I was gently woken by sunlight streaming through our living room window at just after 5am. For a few seconds I was disorientated, until I remembered the events of the night before. I shifted slightly under Mikey’s dead weight until he slid off me. I stood up and walked through into the kitchen, making two cups of black coffee and walking back over to the couch where Mikey was now sitting up. I sat down beside him, handing him a cup.

“I’ve fucked it all up, Gerard.”

“Fucked what up?”

He sighed, and sipped his coffee.

“Everything.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and petted it reassuringly.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

“It really is. Gerard, I said something so terrible last night.” He glanced over at me, and I could see tears forming in his eyes. “The words I said actually disgust me, and I have no idea why I said them or where they came from.”

“Shh,” I cooed, placing my cup on the coffee table and pulling Mikey into a hug. “She’ll forgive you.”

“I-I don’t think she will.” Mikey mumbled into my shoulder, his voice cracking. “And even if she does, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”

“Just tell me what you said,” I urged.

“I can’t… because it was about you.”

“That means I have an even bigger fucking right to know!” I teased.

“Alicia didn’t like it, so you won’t either. I can’t tell you.” He said, sounding stubborn.

I loved Mikey, I really did, but he was really pushing it now. I had spent the whole night comforting him, and now he refused to tell me what had made him so sad? He was going to tell me, whether he liked it or not, and the only way to make him was the H word.

“Mikey, I’m sick of your stupid mind games. I’ll hate you if you don’t tell me.”

Mikey didn’t hate, but if he did, he’d hate hate. Using the word hate, making him think he was hated, was the only way to get what you wanted from him.

There was silence, and then;

“I told her you were gay.”

“Really? That was your big secret?” I chuckled, trying and failing to hide a laugh. But Mikey’s face remained dark, leading me to think there was more to this. I stopped laughing and focused my attention back on him.

“No… it’s so much worse. When we came back from the movies, I brought her in here, onto this sofa, and I tried to kiss her. It was going okay I suppose, until she randomly pulled away. I was a bit miffed, and then to make it worse, she tells me she’s a lesbian!”

“Well, that doesn’t explain why you were both so sad.” I said, more so to myself than to Mikey.

“She asked if we could still be friends. And I said, ‘yeah of course we can’,” he swallowed, closing his eyes.

“I said, ‘My brother’s a fag too.’ I meant to say something else, but that’s just what came out. She like broke down in front of my eyes, asking if that’s all she was to me, a fag. I tried to apologise, I really did, but every word I said seemed to dig me even deeper into this hole I’ve dug for myself. And then, as she was leaving, I said some really derogatory term about vaginas. Oh my God, what have I done.” He shook his head.

I could kind of see why they were both so upset. Alicia had been called terrible names, and Mikey had lost ‘the One’, as he believed that she was perfect for him. I knew he didn’t mean what he said, and that he’s just awkward around girls, but I knew him so well and Alicia had just met him. I knew I had to do something about this. I couldn’t stand to see my little brother in so much pain.

“How about you stay at home today? I’ll go and talk to Alicia.” I said sincerely.

“Really?” he asked, a dumbfounded look plastered across his face.

“Of course,” I answered, winking, “considering we’re both fags, she’ll probably empathise more if the apology is from me.”

I still managed to crack a smile from Mikey, despite the terrible joke, and this was enough to make me content enough to leave for school.

I was a good half hour early, and decided I’d get Alicia out of the way as soon as possible. I grabbed my bag and the Blink-182 EP for Ray and made my way to the freshmen’s locker area. It didn’t take me long to find her, her dark clothes making her stick out like a sore thumb. I tapped her shoulder gently, and she turned to look at me.

“Can I, um, talk to you in private?” I asked quietly.

“Fine,” she snapped.

She slammed her locker shut and led me towards the familiar art room staircase.

“Whatever stupid excuse Mikey has given you, I don’t want to hear it. He shouldn’t have called me that.” she said angrily.

“Excuse me,” I said, trying to put on a comical voice, “but if what he told me is true, he also called me a fag. Even though he knew I didn’t want people to know about it.”

“So, you really are gay?” she said, lifting her left eyebrow cockily. She was obviously trying to change the subject.

“Yes, I am.” I sighed.

“Mikey didn’t mean what he said, okay. He’s just so awkward around girls, he tries to treat them like guys so he can associate with them more. You’re the first girl he’s really gotten close to. I can assure you that he feels terrible about what he said, he’s spent hours crying and couldn’t even get himself together enough to come to school today. I know you might never like him as a boyfriend, but please forgive him so he has one true friend he can rely on? Please?”

A silence broke out between us as Alicia processed my second hand apology..

“I’m not really a lesbian.” she said suddenly.

“What?“ I said, nearly choking on my own spit.

“I. Am not. A lesbian. I just don’t want to date your brother. Or anyone, for that matter. I have to be alone. I‘ll just end up hurting him, and he‘ll end up hurting me.”

“You could have just kept him in the friend zone instead of leading him along.” I said coldly.

“I couldn’t. I’m still a teenager, I have urges. And so does Frank.”

My blood ran cold and the world seemed to grind to a stop. What the fuck does this freshman know about Frank? I’d never seen them together before.

“Frank?” I whimpered. “How do you know what urges Frank has?”

The colour drained from her face and her eyes widened like a rabbit caught in headlights. She moved her mouth to form words, but no sound came out. I blinked, and she was gone. And by gone, I mean literally not there anymore. She’d disappeared into thin air.

“What the fuck?” I muttered.

My mind was on overdrive. One second, she’s there, another, she’s not. One second I’m beaten to a pulp, the next I’m fine. Whatever kind of creepy shit was going on here, I knew that they had to be in this together. They had to be the same.

I had really tried hard to push the whole healing incident to the back of my mind, but it was easier said than done. Yesterday, while I was playing video games with Taylor, I kept getting these flashbacks to when I was lying on the ground, Frank’s rough hands brushing over my open wounds so delicately, as if I were about to fall to pieces and his touch was the glue that was holding me together.

They freaked me out, and I didn’t even want to think about Frank having weird powers. I just wanted to see him again, hoping that if I saw his devilish face once more I’d forget the memories of that night and create new ones to replace them.

But now, Alicia’s words and little disappearing act had affected me too. There was absolutely no logical explanation as to how she was there, and then suddenly not. She had to have magic. And if she did, maybe Frank did too…

The bell rang, signalling the start of the school day and slicing through my train of thought. I just have to make it through one day, I thought, and then I can find Frank and ask him myself. He’d probably call me crazy for thinking such stupid things and explain it all to me. At least, I hoped he would.

Taylor’s words came back to me then. Apparently he’d made someone need to see a psychiatrist, and now I was starting to understand why. Maybe she had seen his weird powers too? And Alicia’s? My mind began to wander to thoughts of a teenage magical mutant army, and that’s where I had to reign in my thoughts. It was bad enough being gay because of him, I was notgoing to end up being a mental case because of him too.

Notes

Title credit: Professional Griefers - Deadmau5 featuring Gerard Way