I Drew You Once in Art Class

Ninety

The Date:

December 19th.

5 days before the dance.

Gerard slept on his side, his mouth slightly agape and his headphones on, playing a gentle white noise. It was about 11 in the morning, and dusty sunbeams drifted through his fastened windows. The air felt thick and stale, and Gerard couldn't bring himself to go outside to wake himself up. Just getting up to walk downstairs to the kitchen was enough.

This was his first thought as he slowly opened his eyes and felt the weight settle back down on his chest.

The yellow beams filled with tiny motes of dust were his first sight, and even in his weathered condition, he couldn't help but think they were beautiful.

Gerard sat himself up. He lifted his hand to his face, watching it shake and twitch, just the slightest bit. It was funny how much his mental state affected his physical. This always happened whenever something went majorly wrong.

He'd get food and water when he wasn't so tired.

He lay back down on his side and fell back to sleep.

~~

Gerard finally decided he would eat something. It had been since yesterday morning since he'd last eaten anything, and he didn't want Mikey investigating. He kept the white noise in his headphones on as he shakily dragged himself out of the safety of his bed and opened the door to what felt like a cold, unfamiliar place, but was really just the hallway. He trudged down the stairs, hearing his footsteps as only muffled thuds through his padded headphones. He pulled open the pantry and grabbed the whole box of Cheerios, about a third empty.

"Gerard."

Gerard didn't hear it, the sound of TV static too loud in his ears.

"Gerard."

He still missed it, standing on his tiptoes to grab a glass off the top shelf. Suddenly, something rammed into his side, and Gerard fell to the ground, taking the cup with him. It landed a second before he did, shattering green glass on the tiles, ready to cut him up as he fell. He landed on the tile and felt the glass lodge into his hands. He threw off his headphones, letting them fall against his shoulders.

"Mikey, what the fuck did you do that for?!"

"You weren't listening! I didn't mean to break the cup, you did that."

"Just shut up. Leave me alone. Shit." Gerard winced as he pushed himself off the tiles and shakily walked to the sink, running water over his hands and watching the clear stream of water turn red as it pulled the blood from his hands.

"No! You're doing it again."

Gerard didn't respond. He didn't care.

"You're not even fucking listening right now! Are you fucking serious? You're just gonna leave again?"

Gerard flinched, picking the shards of glass from his hands and letting the water wash away the new flows of blood that gushed in their wake. "Shit," he said again. People always forget just how much glass in your skin hurts. And Jesus, that was a lot of blood. "Leave? I never left. And besides, you have mom. Play Mario with her."

"You do so leave. You disappear into your little hidey-hole and you don't come out until you're half dead. Don't even try to tell me it isn't true."

Gerard, having picked the last of the glass from his palms, turned off the sink and grabbed a dishtowel, wrapping it around his hands.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Mikey. I don't wanna talk about it anymore."

With that, he flipped up his headphones and went upstairs.

Mikey growled, frustrated.

He turned to face the rest of the glass spewed across the tan tiles, and sighed as he grabbed a broom.

What the hell am I even supposed to do?

Pausing his sweeping, he fished his phone out of his pocket and called Pete.

It rang for a while before Pete picked up, his voice croaky.

"Hello?"

"Dude. Were you sleeping? It's fucking three in the afternoon."

"I was up late!"

Mikey rolled his eyes and sighed. "Anyway, can you come over? I was right about Gerard, he's doing his hiding thing. And Mom's been running errands for, like, four hours now and I need someone to hang out with."

"Um, um, yeah, let me ask my mom."

~~

Pete's mom's silver Honda pulled up half an hour later, and a disheveled-looking Pete crawled out of the backseat, his hair sticking up so stupidly that it made Mikey giggle. Pete let himself in and looked at Mikey on the couch.

"Don't look at my hair, I didn't brush it."

Mikey crawled over the couch and ruffled it. "I think it looks cute."

Pete smiled and rolled his eyes. "So, what's up?"

"I shoved Gerard into a pile of glass."

"You what?"