Roomie

We were sitting on the couch, our feet up on the coffee table as we had breakfast. Mikey was slurping voraciously at his bowl of cereal while trying to type something on his phone that was in his lap. I watched him, munching on my own toast and jam, and bit my lip to suppress my laughter. He was terrible at multitasking, but he felt like he had to do it when he was in a hurry. Every morning was a comedy act.

Mikey and I had grown a lot closer in the past few months that we had been living together. After our recording session, he helped me put together a few more songs until I gave up on the project, telling him I was going to start looking for a job. Although this wasn’t a lie, I was more concerned about dodging his brother than getting hired. Ever since he appeared in the studio the first time, I was terrified he’d be back.

Initially, I had wondered if it would be good for us to see eachother again. We could stitch up our wounds once and for all and move on from what happened. But as the weeks dragged on, the anxiety of him catching me off guard began to drive me mad. I stopped going to the studio. I stopped leaving the house unless we were out of beer. I spent all of my time in my room with my guitar, too scared to even sit in the living room by myself when Mikey was away. I was consumed by paranoia.

My health declined from the constant loneliness and lack of livelihood, and Mikey took notice. So, we started a new sort of regimen. Every morning, he would wake me up before he went to work and we would have breakfast together. Then he would be gone for most of the day, and in the evenings when he was home we usually watched some cult classic movie that was on. Yesterday was American Psycho, tonight was SLC Punk.

As I was brushing the crumbs off of my grey sweater, the doorbell rang. Mikey jumped up, sloshing milk onto his hands. He groaned and ran to the kitchen, throwing his dishes in the sink and washing his hands.

“That your ride?” I called to him, reaching over to set my plate on the coffee table.

"Yeah, I guess he's early," Mikey said, wiping his hands on his pants. He slipped his shoes on and ran to open the door, babbling, "Sorry man, sorry, got distracted, let's -"

I leaned forward to get a peek at who was there, and standing in the doorway was the same
god-awful man I had been dreading for weeks - no, for fucking years. Quickly, I bent over the couch as if I was looking for something I had dropped, hoping he wouldn’t see me.

“Gee, don’t you have work?”

“I’m not on as tight of a schedule as you are, kiddo.” The door closed and I heard their feet move slightly closer to where I attempted to hide. “I brought you some more stuff.”

“Oh, yeah thanks. I couldn’t really bring that much stuff from home…”

“I know, I have more in the car out front. Mom was getting sick of it all and asked me to come pick it up.”

“Wait, how much stuff do you have?”

“Like… Four boxes. Five, I don’t fucking know. You have a lot of shit.”

“Gee, I, I don’t have time, I gotta - Frankie?”

I popped my head up at my name, forcing a smile.

“What… What are you doing?” Mikey and his brother stood near the door, both turned to stare at me. There was a cardboard box pushed to the side, overflowing with cables and video game paraphernalia. They watched me expectantly.

I grabbed the remote that was sitting on the arm of the couch beside me, waving it around, “Just, uh just dropped the fuckin remote. Yeah. Fuck.” I coughed up a laugh.

Mikey slowly started nodding, “Okay, alright, cool. So, this is Frankie. He’s chill, he can help you bring everything up and he knows where all of my things go.”

“Did I see you at Mikey’s studio a while back?” Gerard asked me. He was stalling, trying to keep his brother from leaving. His red hair was now faded to a pinkish-orange, and he looked more real now that he was wearing something other than a suit. He seemed alive, familiar. No longer a memory.

I muttered a yes, and Mikey explained for me, “We whipped up some sweet tracks he could play for you. But I mean, seriously, I have got to get out of here.” He pushed past Gerard and grabbed his jacket off of the ground, then stepped outside, “I’ll bring back something for dinner, Franks. Seeya!”

Then it was us. Alone. I didn’t know what to say, if I should pick up where we left off or pretend we were strangers. My eyes drifted to the remote in my hands, and I turned it over once or twice. He cleared his throat. I shuffled my feet.

When the tension became unbearable, he said in a calm, soft voice, “Will you help me bring the rest of the boxes in?”

Quickly, I nodded and tossed the remote behind me as I got up. I refused to focus on him, staring at the floor or the walls, as he opened the door and led me downstairs to where his car was parked. We carried the boxes up one by one in silence until they were all laying on the floor of my living room. I desperately wanted this exchange to be over, but was too petrified to hint that he should leave. Instead, I just decided to say, "So... You have a brother," as we stood at opposite ends of my kitchen table.

"Yeah, I do," Gerard shrugged. I watched his shoulders gently touch the tips of his fading hair, struggling to keep my gaze away from his eyes.

"You never told me about him," I mumbled, running my fingers across the top of the chair I stood behind.

"Frank..." he said sternly. I shuddered when he said my name. He noticed, I was sure, and brought his tone down to a more soothing rumble. “There were some things I couldn’t tell you. We were just kids in college, I… I wanted to start fresh.”

I swallowed. “Is there anything else you kept a secret?”

“Why don’t we just talk this through?” Gerard sighed, trying to move closer to me. I looked up at him for the first time and remembered how those hazel eyes used to drip with longing every time they met mine. My throat was dry.

He took one more step towards me, and this time I backed up. “I think you need to leave,” I whispered, my voice tiny and threatening to break.

Holding up his hands, he stopped and said, “Okay, okay. At least let me help you unpack Mikey’s stuff. Then, I’ll leave.”

I focused intently on the ground for a solid minute before deciding, “... Fine. Unpack your brother’s shit and then get out of here.”

Gerard nodded and wasted no time in piling as much stuff as he could carry into his arms. I didn’t take any - if he wanted to do the work, he could fucking do it. When he was ready, I led him down the hallway and into Mikey’s room. It had been drastically redecorated, with black sheets hung up on two walls and an array of polaroids pinned up on the others. He left a bit of a mess, but he was always so pressed for time that it didn’t bother me so much. I wasn’t the cleanest, either. I took a seat on his unmade bed and pointed to his bookshelf, “Put all the games up there.”

Turning his back to me, Gerard did as I said. He was about to leave the room again when he finished, but he waited in the doorway for second to say, “I thought you would have taken the bigger room.”

“You contaminated it,” I replied quickly. I’d rehearsed this scenario in my head too many times. He was predictable.

Gerard laughed, and his smile flooded me with fond memories. Hot cocoa as the snow drifted down, painting our faces on Halloween. He’d laugh, caress my cheek, and kiss my temple. Kiss me, he’d kiss me. It ruined me inside to remember that he’d kiss me.

Leaning on the doorframe, he tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and said, “I’d say that we contaminated it.”

He wasn’t wrong. My heart was racing, and I could barely breathe. I was so frustrated, he instilled so much fear and anxiety into me that I had never dealt with before I met him. I used to be confident. I used to like myself. Gerard had been my saviour and now he had damned me to a life of misery and paranoia. Rage boiled up inside of me. This was not who I was; I wouldn’t be someone’s plaything.

I was on my feet. My hands were balled up in fists and I closed the few feet that were between us. He loomed over me, one side of his lips hitched up in a smile. My mouth opened and I stuttered, trying to think of something to say to assert myself. All came out was gibberish, and Gerard crossed his arms as he stared down at my sputtering little body. Cheeks pink and eyes wide, I finally broke.

I grabbed his face, wads of knotted pink hair in both hands, and forced my lips onto his.

Notes

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