The short two hours of sleep had seemed like two seconds. A blink of an eye and I was being startled awake by an obnoxious alarm clock. The sun shot through my window shades, almost accusingly. Yes, I know it's the fucking morning, mother nature thanks for reminding me you smart ass.
I groaned and hoped that maybe everyone in the world didn't want to get out of bed, too and that we could all just sleep in collectively as a unit. But no. I Had to be in class in about half an hour and I hadn't even showered yet.
Why I even cared about being punctual to school was a mystery to me. My parents didn't care, and my teachers sure as fuck didn't. There was early morning chapel at 7:30 every day that basically 99% of the brainwashed students attended. I was the only person that skipped out on it, atleast to my knowledge i was the only one. Luckily, they decided it was a little cheap to take attendance at church so they stopped keeping records of who was being saved by the Lord and who was getting damned.
I fell into the second category. I was left for shit in the afterlife, and therefore left for shit in this one. I was the black sheep, weaving through clouds of white, the scent of cigarettes on my tongue and thoughts of rebellion spewing from my brain and into whatever would listen.
Maybe Gerard would listen.
Fuck, Gerard. Knowing his shyness, he probably won't end up confronting me about the little event last night, but he was still most likely creeped the fuck out.
I finally rolled out of bed and flopped onto the floor, laying there for a few seconds in my misery, letting it sink in and warm my bones. It took some major motivation to get myself to stand up and stumble towards the shower, squinting my eyes at the bright lights stitching lines in my brain.
The warm water fell on my shoulders and filled in the goose-bumps lining my spine. I was hunched over, my posture always being inadequate according to Sister Eliza. I felt like my head was going to roll off my shoulders. I scrubbed at my hair, getting all the oil out of it and splashing some water on my cracking face.
Maybe Gerard would listen. Maybe I wouldn't be completely alone in that prison of a school. He obviously likes the Misfits, considering he had been screaming them from his bedroom last night. He smoked. And he drew weird ass drawings and ate chicken in the forest. He seemed fucked up enough to be my friend.
Friend. I felt like such a juvenile saying that. Friends are what little kids have. I had no friends. I had grown out the concept of companionship like a second skin, shedding throughout the end of junior high until I came here, letting the flesh flake off and die, ready to live a lonely and comfortable life with my new colors. I was a mature and intelligent 17 year old and did not need friends.
I started scrubbing at the gunk under my painted fingernails, my brain finally beginning to wake up, my dick slowly waking up with it.
The thought of Gerard's mouths on the cigarette immediately returned to my mind, as a warmth grew in my stomach. His thin pink lips and his pointy nose, breathing in and out. His eyes closed in serenity and peace. Wait, no, stop it. I already skip out on chapel, I don't need being-attracted-to-other-dudes added on the list of reasons for my damnation.
But it was stubborn. The warmth moved to my crotch and made my cock grow fuller and tighter while I tried to will it back down. And now Gerard was in the shower too, edging closer and moving his hands against my skin, his lips meeting mine and his hands grabbing me below the waist and tugging, pleasure running through me in waves and gasps and the sound of skin on skin...
But I was alone in the shower, and the hands moving on my dick were mine, moving faster now, my other hand pressed against the steamed up glass of the door while I came onto the floor in short little breaths. The usual post orgasm bliss was quickly run over by the self hatred and guilt, while i watched my sins spiral down the drain in milky white swirls. I've never been one for ignorance, but I wanted nothing more than to pretend that this Gerard ideal was a coping mechanism to finally having a guy in my class who wasn't a complete ass. This was just a phase. I had never met someone like him and my brain was jumping to conclusions, confusing intimidation with sexual attraction and that was it. But it still buried itself in my chest and pressed against my ribs to make space for the chubby pale kid who was manifesting there, refusing to leave.
I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, massaging it into my hair and trying to avoid my image in the mirror.
My hands reached for the toothbrush and paste, which was quickly applied and scrubbed at my teeth, wishing i could scrub away all the bile and sick I felt rising in my throat. Lean over sink. Spit. Rinse. On the way back up I see my face staring back at me, the steam on the mirror unfortunatley beginning to fade away, showing my ashamed eyes and the dead skin under my eyes. I covered up the redness with some eyeliner and smudged it into place.
I stepped back into my room and slid on some faded pink boxer briefs and black jeans over them. The white dress shirt comes next, the black tie and the black converse. I managed to stay in uniform while still having a little bit of freedom. Maybe I could start wearing black dress shirts. Maybe they wouldn't notice. Or just call me a faggot again. Ha.
