Hi all, I'm sorry this has taken a while. I've never experienced writers block this bad - like every time I even thought about writing, I cringed in horror for weeks. My review count has dropped so much recently, I guess it didn't really feel like anyone wanted to read my writing anymore. I mean, I'm a teenager - I'm not an author, and know my writing isn't very good. But I'm trying to improve, and that's all I can do.

Either way, while on holiday in France I forced myself to start, and wrote a few more chapters.

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I could go home in five days.

The knowledge sat in my mind, spreading and settling, leaving me with a deep sense of contentment. The contentment was as always, tempered with amazement. Sometimes when I looked at how much things had changed in the last few months, I could hardly believe it myself. This time, I vowed to myself. This time I will live with them and I will not fuck up. I won't betray the trust they have placed in me.

When I heard that the Way family were accepting me back into their home after my period in the institute, I wanted to cry. Nobody had ever stuck by me for that long before. When I'd fucked up before I had been punished. But this family hadn't punished me. Instead they had stuck by me, tried to help me, and promised me I could return when I was better.

And now there were only five days left.

Five days. One hundred and twenty two hours. Seven thousand three hundred and twenty minutes. Four hundred and thirty nine thousand two hundred seconds.

Only five days of shitty meals, waking up at 3AM to the sound of screaming, not being able to sleep on the crappy mattress, having to put up with being poked and prodded all the time by the doctors. It was almost over.

In the wake of Gerard's visit, I wandered around happily grinning like an idiot. The other patients were used to it, and gave me a wide berth as I entered the central common room; nobody liked cheerful people here. They were all clustered around the television, arguing over what to watch next. As far as I could tell they were debating between another reality TV program, or a ball game. I ignored them all and walked over to my usual place on the sofa, pulling out another book. Neither ball games nor reality TV held any interest for me.

I pulled out my latest dog-eared novel, opening it to the marked page. All novels which passed through the institution had to go through a censorship program to ensure they didn't contain anything which might be triggering. This essentially left us with a lot of romances, a lot of poetry and a few fantasy novels, all of which I had been devouring steadily. There was little else to do around here if you didn't like television or card games. And so I passed my fifth-to-last day in the institution.

I felt surprisingly calm as I steadily turned the pages. My reading was slow, yes, but adequate. I managed to black out the noise of the television and the other patients, settling into the rhythm of letter after letter.

The remaining few days passed quickly. I didn't see Gerard again, but that was expected. It was the middle of the week, and he had a lot of work to do in preparing for final exams. I had a lot of work to do also. My tutors upped the ante of our work schedule, arriving early and leaving in the late afternoon, after drilling me ceaselessly on all the information I would need to know.

Music was effortless for me. Dr Simmons had taught me more on this subject than any other, and I swept all the practice examination papers I was given without blinking an eye. Metre and harmony, melody and tonality were all things which made sense to me. I could easily grasp the concept of chromaticism, and could decipher complicated rhythmic harmonies without breaking a sweat. Music, I was not concerned about.

The other subjects weren't awful exactly, although I was considerably better at some and worse at others. My only real failing was my writing skills. While I practiced, practiced and practised reading and writing, I had still only known all my letters for a few months. I wrote slowly and laboriously, and read only slightly faster. My tutors were concerned over this, and after a great deal of consultation they offered to have read-writer for me during the exams; somebody who I could dictate my answers to, who would then write them for me. I accepted the offer gratefully.

But in the whole, I wasn't overly concerned about my exams. One of the benefits of not spending much time in the regular schooling system meant I had also escaped what appeared to be traditional exam panic. If I failed these exams, I would just do something else with my life. The advantage of surviving a suicide attempt, is that once all your major problems have been solved, the smaller ones seem insignificant by comparison.

/

On the last night, I ate in the main canteen as usual. Things were quiet; we didn't receive many new patients towards the end of the week, and so it was relatively peaceful. I was more surprised than displeased when Jimmy appeared beside me. Jimmy hadn't sought me out since the first and only time he had spoken to me. I hadn't sought him out either - I admit, the idea of a friend who suffered from homicidal ideation frightened me more than a little.

"Hey Frank" Jimmy said casually, setting down his food and then plonking himself onto the bench beside me with a sense of finality that informed me he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

"Hey Jimmy" I managed in return.

