Well If You Wanted Honesty…

I stood in front of what was proclaimed to be my worst enemy: Saint Bernadette High School. It was pretty horrible, if you ask me. A private school for rich kids, please, what was more pathetic.

Unless you were me, I, Gerard Arthur Way, am not a rich kid. Hell to the fucking no. Never. I was sent here by my lovely mother, Donna, who believes that sending me to a preppy school would force me to be… like any other high school kid. Well, I wasn't. I spent my weekends in my hardly-windowed bedroom, drawing comic book characters and monsters. On occasions, I would go out to the local comic book store and spend all day there. And, rarely, I would sing. In the shower, of course. But that was only if no one was home and I felt particularly dirty.

Anyways, so, I was standing in front of our high school, being tormented by a group of idiots. All the jocks make fun of me because of my black hair and my sporadic eye liner fests (usually it was Frank who dared me to wear it to school) and they all thought I was gay.

Well, tell me boys, if I was gay, would I have an abnormal love for Claire Green?

No. I would not.

Claire is probably the only non-preppy girl that attends St. Bernadette's. She has unnatural black hair, carries her guitar case with here everywhere, and is always caught listening to her iPod in class.

But I've never spoken one word to her.

I ignored all the jocks and tried to make my way into the courtyard, where Frank, Ray and Mikey usually were. Mikey is my brother, but he usually gets a ride with Ray… whereas I like to walk to school.

I know, walking around in Belleville, New Jersey is probably the dumbest thing ever. Once I was held to gunpoint in front of a local gas station. But that isn't the point. The point is that in the morning, I can listen to my iPod, and think. It's usually cool outside and since it was fall, the leaves were all changing color.

I walked over to the stairs where we usually sit and talk about everything. They were all there, as usual.

"Hello, Gee," Frank greeted, smiling as wide as ever. "How has your morning been?"

"Fine. You seem awfully smiley. Something going on?" I asked him. He wasn't ever smiling, usually because jocks threw bread at him.

"I got a new guitar," he said, nearly jumping off of the stair he was sitting on. I grinned and nodded.

"Wonderful. Your dreams will be ruined as soon as one of those football whores come over and try and dislocate our face," I warned, sarcastically. Ray and Mikey laughed but Frank just rolled his eyes.

"Just you wait. We're all gonna be insanely successful one day and we'll rule the fucking universe."

Ray then joined in the conversation, "You keep dreaming, Frankie!"

I sat down by them and enjoyed the morning breeze. We all talked about different comics and horror films. The bell rang, that meant I had Trigonometry with Ray and Claire. Frank was a freshman and Mikey was a sophomore and Ray and I were seniors. Claire was a senior too.

The bell rang. Ray and I grabbed our standard black backpacks and walked to trig.

"So, why are you always creepily staring at Claire?" Ray questioned. I almost wanted to smack him. None of my immediate group of friends ever asked me about Claire. They all knew to not mention her. When they had, I nearly stuffed the pen I had been holding down Frank's throat.

I don't know why but I felt eerie just mentioning her name to someone.

I shot a look at Ray and coughed up the following 'sentence', "I dunno whatcha talkin' bout."

I really wasn't using my big boy words, was I? Ray gave me a look of humor and shook his head.

"Whatever, man. I'm just telling you now, if you're gonna be madly in love with her and not tell anyone, you're gonna be a fucking wreck."

I defensively shook my head, "I'm not madly in love with her! I haven't said one word to her!"

He laughed and walked ahead of me, into the classroom that we were approaching.

I sat down in my seat, the farthest back in the class, diagonal from Claire. She smelled like raspberries today. Oh, and she was wearing her short red skirt today. Awesome. Maybe I'd get a view of her ass—

"Mr. Way, I asked you, what is the length of side 'x'," Mr. Meyer sneered. I shrugged.

"I don't know, sir," I plainly said. He sighed and went on about math problems I didn't give a shit about.

Claire looked back at me. Shit, shit, shit. What do I do? Do I smile? Yeah, sure. I gave her my best smirk. She grinned a bit but turned away. Hell yeah! Claire just smiled at me. Gerard: 1. World: 0.

The rest of the first half of the day was the same routine. Science, a mixed class with the freshman for the real dumb asses like me, with Frank was pretty normal. He drank some of the solution and got a real awful stomach ache. He was sent to the nurse's office. He was usually an idiot like that.