I grabbed my book bag and slid out the door into the eerily quiet hallway. I couldn't help but stop at the sound of my Mom's snoring and peeked my head in through the master bedroom door.
She was sleeping alone, like every morning. Clutching her pillow like an old friend, the other side of the bed cold and alone. Where her husband should be. I closed the door and bit my lip, feeling the guilt seep in again and press up against the walls of my skull.
No time or food for breakfast. I had to walk to school on an empty stomach, which wasn't anything new at this point. I opened the front door to the front yard and stepped out into the chirping birds and warm sun and nice day and wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed. This desire grew even worse when I saw the "parked" car in the driveway, sloppily laid out over half the grass lawn and dark gravel, my Dad sleeping at the front wheel, the smell of booze leaking through the windows that were opened an inch for oxygen to seep in. And like everything else, I turned my back and left.
School was as miserable as I had guessed. Gerard didn't say anything to me about last night. He was back in the corner of our classroom, scribbling in his notebook what I assumed was another picture of the vampire lady. Maybe he was afraid someone would make fun of him if they found his drawings, so he kept them hidden in the woods.
I breezed through class to class, receiving shoves and weird looks that were probably directed towards the charcoal around my eyes. Sister Eliza even did a double take, opening her mouth like she was going to say something, but I spun around and ran into a random classroom before she could scold me.
Three periods in, I decided to take my well-deserved smoking break from the roof. It was sunnier than before, so I didn't have to bring my jacket.
I stared out into the gray cement buildings that were considered a city and wished the worst for every single person residing within. I needed out of here. This place was dead and decaying and dragging us with it.
But something new and sweet ran past my nose and filled my head with smoke. Unfamiliar smoke that did not come from my lungs. I woke up from my pity session and turned around, half hoping Gerard to be there puffing up clouds. But of course he wasn't.
The smoke was still there, the smell of something different. Something richer and dirtier. It suddenly clicked in my brain. Weed.
My eyes widened at the comforting thought of letting my mind wander for a while and leave this place. I had tried to dim down the pot usage since school had started back up. When I got high, I really got high. It wasn't just a hobby, it was a commitment. I would smoke straight for 10 hours in my room, listening to music and eating chips and drawing. This was my usual summer routine.
And once again, because of my strange unexplained urge to pass through high school successfully, I had stopped smoking as much to keep my grades from tanking.
But the smell was tempting and making me feel at home. It was coming from somewhere below me. Definitely not the roof.
I walked to the edge of the cement and looked over the edge, following the smell. Well, fuck.
Gerard was in the student parking lot, cornered by two dumpsters and a fence. He was invisible to anyone passing by him. Only I could see him.
The new kid was toking it up on the school premises. Holy shit.
His collar was loose and his tie was on the ground. He was sitting on the ground, his back again the fence and his arms draped over his knees, that were up and bent, his feet tapping restlessly on the floor. The familiar at-peace aura was in his head. I could tell. And it made me ache.
He moved his hips up and brought his torso up off the fence, to pull a bottle of almost empty Jack Daniels from behind hiim. HE sat back down and took a sip, closing his eyes. He looked just like I had imagined him last night. Eyes shut and tranquil, his jaw soft and his hair in all different directions. I watched Gerard sleep against a fence, taking more sips and puffs. He must have decided that the roof was my place for smoking. He had found his own place. A better place than mine, too.
But then Gerard's eyes opened with a snap, and his skin grew paler and even from up here I could tell he was colder too. He dropped the Jack and leaned over on his hands and knees, vomiting on the pavement, his body lurching with each ragged breath. My heart jumped in panic as Gerard flopped over on the ground, his arms laid out on either side of him like a dead body.
I watched him lay there, screaming at him with my thoughts for him to wake up and clean himself off and go back to class. Shit. Stop scaring me like this. WAke up . Gerard, WAKE UP.
But he didn't. He just stayed there, lifeless and I realized that he was on his back, and vulnerable to choking on his own vomit, incase his lunch decided to come back up again.
I bolted off the side of the roof and ran to the door, almost falling down the staircase and bursting open the door into the luckily empty hallway. I found the nearest exit and pressed outside, dumping my cigarette on the ground and walking towards where I thought Gerard was hiding. He had done a good job with his hiding place. The dumpsters were angled so that you could only see him if you were walking along the side of the parking lot where there were no parking spaces. No one walked there, there was no reason to. I turned to that corner and slipped between the green dirty metal and fence, the smell of stomach acid making my guts churn and flip over.