"So, I hear you're leaving tomorrow," he said bluntly, without preamble.

I raised an eyebrow at him. I hadn't made my departure common knowledge. Jimmy shrugged at me. "News travels'" he said without further explanation, and began to eat. Jimmy always ate quickly, tearing at his food like a wolf. It made me feel slightly ill to watch him; he reminded me of a wild animal, wary and unpredictable.

"Anyway" he managed to spit out, around a mouthful of food. "She told me to tell you that pretty boy likes you too, only you see she's too scared to tell your herself. "

I was bewildered. "Who told you to tell me what?"

"She" Jimmy said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. I followed the line of his hand, towards a woman sitting at a table across the room. Not really a woman, more of a girl, she was petite and young, obviously frail even though she was dressed in the same sweatpants and baggy jumper as the rest of us. I recalled her vaguely from group, mostly because she never spoke. Paranoid schizophrenia.

"She told me to tell you that the pretty boy loves you too" Jimmy concluded, obviously pleased with himself for remembering the message, before returning to attacking his food.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, completely at a loss.

Jimmy sighed, as though the questions I was asking were taxing him beyind endurance.

"She knows things" He said. "She's the one they dragged out in the middle of the night the other week, because she kept screaming her roommate was dying."

"And?"

"Her roommate died two days later. Allergic reaction to some new drugs, with no warning. There was no way she could have known."

I shivered. The words sent a chill up my spine, and I looked more closely at the girl. Dark red hair, ice white skin. Nothing to mark her as different or unusual. As I stared, she looked up from her food and fixed her dark knowing eyes on me, as though she had sensed me from across the room. I ducked my head. Her gaze was not that of a child.

Jimmy was ignoring me, still eating. Returning to the subject at hand, I questioned him again. "And she said what about me, exactly?"

"That pretty boy likes you. The one that visits you and brings you pictures. He's the one."

"What do you mean?"

Jimmy's face went blank for a moment, before replying with an unusual solemnity. "She doesn't just see when people are going to die. She sees when they find their soulmate"

I burst out laughing. It was too much: Jimmys serious tone, the chilled atmosphere, the ridiculous words. Sure, I was crazy about Gerard. But soulmates? Sure.

Jimmy wasn't laughing, as he finished his food and stood up noisily. "Think what you want" he told me. "She knows."

I looked back to where the girl had been sitting. But she was gone.

\

On the morning I left, I was awake at 5am. I had packed the night before, everything was ready and my clothes were laid out by the side of the bed. Nice clothes that Donna had brought me last time she visited. Not the jumper and sweatpants we all wandered around the institution wearing. These were a pair of smooth black jeans and a simple white t-shirt. Nonedescript. Normal. Like me, now. I wondered idly if Gerard would like the way they looked on me.

After Jimmys words, I had decided it was time to tell Gerard how I felt. I was in love with him. Completely, utterly and irrevocably in love with my beautiful boy. I couldn't share a room with him for the next few months and not tell him, I wouldn't be able to bear it. And I truly believed for the first time ever, that he felt the same. Whenever I began to have my doubts, I reminded myself of the way he embraced me, held my hand, took any excuse to be close to me. He had to feel the same - he just had to.

I sounded very blasé thinking about it like that. In reality I was completely terrified, and I felt like I was going to vomit everytime I considered what I was going to do. In fact I doubted I would even manage to go ahead with it. But Lindsey had taught me that to succeed in life one had to take action. Simply letting yourself be pulled with the waves of the world was not the way to get what you wanted in life. And I knew what I wanted. Him.

I was so nervous as I waited for the institution to wake up, that I began feeling a nausea I hadn't felt for many weeks. No matter how much I tossed and turned I couldn't return to sleep, for fear of what the day was going to bring. The outside world seemed suddenly as menacing and petrifying as it had when they first dragged me out of the flat. Lindsey had warned me at our final session the previous afternoon, that I could expect it to be difficult.

"You're not an addict Frank" she told me, her big brown eyes boring into me. "But a lot of your symptoms are the same." I could have told her straight away that she was wrong - I had been 100% addicted to self harm and purging - but I didn't. She knew what she was talking about.

