to reading Frank’s letter for the whole weekend.

Gerard didn’t get any letters for the rest of the week and he started to worry about Frank. Mrs. Allen said that he was probably sick but Gerard just felt like something was up. And he really didn’t want to write another story. Luckily Bert and his little slaves had left him alone this week.

Mikey knew that Gerard hadn’t received any letters this week so he just tried to keep his brother busy by more stupid games.

Next monday during gym, Gerard was hanging out with Pete and this guy called Brendon who knew sign language because his father was deaf. He taught Gerard some small things like ways that he could introduce himself and how to spell his name and he even offered to teach him more during lunch and Gerard happily said yes to that. If Mikey learned this with him, he wouldn’t have to write stuff anymore and that would just be really nice for both of them.

Before gym class was over, Gerard’s name was called over the intercom. And he was asked to come to the front desk to pick something up that, apparently, was his.

Gerard got a hall pass and ran to the front desk, hoping that no one would see him in his gym clothes. He showed the lady at the desk his school ID to confirm that he actually was Gerard. And she handed him an envelope with Gerard’s name on it in that oh so familiar, crappy handwriting.

Gerard thanked the lady at the front desk and ran off while hiding the letter for anyone who could possibly see it. When he reached the locker room, he put it all the way at the bottom of his backpack and went back to learn some more sign language in the last 20 minutes of gym class.

Gerard decided that he wouldn’t show Mrs. Allen the letter. He would open it when he was alone, or with Mikey but that’s pretty much the same, in his room. He just wrote a slightly less depressing story and ran to Mikey’s physics class when the bell rang.

Of course today was the day that Mikey was being slow and taking his time so when he finally walked out, Gerard grabbed his arm and forced Mikey to run all the way home with him. Both of them ran straight down the stairs to Gerard’s basement. Gerard, out of excitement and Mikey out of curiosity. When Gerard pulled out the envelope Mikey gasped. “Finally? How did Mrs. Allen allow you to take that home?” Gerard scribbled on his whiteboard. ‘She doesn’t know, i got it at the front desk, don’t know how he got my last name though.’ Mikey nodded at it “come on! Open it!!”

Gerard turned away from Mikey so he could read the letter for himself first.

‘Hey Gerard,

I’m sorry for the late reply i guess. But something has happened last week and i couldn’t go to school.

My dad moved back and is living on the same block as my mom. My mom got a call because he’s trying to get me to move schools but of course she doesn’t care so she agreed. I can’t live with a man like my father so i just took some money and ran.

I’m currently staying in a motel close to my school and i wrote the address of it and my room number on the back. I found your school because i saw the address on a sticky note on my teacher’s desk. Probably for the person who was gonna drop the letters off. I just copied it and sent the letter to your school so i hope it’ll arrive.

I’m sorry for this whole story but you said you cared and it’s not like i can share it with anyone else right now.

I’m sorry for all the rude things i’ve said, please keep writing?

-Frank’


Gerard was honestly shocked and kind of hoped that Frank really was just another bully who was messing with his head. But he just knew that this wasn’t fake for some reason.

“So what are you gonna do?” Mikey asked Gerard when he had read the letter as well. Gerard honestly didn’t know. Of course he was gonna write back, but he had to do more than that.

Writing back was the best thing he could do now.

‘Hey Frank,

I’m so sorry about everything that happened, and i do care.

I’ll keep writing letters to you and i accept your apology.

I don’t recognize the address or the name of your motel but i hope you’re doing okay now.

My brother and i found some money that might help you get some food and stuff so that’s all in the envelope as well.

-Gerard’

Gerard wrote his address on the envelope and stuffed the 200$ in it, he wasn’t gonna use it anyways and Frank needed it more than he did. He drove to the post office right after he closed the envelope and hoped to get a response soon. He knew that it was going to take longer now that they weren’t writing through their schools anymore. He made Mikey promise him that he wouldn’t tell anyone.

