When Both Our Cars Collide (Frerard)

32: Words I thought I'd never speak

"Gerard?"

"Yeah?"

I tuned to Frank so I could see him better, even though it was hard to make out his features in the dim room. We were lying in bed together, not quite tired enough to fall asleep, but too lazy to attempt to do anything else.

"I think...I'm ready to tell you about...about what happened to me."

Everything seemed to freeze in that moment except for Frank: my heart stopped beating, I stopped breathing, but I could see the rapid rise and fall of Frank's chest, his hand shaking against mine where they lay interlaced on top of the comforter.

"Frank - you don't have to do that."

Because as much as I wanted him to open up to me, I hated seeing him this way, and if it made him happier, I would honestly be okay if he never told me, since I already kind of knew anyway.

He looked so scared; his face was twisted up as if he were in pain, his eyes refused to stay in one place for more than a second, darting all over the room as if desperately searching for something - anything, but even he didn't know what.

"I need to - if I'm ever going to get over this and be a proper boyfriend to you, then I am going to have to do this eventually," Frank sighed out harshly.

"You are already perfect in my eyes, you don't have to do anything, especially not to please me," I assured him, but his tense posture didn't change at all.

"I think it will help," he finally spoke after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.

"Okay then." I gathered his small frame as close to my body as possible, trying to provide him any form of comfort I could.

"Well...I mean I think you already know the main thing that happened, but I am going to backtrack a bit, to when I first moved to New York."

I pressed a kiss to the top of his head to let him know that I was there, and that I was listening, because I had seemed to forgotten how to form words.

"Well - we lived in kind of a bad neighborhood, because apartments are expensive in New York, and my mom had a good job...but still. That's how I fell into drugs in the first place, they were everywhere in my high school, and the thought of some pill being able to erase everything was too tempting to pass up."

He paused for a long time, so long that I thought he wasn't going to continue, and I was too scared to say anything in case I shattered the moment completely.

"I'm getting off track already...I'm sorry - this is just harder than I thought it would be," Frank muttered softly.

"Don't apologize baby," I whispered against his hair.

"Well anyway, my mom and I both went downhill at the same time, except she started drinking instead of doing drugs. It got so bad that she lost her job."

"She didn't...didn't do anything to you like your stepdad, did she?" I asked nervously, because this was the first time that Frank had mentioned his mother in his entire stay here, and I had to make sure she hadn't hurt him.

"No...she never hit me. It just hurt watching her fall and not being able to pick her back up. She just stopped caring, but how could I blame her when I did the same thing?" Frank sniffled softly, and I tightened my hold on him.

"Please don't cry Frank, you can stop, it's okay."

"She was still in love with my stepdad actually. I heard them talking on the phone late at night, and I wanted to be pissed at her - I wanted to hate her, but how could I? She had lost the person she loved, just like I had, and even though it was her fault I was separated from you, she had ripped out her own heart in the process, so I understood in a way," Frank continued speaking, ignoring me completely.