Lunch continued on without Frank. Ray, Mikey, and I sat out in the courtyard. The jocks almost looked disappointed that they didn't have little Frank to throw bread at.

"HEY! FAG! Where's your boyfriend?" one buff one called out at me. Oh wait, they're all buff.

"He's not my fucking boyfriend," I sneered. He curled his fists as I got defensive and stood up tall. Mikey led me away from them and kept trying to whisper supportive things like, 'they aren't worth it' or 'they're mentally unstable'. Nothing really helped. I had heard all the same things before.

I had even thought of torture methods I would use for when Frank, Ray, Mikey and I 'ruled the world'.

I ate my ham and cheese sandwich in silence while Ray and Mikey talked about their instruments.

Ray played guitar, like Frank, and was killer at it. Mikey played bass. They all wanted to start a band or something one day. I didn't know how exactly they'd do so, considering our parents were the only people who wanted us to be musically inclined. No one would go to our shows. Seriously, all the local teenagers thought we were some gay emo kids.

Absolutely, I'm a homosexual guy who 'cuts their wrists because I have nothing to live for'.

It made me sick that all people cared about was popularity and image.

"FAG?" a girl yelled, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up to see Grace Peters staring me down with her dark eyes. Her red hair was braided perfectly in the back and she wore a blue plaid skirt with a white blouse. Another prep. A popular one, actually. She continued, "Do you have a dollar?"

He shook his head, wondering where he knew her from… of course, everyone knew her name. Grace Peters was nearly royalty to Belleville. Her family owned an amazing coffee shop just a mile away from school. I would really love the coffee if Grace wasn't such a bitch. But I knew her from somewhere more than that…

"Shit. Whatever. See you around," she muttered.

Ah, her locker was the one Frankie got stuffed into the week before. She opened it and almost peed her pants from screaming so loud. He was chill about it, saying sorry and all, but her parents thought he was trying to rape her or something.

After a long hour of conversation from Frank's mom and Grace's parents, it was settled that Frank had not tried to assault or rape her. That he was just shoved into the locker and freed when Grace opened it.

The bell rang so I started walking to Painting II. It was my favorite class by far. It was also the second class I shared with Claire. She preferred acrylic paint. I liked oil painting.

I walked fast, trying to avoid constant glares from preps and laughing-fests from jocks. I saw Claire on the way there.

Damn, should I say hi to her? I thought, trying to control my urge to run up to her and touch her ass or something. Oh God, her legs are so fucking long… how in the world is she still single… To my knowledge…

I ignored my pervy thoughts and kept looking straight forward. She was walking near the right wall. Her skirt was so short. When I say short, I mean short. Like, if she bent down, I would be looking up her ass.

I passed Frank, who was walking out of the nurse's office, clutching his stomach with a pale look on his face. I stopped him.

"Hey, you feel okay?" I asked. He was nearly translucent. He looked like he was going to puke.

"No… no, man. That stuff I drank… it might have had something really bad in it. I dunno. I should've listened to Mr. Wright. My mom's outside. She's gonna take me home," he explained. I nodded.

"Well, I'll call you later. Bring you some coffee or something."

He nodded and waved goodbye.

Frank lived up the street from my house so whenever we wanted to see each other, we'd just walk.

I then reached my class with Mrs. Alkson. She was the coolest teacher ever. She let us have our iPods out because they inspire us. She usually had a movie playing as we painted. Sometimes, she brought in canvases for us to take home.

I took my seat, in the back of course. It was the one right behind Claire.

The desks were odd, because it was an art class, they were pretty much an upright black desk but it was meant for sketching and painting and that kind of shit. It was pretty cool.

I stared at Claire's hair. It was an odd thing to do but, what the fuck, right?

It was so straight and soft… I just wanted to reach out and touch it. But that'd be really strange. So I resisted the urge.

"Good afternoon, kids," Mrs. Alkson said, gesturing her hands around. Everyone gave a grumbled 'afternoon' which seemed to satisfy her. "Today we're going to be painting your soul."

A geeky boy named Timothy raised his hand and asked, "But, ma'am, we don't know what our soul really looks like. It's just an indescribable noun."