"When you get back out into the real world it will be hard" Lindsey had continued. "Things will go wrong. Problems will arise, and you won't be here where people will handle it for you. You will have fights, and things will mess up, and it will make you hurt so much that you want to start cutting again to take away the pain." I nodded, even though I knew she was wrong yet again. I was over that, I was a completely different person now. I would never do that again.

"When you want hurt yourself there will be no-one to stop you. You have to do it by yourself"

"I know" I told her, eager to show her I knew this all now. "I can handle it, I'm better now. Nothing will ever make me do that again." Lindsey smiled carefully, and I babbled on, trying to make her understand how much better I really was. "When I arrived, I didn't think there was anything wrong with my eating. I thought all the problems happened when people tried to make me eat - I didn't realise that was the reason everything wasn't getting better."

Lindsey was nodding, but she seemed unconvinced. "You'll still come back here every week for an appointment with me so we can discuss any problems you might have" she told me calmly. Then to my surprise, she leaned across the table and hugged me briefly. "Be careful Frank. It's a big world out there."

Like I didn't know that already.

/

By 7am I was pacing up and down my little room. As soon as the bell rang to wake everyone else up, I dashed out of the room before the last peal had finished sounding, desperate to reach the showers first. I tried to calm down as the hot water rushed over my shoulders, soothing away the knots stress had placed there and I shuddered in the warmth, washing the chill from my bones.

I stayed in the shower far longer than I should, trying pointlessly to soap away the smell of the institution. Gerard and his family were picking me up at 9am, and I was growing more and more apprehensive. Would they actually show up? Logically I knew they would, there was no way they would spend so much money on my recuperation and then throw it away. But logic wasn't coming easily.

My mood worsened as I dressed, the unfamiliar fabrics scratching my skin. By the time I ate my last breakfast in the canteen, I had convinced myself nobody was going to show up. I ate alone - even Jimmy was staying away from my sour face. Then it was time for my final weigh-in, and I had to sign a bunch of paperwork the doctors placed in front of me. Finally, finally they led me towards the entrance.

My feet squeaked down the linoleum of the entrance hall, reminding me of my first day there. Back then, I had been appalled by everything I saw. They practically had to drag me sobbing and screaming into the institution, as I kicked out at every unfamiliar hand touching me. Now I was leaving the place of my own accord, with my head held high. As I picked up my bags for the last time, I turned the corner.

And there they were.

"Frank!" Gerard cried, while I was still at the end of the hall. I stopped dead, the biggest smile spreading itself across my face as I took in the five people standing there. Donna, Donald, Mikey and Alicia.

Gerard. My beautiful, incredible, one and only love. He had come.

Gerard ran down the hallway without a second glance for his parents, and pulled me into his arms. I gasped and laughed hysterically as he lifted me up and swung me around. I felt like a little girl as I giggled and clung to him when he finally let me down. All the nervousness turned to euphoria, and the smile stretched even further across my face. Gerard eventually released me, and we turned back towards his family. Both of us realised at the same time that we were still holding hands, and a blush made its way across Gerard's face, mirrored on mine.

Gerard didn't seem inclined to let go of my hand, and so with great relief I clung to it as we walked down to his family until their arms meant I was forced to let go. Donna pulled me into a tight embrace instantly, whispering words of pride and encouragement in my ear. Donald shook my hand and even Mikey managed a smile. I looked around the small group, and felt a great warmth grow inside me until I felt my heart was going to burst out of my chest. These people had saved me, accepted me, helped me get better. These people were my family now.

Saying goodbye to the Institution staff was hard. They had seen me at my worst, and it was time to leave them. In the end, we didn't drag it out. I had already said goodbye to Lindsey the previous day, and I knew she wasn't working today. It was only the doctors, nurses andother less specific staff I had to leave. They lined up by the door like they did everytime a patient left, the nurses offering embraces and words of congratulation.

"Well done Frank."

"You did it Frank"

"Don't come back, eh?"

The last goodbye was from the sour faced nurse whose job it had been to follow me around for three months, glaring at me over my meals and invading my privacy to make sure I didn't throw up in the toilet or shower. Her tired crinkled face broke briefly from its grumpy stupor, as she winked at me, and shook my hand with a firm grasp. One by one, they wished me luck, congratulated me and shook my hand as the Way family looked on. Then they sent me on my way, back out to face the real world.

