The Blind Artist (Frerard MCR Fanfic)

Chapter 32

*A/N: So this is the last chapter. There will be an epilogue so don't worry and there will possibly be some one shots in the future! Thank you all for stixkig with me through this, who have voted each and every chapter, who have commented and shared this story because without support The Blind Artist would be nothing so thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoy the last chapter. All my love, MFK xx

Chapter 32

*Frank's P.O.V*

"Why did you leave?" I hear Gerard mumble on the top of my head, his lips pressing to my head and his arms unconsciously tighten around me. I pull away to face his skeletal broken frame, his eyes hollow but yet still beautiful in their burning core- I see the shadow of the bruising around his eyes from the surgery, I see the brown tinge in the white of his eyes where the blood still lingers and the way he blinks like a wince in order to clear a fog. I knew he would ask this question, I knew I would have to explain but something inside me didn't want to explain. I didn't know how.

"The day you went into surgery I sat in the waiting room, it seemed like days had gone by and we had heard nothing, I kept thinking about the future. But the more I thought about it the more I questioned myself. Then this girl spoke to me and made me really thing- what if you peered into a fortune ball right now - this very second, today - and saw with indisputable clarity that you were never going to meet the love of your life?" I say to my fingers before I look back up. He seems taken back, he shifts himself away from me but I keep him there by clutching my hands onto his asking him to look into my eyes.

"That's a sad thing that I'm asking you to think of, I'm aware. But from where I was back then I was just a kid inside hoping to meet "The One" ever since I first realized what love really was- or at least someone half-decent who I could deal with for the rest of my life. I know, I know. You're not fanciful like everyone else. You don't believe in soul mates. But I was at least expecting to meet someone you liked a fair amount. And I thought of what that really meant and what I really wanted from that y'know? Someone to curl up next to at the end of a long day, who would take care of you when you got sick and listen to your stories every evening after work. We all hope that. We're human." My palm traces the soft skin of his cheek, it falls to where his bottom lip is trembling and I release a small sob from deep within my won chest.

"But imagine for a second that you knew - with 100% certainty - that you were never going to meet that person. What about your life would that knowledge change? Because here's the thing about finding love - it affects us constantly. And we all loathe admitting it. But love is on the forefront of our actions even when it's not on the forefront of our minds. It's the reason you bought those new jeans last week. It's the reason you went to that barbeque that you didn't want to go to last weekend. It's the reason you sometimes feel cripplingly insecure and inadequate and scared about everything that's coming next. Love's what inspires most of your greatest changes. So if you knew, with indisputable certainty, that love was never going to be yours, how would you live your life differently? What about your daily routine would you alter? What about your long-term plans? I needed to find myself in that."

This is the truth, in the past three months I cut myself off from love, in hopes it would prove to me at least something.

"At least if I could make it out there without ever finding love, because I realized if I couldn't be with you then I couldn't be with anyone else. Because here's what we don't want to admit about love: it is a crutch that we use all the time. The idea that someday somebody will love all our flaws is a subtle excuse not to work on them. The principle of two halves making a whole restrains us from becoming our own better half. We want someone to swoop in during our darkest hour and save us, but what if we knew they never would? We'd have to start doing everything differently."

I move forward, it would have looked odd if anyone came in; me now crumpled on Gerard's lap, his leant back against the wall looking like he was struggling to hold on. As much as I wanted pull him to me and kiss away the pain, I couldn't let myself do it without hurting him. He wanted answers so I would give it to him. Even if they weren't what he wanted.

"As much as I didn't want to admit to myself, I found that love holds us back in an infinite amount of subtle ways that perhaps we do not even realize. And the guarantee of its absence may just be the ultimate sense of liberation. That if there's one thing we all need to stop doing, it's waiting around for someone else to show up and change our lives. Just be the person you've been waiting for. Live your life as if you are the love of it. Because that's the only thing you know for sure - that through every triumph, every failure, every fear and every gain that you will ever experience until the day you die, you are going to be present. You are going to be the person who shows up to accept your rewards. You are going to be the person who holds your own hand when you're broken. You are going to be the person who gets yourself up off the floor every time you get knocked down and if those things are not love-of-your-life qualities, I don't know what are."

The tears are running freely down both of our cheeks, in sync we show a mirror image, we use our eyes to look into each other's souls to feel the emotion bare into me, it's like this fulfilling warmth inside me that bubbles up from just not feeling so alone anymore. In being able to be apart from someone you learn not to be dependent on anyone, you have yourself and now that you fully find yourself there is no one else holding you back. I just hoped Gerard realized that now. We have to start appreciating all that we bring to our own lives. Because the ironic truth is, you are most attractive when you're not worried about who you're attracting. When you're living your life confidently, freely and without restraint, you emit the kind of energy that it just isn't possible to fake. The kind of energy that's capable of transforming not just your own life, but the lives of people around you. Because I realized at that moment, that you didn't need to look for 'the one' to spend the rest of your life with because someday they will come searching for you- like magnets.

"I tired. I really did try but why would I be without it, who would I become, I needed to see that darkness deep inside me to know who I was because if I kept being blind to the dark shadow that followed me I would be on edge of everything, of not trusting or waiting for the next fall. It's gone now. It's gone. And I'm ready. Please tell me you are ready to take me back, to love this stupid idiot as much as I love you?" I say with so much hope in my voice, the sickening feeling swell up in my chest, the fear and the spike of adrenaline preparing me for his answer.

I see his lips move from the trembling mess of a frown into a shy smile, his eyes brighten and glow like small pots of silken honey and then my lips feel another set press to them in the softest of kisses. "But you're the stupid idiot that I love, the piece of art that I can feel, the eyes to my blindness because you don't need eyes to see what is in a person's heart." And I let his voice as smooth and sweet as the honey in his eyes guide me into a kiss that will always be imprinted on my lips.