The breaths came from my mouth now, trying to avoid the smell and the disgusting mess on the floor. Gerard was miraculously not lying in it, though. He had fallen over on the other side of it, safe and clean. But his eyes were still closed and he was still unconscious.
I carefully stepped over to him and poked his face a few times, hoping he'd wake up and make this easier for the both of us. But he didn't. I leaned my ears to his mouth and saw that he was breathing. Thank God. The last thing I wanted to do was perform CPR on a dude who had just barfed Jack Daniels everywhere.
So I crawled to the other side of Gerard and put my arms under his armpits, hoisting him up and propping him against the dumpster so he was sitting upright. He was bigger than I had thought. Jesus. I plopped him down and let out a huge breath ,wiping my forehead. There was no way I could drag him home. I didn't have a car and he was too heavy for me to carry. So I sat down with my legs crossed right in front of Gerard, propping his head to the side so that way if he got sick again, my jeans wouldn't receive any fall-out.
I just stared at him for a few minutes. The beads of sweat forming on his face and the way his hair was damp and sticking to his face. He was beautiful. And disgusting at the same time. Poor guy. Drinking yourself to sleep was something people with troubles did. Did Gerard have troubles? What kind of troubles?
That's when I saw it. A big purple splotch right under Gerard's left eye. It had been covered my his bangs earlier, but the wind was getting stronger now, blowing his hair out of the way to display the darkness under his eyelashes.
Anger rose up in my stomach and my fingers clenched, desiring to wrap around someone's neck, preferably the one that belonged to the monster who did this to Gerard. So Gerard did have troubles. Pretty big ones, aparentally. The thought of Gerard getting hurt, getting beat into a pulp and persecuted made me sick and sweaty and almost as gross as Gerard. My first instinct was to punch something.
And in the middle of deciding how bad it would hurt to punch a dumpster, my finger's instinctual motive changed gears and reached for Gerard's face, wiping the bangs away and smoothing over the black skin. It was rough and my throat tightened as I saw the way Gerard flinched when I touched him. Shit, was I hurting him?
But Gerard tossed his head around and muttered nonsense, his eyelids fluttering open, displaying bloodshot eyes and something dark in his irises looking straight at me. Something that was crying in pain and wanted to crawl out through the white and scream at me. It scared me so I turned away and stared at my hands. They were shaking. The texture of Gerard's bruised skin still echoing on my fingers.
"fFfffRank?" he groaned. I picked my eyes back up to see him staring at me, confused and scared. "What are you-"
He leaned over to the side of threw up again, making painful retching noises that made me sad and panicky. I stood up and made sure to get out of the way.
When Gerard was done, he was panting in deep breaths, still leaning over. I was afraid to touch him. He looked so vulnerable and scared. Like some kind of lost puppy. If i said or did the wrong thing, he could run away and get hurt again. But I gave into temptation and rested one hand on his back, trying to let him know that I was still there.
He didn't react to the touch. Just kept panting and spitting onto the ground, wiping his mouth and beginning to crawl back up. I threw my hand out in front of his face, for him to grab.
He tilted his eyes at me, his hair sticking to his forehead. He looked unsure. But I grabbed his hand and pulled him up off the floor with a grunt, throwing his arm around my shoulder and walking through the small pass between the fence and dumpster. Gerard dragged behind me, barely able to walk and hold himself up right. He murmured something that sounded like 'thanks'.
I looked around to make sure no one was going to catch us, and when the coast was clear, I walked out through the parking lot and off the school grounds.
"Whherearewegoing?" Gerard's voice was still slurred and inaudible. He was getting better at walking now, but he still leaned against me, putting strain on my back that I tried to block out.
"To my place," I answered, trying to use the relaxing adult voice that police officers and firemen always had when they talked to kids.
"B-bubtt I have class..." he protested. I didn't even answer, just kept walking. It wasn't like Gerard could run off. I turned the corner onto the street my house was on and tried to pick up our pace.
"You're sick and you can't be at school like this." I settled. I checked my watch. 2:14. Our next period would be starting in 16 minutes.
Gerard nestled his head into my shoulder and hummed as an answer.
"I'm taking you home. You'll get better."