I was pulled out of class again by my social skills teacher, Mr Urie, as he wanted to have “a quick catch up” with me to see how I was doing on the friendship front. Like hell was I actually gonna tell him that Matt and Chris still kept to their little bubble of band in-jokes and band rehearsals that turned into trips into the city. Instead I was gonna feed him a some half-truths about how well I was getting on with Mikey and that I had been invited to his house by him rather than me following him home the way I did with the band practises. God, the teachers loved to hear all that improvement bullshit.
“Are you sure this is how you want to go about this Frank? You don't want to just invite Matt and Chris out with you rather than spending your last month with somebody you've basically never spoken to before. That's not to say of course that I am discouraging from talking to Mikey but still, there are perhaps better ways of building your friendship with the two boys.”
“Honestly, Mr Urie, I'm fine with talking to Mikey. Besides he was assigned to Chris not me so the two of them have to talk to him as well. Anyway, I guess it's probably better to have one new friend for the last few weeks than two old not-quite-friends.”
The last part was more a verbalised thought than something I had planned on sharing with Urie but then again, the only reason he had gotten anything of real meaning from me was because of my terrible brain-mouth barrier. I accidentally thought out loud a little too often for other people not to have noticed.
“Frank, are you sure you're okay? Most teenagers wouldn't come out with something like that about their friends if I asked them to. I'm not trying to pry remember, I'm trying to help.”
“I already said I'm fine, didn't I? Why would that have changed now? I'm talking to somebody, you should be happy.”
I was starting to get properly annoyed now but I doubted that Urie would notice, I mean teachers only see what they want to see, unless it's shoved in their face. He hadn't even raised an eyebrow when I spoke so he clearly wasn't going to get confrontational about the whole thing. Good – that meant I could get out of here sooner, not that I wanted to go back to class but more that I really didn't want to be talking to him.
“Well, if you're happy talking to Mikey instead of focussing on Matt and Chris then that's fine with me. We'll have another little chat in a few weeks, okay, just to check that you're still doing okay. Don't forget, you can come and find me before then if you want, you know where I am.”
“Yeah, whatever. See you later.” Perhaps I was being a bit rude to him but at that point I just didn't care.
“Okay, well, on you go then. If you're teacher asks where you were get them to call me.”
I didn't respond as I walked out the room, seriously considering skipping class for the rest of the day, something I hadn't done in a while since they caught me one too many times and put me on an attendance card. The only thing stopping me from walking out was Mikey – if I left he would be completely alone because there was no way Matt and Chris were going to talk to him. I could take him with me but i'd have to be careful to get him out without the teachers noticing what I was doing.
I found myself at the school office before I really thought my plan through, asking the bored, middle aged secretary what class Mikey Way was in – 'Mr Urie wanted to know'. I very much doubted she cared who it was for as she reluctantly closed whatever window she was using on her computer screen and brought up the school's timetable.
“Art with Mr Wentz – it's a double period.”
“That's great, thank you,” I smiled at her, deliberately too cheerfully as I turned to rescue Mikey from perhaps the school's only enthusiastic teacher.