/

When we pulled up outside the Way house, I couldn't stop looking at everything. Even the pale colours seemed brighter. It was early February, and the state of New Jersey was still deep in the grasp of winter. The snow piled up around the suburban house, and cascaded in dirty piles across the sidewalk. Footprints were visible everywhere, the imprint of the people who had passed by during the morning. The rays of the sun lit up against the snow, blinding me momentarily. You couldn't see much from inside the institution - winter may as well have not existed for me. Out here in the open, it was dazzling.

Gerard insisted on carrying my bags to the house, and I let him, watching his tall figure carrying the heavy bags up the drive, his footsteps crunching on the ice. I was inexplicably reminded of the first time I had arrived here, and how he had caught me in his strong arms when I fell. I briefly considered pretending to fall again, just to feel his arms wrapping around me, holding me tightly against his chest again.

Donna had chatted to me the whole way in the car, and didn't seem inclined to stop as we walked up the driveway. This mother figure was becoming ever more prominent in my life, and I welcomed her easy warmth that I had been unable to appreciate before. "-and the staff tell me your diet has changed now Frank?" She asked. I winced. It was time to break the news about my vegetarianism.

Once inside, Donna melted quickly away from my side. I figured she was trying to give me space to settle in. I headed downstairs to Gerard's room, assuming I was still going to be staying there.

For some reason, I expected everything to be exactly the same as before. But to my surprise, it was completely different. The walls were still a deep red and covered in punk band posters, sure, and the same bunk beds rested against one wall. But now a rickety wooden easel stood propped in the corner, a half-painted canvas balanced precariously atop. Gerard's desk had been moved to sit next to the easel, and a mass of half-empty paint tubes were scattered across, leaking their oily contents onto the desk in a rainbow of hues. The stench of turpentine and oil filled the air, coming from a series of glass tumblers, who's murky contents were clearly owed to the sticky paintbrushes inside them.

It was just as messy as before. There were still clothes everywhere. But now it looked like an artists studio. I spied a pile of canvas in one corner next to a few spare frames, obviously ready to be pinned into place. Even the burns in the carpet were obscured now with smears of viridian and alizarin.

I felt, rather than heard Gerard come up behind me. His hand slipped easily onto my shoulder, and I shivered at his touch. My feelings for him were becoming had to obscure, and as he embraced me lightly in the manner we had become accustomed to, I felt the way his arms lingered on my waist and was convinced he felt the same. "Welcome back" Gerard said, a smile in his voice, eventually letting me go.

"Thank you" I said. "Everything's very...different?"

Walking into the bedroom, he dropped my bags onto the bed and chuckled at my dumbfounded expression as I took in the room. "Yeah...after I got into art college, a few things had to change" he grinned. "I've had to get a lot more serious about art. I even take lessons now." I nodded, like I understood although I didn't really. But the joy on his face as he mentioned his greatest love, was enough to make me love it for him.

I blushed profusely when I noticed a few careful drawings of people who were clearly stark naked, scattered across his desk. The top image was in dark charcoal, and depicted a muscular young man, twisting towards the artist with his arms raised, hands extended to cup the back of his head. Everything was there - his defined muscles, his shadowed jawline, his dangling penis. I gazed at it for a few moment more, taking in Gerards obvious skill and talent with the conte sticks, even a twinge of jealousy as I imagined him drawing this man. Against my will, I felt myself becoming aroused at the idea of Gerard looking at this naked man.

Sexual desire was not something I had ever really felt when my life was in constant pain and danger. But my libido had come back as my physical and mental health improved. It was an embarrassing conversation with Lindsey where she pointed out I certainly had some pipes to clean out.

I never let her raise the subject again, and conducted my own experiments in the privacy of the showers - grateful that by the third month I was allowed to shower alone.

Oblivious to my discomfort, Gerard laughed heartily as he saw where my gaze had landed. "I'm taking life classes now" he smirked. When I continued to look nonplussed, he added; "a nude model comes, and a group of us draw from him or her."

Now it was my turn to smirk. "You mean you have to look at naked women?"

Gerard grimaced. "The human body is a work of art Frank. Female bodies included."

"Ew."

