Home Sweet Home | Gerard Way

4

GERARD IS WAITING FOR me when I get back to the apartment, and one look at my face sends his fist smash-crashing into me, a CRACK! into my chest, right near my heart.

"I can see all the way inside you," Gerard spits, red-faced, voice deadly low. "I see that you don't understand anything. Mariah, I expected better from you."

Curled up on the floor, white spots in my vision as I wiggle for air, wheezing as my body stops working for a moment. Stunned. I do not understand why it starts working again. I do not understand why my shell keeps living. Breathing. Why won't it listen to me, to the little part I have that isn't Gerard? To that tiny-once-upon-a-time girl who just wants to close her eyes and never wake up again?

308 Cemetery Drive. John and Rachael.

That's why. Once upon a time, I belonged to them and they should not suffer for that.

Gerard sits down next to me on the floor. "I'm tired of this," he says. "I love you, I trust you, I tell you what I want, and what do you do? Hurt me." He bends over and pushes my hair off my forehead. Crooked bangs he trimmed for me because Mariah has bangs.

Mariah has bangs and loves him.

Fleur has bangs too.

Spit flecks from Gerard's mouth, his face remaining red.

I dream of a knife in my chest, but he will never plunge it in. I will beg and plead to keep it away when Gerard pushes it into me. That's what he expects even though it is not what I want.

I strangle my plan out in chopped words.

Frank and Fleur. Have-to-be rich. Happy, healthy. Little girl, teen brother. I will lure the young girl to Frank's car to get them ready to head home. You will be there, Gerard. You will come up behind Frank and push him into the trunk as I will for Fleur. We will take them back to our sweet home. Bring them up the stairs, threats in their ears. Oh, you want to scream? Then scream. No one cares. When we have them tied down-we will have the upper hand because of you, Gerard-we will start the lessons, the continuous teaching. They will know what their life is. Co-depending on daddy's money and mommy's charm is no way to get by, dummies. They will need to know that what they are now is the right type of person and that they can be so much more if they followed the rules-our rules.

All Gerard does is nod, his eyes have calmed down a bit, but the hunger is still evident. He thinks we both want the same things for these two siblings. He's wrong.

"What does his car look like?"

"Red with black leather interior. Sports car." I say, and when Gerard pauses, hands hovering over my stomach. A hand-shaped bruise begins to bloom on my chest.

Gerard fantasizes about his time with the two, redirecting them and educating them on what the world is really like. The world behind Gerard's eyes. But that is not the real world, and he has no right to show them what isn't real.

Lots of time passes, the pads of my feet throbbing on the hardwood floor, heart throb in my right ear.

"We'll teach them what's right," he seethes, eyes going dark, bitter pressure on my sides.

I nod. I nod because he wants me to. I nod because I will.

If I cannot save myself, then I do not want to save them.

***

THIS IS THE SONG:
I lied, and he didn't know about it.
I lied, and he didn't know about it.
I lied, and he didn't know about it.
Gerard doesn't know everything.