She nodded, "That's the point, Tim!" she sat on her desk after pushing away school papers. "You paint what you interpret your soul to look like!"

A girl named Darcy raised her hand. "But that's impossible."

Mrs. Alkson looked befuddled. "No, Darcy, you just sketch out what you think a soul should look like. Then you'll paint it the colors you imagine it to be."

I liked this project. It would make me think creatively. Not about stupid Trig or science…

Darcy rolled her eyes and nodded. She was another prep, good friends with Grace. Whore. Slut. Innocent-looking. That sort of thing. Darcy has slept with everyone on the football team. She just began banging all the lacrosse boys.

Once we were given a canvas to sketch everything out on, I saw Claire take out her iPod. I leaned over a bit to see what she was listening to. Iron Maiden. Huh. This girl had good taste.

I started sketching out a ghostly-looking creature. It resembled the Grim Reaper in a way. I planned on painting the background a deep red and the ghost black and gray. I looked over my desk to see what Claire was sketching out.

She had made a rose and drew a gun wrapped around its stem.

Any other art teacher would've scolded this and thrown it away. But when Mrs. Alkson walked by, it was the opposite reaction. She loved it. She almost started crying with joy of how perfect it was.

When she saw mine, she told me I was progressing in art a lot. That made me feel okay, I guess.

Claire turned around, her sparkling blue eyes penetrating my dark hazel ones. She then spoke to me. I almost thought I was imagining this but, she actually talked to me. She said, "So, what'd you make, Gerard?"

I wanted to curl into fetal position and die. I was happy. Extremely happy. Like, pee my pants happy. She knew my name and just said five words to me. Holy shit. Holy mother fucker of god.

I gained reality and tried not to look below her neckline. "You wanna see?" she nodded and smiled, getting up and striding to my desk. She took one look at it and her face dropped.

"This is fucking amazing. You drew that? You didn't use any sort of stencil?" she inquired, in awe. I tried my hardest not to blush or throw up with excitement.

"Yeah, I draw sometimes."

She beamed, walking back over to her desk… those long legs… taking step… by step…

"That's amazing. You should bring your sketchbook sometime," she told me, turning back to her canvas and sketching out the last details.

Claire Green… she had just talked to me. I wanted to explode with excitement. Seriously. How… what… I mean… her motive? Who the fuck knows… but she talked to me. That's all that mattered.

I ran my hand through my pitch black hair that I had just dyed a few weeks before (maybe that's why the jocks thought I was gay…) but I only did so because I liked the idea of death and darkness.

Anyways, after class was over, Claire waved goodbye (and no, I didn't shit my pants), gathered her things and left.

The rest of the day was average.

I walked home, replaying all of that in my mind… over and over again… exactly what she had said. She said I should bring my sketchbook. I'll do that tomorrow. Easy. I just need to rip out all the pictures of her that I sketched… because that'd be fucking awkward.

I can see it in my head: I'd be showing her pictures of superheroes or something and all of a sudden: Claire Green's lovely face and long legs plastered onto one page.

I bursted through the door, giving my mom a quick kiss on the cheek and saying hi to Mikey. I walked into my room, searching for my sketchbook. It was hidden under Star Wars notes and my grandfather's old bat paperweight.

I ripped out the four pictures I'd drawn of her. Only four. That wasn't too creepy.

It was odd to see the first one I'd drawn, though. It was a close up of her face. I hadn't seen her too many times; I just knew that she was hot… so I kinda drew what I pictured Claire to look like.

The last one I drew though was fucking amazing. Not trying to be vain. But… I had gotten every detail right. Down to the freckle on her cheek… and the length of her eyelashes… wow. I stared at her way to much.

I started drawing an impressive picture of an escalator moving with different kinds of people on it and blood dripping from the sky. I only took two breaks: when my mom brought in pizza that she ordered, and when I had to pee.

Before I knew it, my clock read 2:00 A.M. and I was suddenly really tired. So, I grabbed my sketchbook, put it in my backpack, ignored the fact that I didn't do any homework, and went to sleep.

I only dreamt of Claire Green.

A/N: New story, eh? You like? It's in first person. A challenge. I like it.

I'll update if I get... hmmm... three reviews.

R&R! Thanks you guys. You're amazing. I adore your little comments and I like looking at your stories too.

Listening to: Headfirst for Halos.

Bye!