They Don't Believe In Us (frerard)

20- Can You Feel My Heart? Because You're Making It Beat Out Of My Chest

Bert's POV (woah, sue me)

When I step inside my house from walking home in the chilly air of New Jersey in December, I'm of course a trembling, shivering mess. That's what I get for thinking I'm too fucking punk rock for a jacket. Fuck it, Bert, that was idiotic. I spot my dad passed out on the couch. Not from drinking or drugs, mind you, okay, maybe a little bit of drugs, but because he works a night shift job at some packaging place. We only ever talk in evenings and in mornings, when I'm lazily getting ready for school and he's just getting home. Then he's got weekends off, so we try to do our "family" bonding time then.

But let me explain further. A night shift job is all my dad has been able to get that has good enough pay to afford our bills and rent for our apartment, plus food and a little extra for wasting away on cool shit like vinyls and other stuff like that. That's because my mom left us when I was in 7th grade. Prior to that happening, she had been coming home later from work and always claiming she was behind in paperwork that she had to get done. Plus, maybe six months or so before my mom ditched my dad and I, she seemed to stop all caring she had shown me. She just treated me like I was a resident in her home that was only staying for the week. She never looked me in the eyes except for stupid things like chores and even started sleeping in a different room from my dad. Then one day she was gone and we weren't able to afford to keep our home, so we got kicked out and here we are.

Did I miss her? Sure I did. But would I care if I ever saw her again? To be honest, not really. It really effected me when she left us (it was for some guy, but when isn't it?). I started rebelling. I stayed holed up in my room and snuck out at night to get cigarettes and eventually I got ahold of some beers. I also got into the wrong crowd, and started wasting my life away. That lasted up until now. My dad and I went to the music store, something that's very rare for us, and he surprised me with buying me my first own guitar. I had always played his, and he never had the money to buy me my own. Apparently he had been saving up some ever since I started high school. The guitar is beautiful. It's acoustic, the body made with dark rosewood and the neck from maple wood. The fretboard is inlaid with flying birds. This guitar is so gorgeous. When I first strummed her, it literally struck a chord in me. I didn't like the looks of where my life was going. I had to do something about that. So the next day, after playing my new guitar so much the previous day my fingers bled, I went and got my hair completely restyled. I got practically all of it shaved off except for the top of my head and had it dyed my natural color. That, strangely enough, made me feel completely different. And I felt so much better. (a/n this all took place during Thanksgiving break, I completely forgot about Thanksgiving and skipped over it. I facepalmed myself)

The next day when I hung out with my "friends", they couldn't stop teasing me about it. At first, I just went along with it, but they never stopped, and I snapped. I got angry at them. And they, in turn, got angry right back at me. I got punishment, as they put it, for talking to them like that. Even though I was considered the "leader" in the group. The fuckers I had called my friends for nearly six years beat me up. The bruises pained me for the remainder of Thanksgiving break. Luckily, they were minor when school started back up again. Now I was alone at school. I wasn't completely alone in life. I had a group of three guys I called my friends, but they go to a private school, so I only ever see them when we make plans. But I talk to them every day, usually. Their names are Quinn, Dan, and Jeph. We all play instruments, so we even jam out sometimes. It's really fun, and I've always felt it brought out the part of me that I was supposed to be, not how I was with the dicks I hung out with. Or, used to.

I grab myself leftover chicken wings and green beans from two nights ago and heat it up before taking it up to my room. I usually eat my "dinner" as soon as I get home from school, which is between 4 and 4:30. It lasts me until I go to sleep, so I roll with it. Thank the fucking Lord I don't have any homework to do tonight. My mind is on too many things to try and focus on schoolwork that I get C averages on. I grab my laptop and turn it on, then pull up tabs, one for tumblr, one for twitter, and one for facebook (because I thought "why not?") then turned on my music playlist on youtube, settling in for my typical night of relaxation. My facebook timeline is pretty boring right now, occassionally I'll find interesting articles from Alternative Press or Rolling Stone. My gaze drifts over to the 'find friends' bar. I was bored, so once again today, I thought "fuck it" and decided to click it. About the 8th recommended person down, I find none other than Gerard Way. I click his profile (of course, why wouldn't I?) And admittedly, I looked through his profile pictures over the years. It's currently of him and Mikey doing the classic rock on hand gesture, I'm guessing that was when they went to a concert. Damn, I shouldn't be scrolling through pictures of him, this is fucking creepy. As if on cue, though, I got a notification. A friend request. From motherfucking Gerard Way.