"Shut up"

"You're as gay as me. You think it's gross too"

"I'm an artist. We appreciate beauty in all it's forms"

"Not when it's a naked chick"

"Woman"

"Chick"

"Model"

"Still gross"

Gerard held my gaze for another moment before bursting out laughing. "Okay maybe I prefer the males models" He conceded reluctantly.

"Don't worry. I won't tell your art school" I sniggered. Gerard mock glared at me before tossing my bag. "Go unpack if you can't appreciate art" he ordered.

His attempt at keeping a straight face was really awful.

/

Dinner was fantastic. Donna had easily taken on the news that I was vegetarian now, to my relief. She had told me that she was happy to cater for it, so long as I was willing to learn to cook vegetarian food. I more than happily acquiesced, resembling that Lindsey had told me the more contact I had with food, the easier I would begin to find it.

Between us, we had cooked up some fancy vegetarian pasta dish from scratch - rolling out the fresh pasta and cutting it carefully into strips before lowering it into the boiling water. I watched in fascination as she made the sauce from freshly chopped tomatoes, garlic and herbs. She even let me help a little with the cutting part, although the ever-present Gerard rolled his eyes and I noticed they were all a little wary about letting me handle knives.

This made me a little sad, but it was understandable. My scars had faded, but they would never heal. A constant reminder of the time in my life when I believed knives were made for cutting skin and flesh, not vegetables.

Alicia joined us for dinner, and the conversation flowed easily as Donna proudly announced I had helped make it. Even when we discussed Dr Simmons, I didn't find it difficult. In fact when Alicia informed me he wanted to speak to me again, I was nothing but happy. The man had walked into my life at its darkest point, and brought light. How could I not want to see him again?

We didn't talk about my father being alive. The memory of my reaction was still fresh in everybody's mind, and I didn't blame them for avoiding the subject. I knew we had plenty of time in the future to talk about where he was, how he was alive, and whether or not I would ever meet him. We had time.

I found myself pleased by my own ability to interact with people.

/

After the meal, Gerard and I headed downstairs. This was the only part of the evening I had been dreading, and a slight headache had started behind my eyes, pounding a painful distraction.

I had steeled myself for what I was going to do. I was in love with Gerard. I could admit it so openly now. I loved him, adored him, worshipped everything about his beautiful mind and body. These feelings had been building for so many months, and it was finally time to get it out into the open. Then we could begin our relationship together. Just the thought made me shiver. What would he taste like? What would his kiss be like? What words could we whisper under darkness now we shared a room again?

The only thing was, I didn't know exactly how I planned to tell him. I decided in the end, to go with instinct.

As we entered his room, Gerard immediately sprawled out on his bed with an an appreciative groan. "Good meal Frank" he complimented, and I blushed again. I was like a fucking fire engine with all the sades of red I was turning today. Nervously I looked around, trying to keep myself distracted. I tidied a few of my fantasy novels that had fallen across his desk, then lined up several pens. Finally I couldn't occupy my hands anymore, and I turned to face him.

"Gerard." I was impressed that my voice barely shook. Adrenaline was building as my heart rate increased, and I felt slightly sick with nerves.

"Hmmm?"

"Can I talk to you?"

"You already are." Gerard pointed out, pulling himself into a sitting position. Seeing that I wasn't finding his joke amusing enough, he shrugged and nodded, gesturing at the space next to him on the bed. The bed.

"What's up?" He asked me.

Shakily, I crossed the room and sat next to him. As had become our habit, our hands immediately sought each other out. More than anything, his warm dry grasp around my fingers calmed me. "What did you want to talk about?" He asked again, when it became apparent I couldn't speak.

"This" I muttered softly, gesturing at our joined hands.

"What?" Gerard said, looking confused.

I took in his face for one long moment. His cat-like features, feline and graceful. His dark eyes, high cheekbones and delicate pouty pink lips. His long strands of dyed black hair, framing his elegant jawline. He was exquisite. I didn't care what fancy theories he came up with about art. His face was a work of art.

Gerard still looked bewildered, as I studied him. I knew what I needed to do.

I took a deep breath. And then I kissed him.

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There will be three more chapters, then the epilogue and then an outtake. Next chapter up next Friday. Please let me know how you're feeling about the story - reviews get me out of bed in the morning.

"It took eight years just to realise/No-one looks when you say goodbye"

~Hana Belladonna