Another Way | Adopted by Gerard Way (Book Three)

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The box of Evelyn's old things taunted Harley from across the room; the diary with the secrets she felt indecent for having read, the poetry that was too dark to have been published, the ukulele Evelyn played for a couple years then never picked up again. Harley held the black heart pendant in her palm, the metal clasp tight against the back of her neck as she laid on her bed in the dark. The curtains were drawn despite the blaring sun.

Across the line, the phone rang three times.

"Hey, Harley!" Emerald said. She attempted to sound cheerful, but Harley immediately picked up on the exhaustion lacing her voice.

"Hey," Harley said, breaking from her staring contest with the box and lying back on her bed to look up at the ceiling

"What's up?"

"I don't know, nothing. I just had breakfast, and then me and Gerard are gonna hang out later. I don't know what we're gonna do, though."

"I'm sure whatever you two get up to will be rad," Emerald said. "Want me to get Mom and put you on speaker?"

"Yeah, sure," Harley replied as nonchalantly as she could manage while her stomach seemed to flip upside down. She was about to tell her parents about the developments in her and Mason's relationship, but now that the moment to do so had arrived she felt like hanging up.

After some rustling and muffled voices, Evelyn's voice, sounding just as exhausted as Emerald's, rang out across the line, "Hey, Harley! How's it going?"

"It's going..." Harley said, her apprehension unwittingly taking over.

"Just 'going'?" Evelyn asked cautiously.

"Well, no, it's going really well, actually," Harley rushed out, which wasn't the complete truth, of course, "but I was just calling to tell you both a particular thing about something, but now that I'm actually supposed to say the thing my brain is like, 'no,' you know?"

"Did he ask you out, like, officially?" Emerald asked without hesitation.

"How the fuck—?"

"I don't know, I just got the feeling. How did he do it?"

"At the top of the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier," Harley said, closing her eyes and attempting to place herself back in the moment just before the kiss; a time when she still thought she wanted it.

"Is he a good kisser?" Evelyn jumped in.

"Mom? Please don't ask me that."

"That sounds bad," Evelyn said.

"Definitely bad," Emerald agreed.

"Doesn't matter," Harley said quickly, rolling her eyes at the ceiling. "How's the tour going? Where are you guys at?"

Evelyn and Emerald fell silent, their shared exhaustion seeming to wash over Harley like she was listening to the ocean through a conch. She felt dread begin to climb her ribs like a ladder, swallowing hard when it reached her throat.

"Um?" she asked, unsure of how to proceed because Emerald was usually the one who filled silences.

"Um," Evelyn echoed, "Harley, we—"

"We're taking a little break from tour right now," Emerald finished. It was because of her, of course, so she thought it only fair that she be the one to break the news. "Only for a few days. We're not cutting it short or anything. It's just been really exerting and we- I kind of needed a break, you know?"

"We both needed a break," Evelyn added.

"Are you guys okay?" Harley asked, Emerald's explanation having done nothing to relieve her sudden worry.