Mr Wentz didn't even look around the first three times I knocked on his classroom door he was so engrossed in helping some pupil I didn't recognise with their picture. The other people in the class had all noticed me though and were giggling and whispering amongst themselves the longer I stood their. Mikey was sitting alone at the back of the room with headphones in although he was grinning at me a bit as I was ignored. The drawing on the desk in front of him was incredible. I couldn't quite tell what it was but the colours looked amazing together on the black paper.
Eventually the pupil Mr Wentz was talking to spoke up on my behalf, “Excuse me, sir, there's someone at the door.”
“Oh, right, er, how can I help you?” He seemed genuinely shocked to see me there, as if people didn't interrupt his class very often. He probably just ignored them until they went away.
“Mikey Way needs to go and see Mr Johnston. Oh, and he's supposed to take his stuff.”
I deliberately didn't look at Mikey as I spoke, trying my best to seem as if I were just another bored pupil sent on an errand for a teacher too lazy to pick up the phone.
“Yeah, sure. Mikey take your things and go see Mr Johnston.”
Honestly, I was almost surprised that the whole thing had been that easy as Mikey packed up quickly, depositing the drawing on the drying rack at the back of the classroom before joining me at the door.
He followed me unquestioningly until I headed towards the teachers' car park door rather than the support teaching corridor where Johnston's office was.
“Er, Frank, where are we going? You told Mr Wentz that Mr Johnston wanted to see me but his office is that way isn't it?”
“Yeah it is but that's not where we're going. I only told Wentz that bullshit so he'd let you out of class. We're going go out through the teachers' door so the fire alarm doesn't go off and then after that it doesn't matter where we go, so long as it's away from here.”
“You mean, like skipping class? I've never done that before. What happens if we get caught?”
I smiled a little at his innocence, remembering what Chris had said about Mikey being too quiet for us. Perhaps he had been right after all, but it was too late to go back now. I mean, Mikey was out of class now.
“Of course like skipping class, stupid, that's why we're leaving school grounds. And if we get caught today not much will happen – they might call your parents but it'll probably just be marked on the register as a discrepancy. If they catch us again after today then they'll out us on attendance cards, which all your teachers have to sign to say you actually turned up to class. Don't worry though – you have to get caught a lot for that to happen. I've only had a card once and I've been skipping for years.”
That seemed to make him more at ease as we walked across the car park and out of the gates, the familiar feeling of nerves and excitement washing over me, an exhilaration that never quite left me, no matter how many rules I broke or how many classes I ditched.
“We can leave our bags at mine then go do something fun, if you want, or we can just stay at mine – there shouldn't be anybody there?”
“Yeah that sounds good. How far away do you live?”
“Not far away enough,” I responded. “My house is literally another five minutes away. You know those red houses you can see from the school, yeah? Well, that's where I live. The only reason it's another five minutes away not two minutes is because you have to walk around the other houses to get to mine.”

We walked the rest of the way to my house in silence, Mikey looking around strangely the closer we got. A couple of times he looked like he was about to speak but then he seemed to decide against it and maintained the silence between us.
“Are you okay Mikey? You're looking around a bit weirdly.” My curiosity got the better of me as I unlocked my front door, stepping aside to let him in ahead of me.
“What? Oh, er, yeah I'm fine. It's just that, well, I er, I live just across from you.”
“Wait, really? I didn't know anyone had moved house round here recently. When did you get here? Which house is actually yours?”
He started to draw back into himself as I spoke, making me remember the way he was when anyone asked about his last school. Shit, I didn't want to scare him off just as I finally made a friend.
“Look, sorry Mikey. I-I didn't mean to pry or anything, just, shit, I was just curious. You don't have to answer or anything. In fact we don't even need to talk about it any more if you don't want to.”
“No, it's okay. I mean, you'd probably find out soon enough anyway. It's not like the people round here can keep anything quiet from what I've heard.”
Thank God he hadn't spooked. Maybe now I would get to actually learn something about him. I led him through the house and upstairs into my bedroom, now vaguely glad my mother had been in recently.
“So, this is my room. It's not that impressive but it's away from everyone else, which is the main point.”
I gestured grandly as I opened the door, showing him inside my room. It was a bit strange to see someone other than my mum in the room since I had never had friends around before. Matt and Chris knew where I lived but they had never actually been inside.
“Wow, Frank, this is really cool. I love your posters – actually, I have some of them.”
“Really? That's awesome! I'm glad you like it. I had to fight my mum to even buy most of the posters never mind put them up. She's okay with them now though.”
It was nice to see that Chris had been wrong after all – Mikey wasn't too quiet to like 'our' stuff, he was just too quiet to bring it up. He'd probably quite like Battle of the Bands now I thought of it, although his reaction to coming along to the band practise had been a bit weird. That in turn reminded me of his reaction to where I lived, leading me to wonder how best to bring up the subject again without making him uneasy.
As we sat down on my bed, Mikey seemed to be mentally preparing himself for something.
“Okay, I can tell you're dying to know Frank, so I'm gonna tell you. Just, just listen to what I'm saying without commenting or anything because I don't know if I'll be able to go through with this if you interrupt me. It's kinda hard for me to talk about this and I'm not very good at explaining things at the best of times so just bear with me while I try sort it all out in my head before I tell you.”
I nodded, hoping that my eagerness for answers wasn't too obvious. I would sit through his story without breathing if it meant I got to hear it. Perhaps that was a bit too dramatic but still, I wanted to hear what exactly what Mikey Way had to say.

He took a few deep breaths, nodded once to himself and then started to talk.

Notes

Don't worry - Gerard will appear soon! At this rate, it may even be before the weekend is through! :)