The Ghost Of You (boyxboy)

[3] I Want To Scream "I Love You" From The Top Of My Lungs

I wasn't a hallucination. I knew that for sure, because I was most definitely real. After all, you can hallucinate someone else, but I was pretty sure you can't hallucinate yourself.

I felt incredibly creepy, sitting in the back of Gerard's car and listening into his conversation with Mikey. It seemed to be a very personal conversation to both of them, as they discussed me, and Mikey, and even Frank Iero, who I could tell was certainly dating Gerard.

But I had nowhere else to go except to follow Mikey. I certainly couldn't walk the several miles home by myself, even though for all I knew I probably had some sort of teleporting abilities. I was a ghost, a supernatural creature. Who knew what I was capable of? Maybe I could possess people.

Acting on this theory, I reached out and touched Mikey's shoulder, willing my hand to pass through him in the hopes that I could possess him. Nothing happened though, my hand simply rested on his shoulder in the unnerving manner that I was growing accustomed to, in which I couldn't feel his presence in the slightest.

The car slowed in front of Frank's house, which I had never been to before. I followed Mikey and Gerard to the door, which Gerard knocked on quickly, and then ran a hand through his disheveled hair in an attempt to tame the unruly locks. Mikey stared off into the distance, painfully unaware of Gerard's continued attempts to make himself presentable to his supposed 'friend.'

Perhaps being dead made me more aware of things like this. When I didn't have to focus on myself, I noticed the little things people did, like how Mikey was fond of putting his hands into the pockets of his skinny jeans, pulling them back out again, pressing his long fingers together, balling his hands into fists, and then shoving them back into his pockets. He repeated this cycle as the duo waited for Frank to answer the door. Perhaps it was a nervous habit; something I never noticed whilst I was alive.

Frank answered the door after what seemed like hours but was probably only a minute of Mikey's nervous hands and Gerard's preening. "Gerard," he initially exclaimed, stepping forward to hug the taller boy, but then his eyes fell on Mikey. "Dude, what happened?" he asked, and I found myself moving to hold Mikey's hand. It was a nervous thing for me, I realized, for the fear that if Mikey and I lost contact I would slip from his thoughts permanently.

Gerard also had the same thoughts in order to comfort his younger brother and moved to wear I was standing, gripping Mikey's hand in his own and unwittingly pushing me out of the way. I stumbled back onto the walkway outside of Frank's front door, feeling no pain as I sprawled against the ground.

Gerard was probably more comforting to Mikey anyway; Mikey could actually feel the warmth of his older brother's hand in his. And Gerard was not dead, even if he purposely looked that way as par to his undead vampire emo goth aesthetic, or whatever he had going on.

I stood up and walked to Mikey's other side so I could also hold his hand, even though it was more to comfort me than him. Gerard, meanwhile, asked Mikey, "Mikes, do you want to talk about it?"

Mikey focused on the ground in front of him instead of either Gerard or Frank, or me for that matter. With a shake of his head and a soft "No," he followed his brother into Frank's house.

Once in the house, I couldn't help but notice the far too obvious way that Gerard and Frank gravitated together, the elder dropping his brother's hand in order to be closer to his apparent boyfriend. As Mikey stood, alone and abandoned, I gritted my teeth in anger.

"Frank?" Mikey asked in a soft, plaintive tone, "Where's your bathroom?"

Frank stared uncertainly at Mikey. He clearly was unaware as to why Mikey was so distraught, and didn't know how to address him. He didn't want to say anything to offend Mikey; his instinct was to treat him likes he was fragile. "Um, it's down the hallway," he said, pointing in a vague direction.