That night he was drawing again, well, sketching. Something he hadn’t done in a long time. He drew a dark, ugly, worn out, cheap-looking motel room with a silhouette of a boy sitting on the bed. That was Frank. But Gerard of course didn’t know what he looked like so he was just a shadow for now.

The days went by really slowly as Gerard waited for Frank’s letter. On friday when both Pete and Ray came over to watch movies, their mom came in without knocking. Everyone turned their heads and Mikey paused the movie with an overly dramatic sigh.

“Gerard, i totally forgot but this came in yesterday. And Michael, i don’t want to hear that kind of noise from you again.”

She handed Gerard the letter and left. Mikey was so focused on the letter that he had forgotten to unpause the movie and that caused Pete and Ray to notice that something was up.

“What’s up with the letter?” Ray asked them. Gerard rolled his eyes and grabbed his whiteboard off of the floor. ‘tell them’ It said when he handed it to Mikey. These guys were at their house almost everyday, it would’ve been really hard to hide it from them anyways.

When Mikey was done telling them, and they were done reading the letters they couldn’t wait for Gerard to open the next letter. Mikey told them to let Gerard read it first so they just continued watching the movie while Gerard read the letter.


‘Hey G,

I don’t have a lot of time, i’m sorry. My dad found the place i was staying at the guy at the motel told him because i was underage. I’m just kind of roaming the streets right now and trying to find a place to sleep.

Thank you so much for the money by the way, it’s coming in really handy. I’ll pay you back someday, promise. Send your next letter to 413 Washington Ave Belleville, NJ 07109. I checked in so they know your letter will be coming soon and i’ll be checking everyday until get it.

Thank you for keeping up with all of this drama and thanks again to you and your brother (who’s name you never mentioned), for the money.

-Frank’


Gerard froze when he read the address. Frank was about a 30 miles away from him. He could probably drive there in 45 minutes. But then Frank wouldn’t be there. He handed Mikey the letter and let the boys read it as well. While they were reading it he wrote ‘what should i do?’. He held the whiteboard up when they were done reading the letter.
“i’d say we’d sneak him in as soon as possible.” Mikey answered. Gerard erased the whiteboard and wrote ‘how??’. “Just write this: ‘come to this address as fast as possible, you can use the money for a taxi. Be there at midnight, we’ll come and sneak you in’ something along those lines. But make sure that he doesn’t come to our address but somewhere on the next block so that he doesn’t get spotted. We’ll all go out and get him. Guys, this will be a weekend of sleepovers and planning.”

Gerard agreed that that was probably the best thing for Frank. And their parents couldn’t know about this. He rushed his letter and they all got in the car and took it to the post office.


‘Frank,

We found a way. Come to the address on the sticky note in the envelope. Use the leftover money for a taxi. Be here at midnight on the night of sunday/monday. Me, my brother and my friends will sneak you into my basement, my parents rarely come down there but we’re looking for a way to get them to stay out of there.

Know that the address we gave you isn’t ours, it’s one block down but we didn’t want you to get spotted so that’s why.

See you at midnight!

-Gerard

ps. the address was written by my brother, Mikey. So, i’m sorry for the handwriting…’


After they dropped off the letter, they got some pizza and started planning for saturday and sunday. “you should ask your mom if you could get a lock on your door, with a key and everything.” Pete told Gerard. “Mom would totally say yes to that.” Mikey said “Gerard is turning 18 next year, he deserves some privacy.” Mikey gave him a wink and Gerard just looked at him in disgust.

“you also have a lot of hiding spots in case your parents do come down: Your closet is huge and there’s room for all of us under your bed so that wouldn’t be a problem.” Ray informed them.

They were gonna make this work.

Notes

I'm so sorry that this took longer, i have a huge essay for AP Lit that's due Friday so i'm focussing on that. But i'm gonna start on chapter 6 after i post this (yay).

-Nyxx