Thirty Five Days

4: Mikey's Story

AN: Okay, so this chapter is from Mikey's perspective since that's what people wanted when I asked. Trigger warning for mentions of implied self-harm, alcohol abuse and implied domestic abuse.

I really didn't want Frank to know all this shit about me but somehow I had managed to convince myself to tell him. God, what an idiot I am. If only he had lived somewhere else, or not been nice enough to invite me along to bunk off with him. I thought that I could manage thirty five days without telling anyone about myself – I mean who makes new friends a month before the end of high school anyway?

I inhaled deeply a couple of times, calming myself down, nodded firmly and then began to explain to Frank what I was actually doing here now.

"When I was about five years old, my dad died and Mum got really depressed. We got through though, Gerard (he's my older brother)helped her look after me even though he's only three years older than me. My grandma looked after us a lot, coming over at weekends and stuff so that Mum could still talk to her friends and have a chance to get away from it all. Everything was working, it had worked for years and it didn't look like it would ever stop working, until the car crash."

I could hardly look at Frank because I knew that if he looked upset it would throw me off course with my story and then he'd never hear it. Honestly, I was surprised that I had somehow found the courage to tell someone outside of the stupid teachers school and even they had commented more than Frank had done so far.

When I glanced at him his eyes were full of pity and concern and he had one hand over his mouth as if he needed a physical barrier to prevent him from talking.

"Mum was in a coma for months so my grandma stayed with us, looking after us. Eventually...they had to, they had to...turn off the life support. Gerard was really upset after that, I mean we were all upset, but he was the most affected I'd say. Anyway, Grandma asked if we wanted to come and stay with her for a bit but Gerard said that since he's technically an adult he didn't want to live with anyone else any more. He was going to stay in our old house and I was just going to come down here to stay with Grandma but he couldn't cope all alone in that house so now he's living here with us.

"That's why you didn't know anyone new was here – we moved into my Grandma's house so you wouldn't have seen any vans or anything,she already lived there, we just joined her I guess."

Frank honestly looked like he was about to cry which I didn't entirely understand since he hadn't known my parents or anything.He'd only known me for a day! And anyway, I'd left out some of the bad bits because I didn't like talking about them - even explaining the memories could upset me as much as the incidents themselves had.I hadn't mentioned the alcohol or the violence or the self-harm but still Frank was upset by what I said. It was a long time since someone outside my family had pitied me. Now they mainly looked at meas if I was about to do something irrational, which I suppose was a logical concern to have.

"You can say something now, you know. I've finished my tragic backstory." I tried to make a joke out of it because Frank's pain was too obvious for me to endure right now.

He swallowed, still looking on the verge of tears, before replying.

"Oh my God Mikey, that's awful. I'm so sorry for you. I-I don't really know what to say. I mean, shit, Mikey that's so...awful. When did this happen, with your mum and your brother and stuff? How long have you been here? Should you even be back at school yet?"

"It happened about a month and a half ago but I just couldn't stand being in that house any more with just Gerard and Grandma because they both looked at me like you're doing now. It was driving me crazy so I thought that at least if I went to school here nobody would now so I could get away from the sympathy and the pity. Please don't tell anyone else about this, Frank, I couldn't stand it if the whole school knew, it's bad enough with all the teachers knowing."

"Of course I'm not gonna tell anyone, Mikey, I mean apart from the fact that I don't talk to anyone I wouldn't share personal stuff like that. And listen, if you don't want to talk about it any more I totally understand, we can do something else or go somewhere else or whatever you want really."

I was touched by how concerned Frank was for me without being in my face about it. There were some people I could think of who wouldn't even have considered moving on from the topic, if they somehow managed to get me onto it in the first place that is. I briefly wondered what else we could move onto before my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Hey Mikes, are you actually coming home from school today? You were supposed to be bringing a friend round, remember? Grandma's not gonna be happy if she's cooked all this food just for you not to turn up. G x

Shit, I had forgotten that I had invited Frank around...on the pretence my mum had told me to. Double shit.

"Er, Frank that's my brother texting, reminding me I had invited you round after school today. It's totally fine if you don't want to come now but the offer still stands if you're still interested?" I phrased it as a question, hoping he wouldn't remember the bit about my mum.

"Oh, yeah that would be grea- Wait, didn't you say your mum told you to invite me?"

Well, there goes that hope.

"Yeah – being invited by someone's mum makes more sense than being invited by their grandma and older brother doesn't it? Sorry I lied, I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable about the whole thing. Honestly I had forgotten I had even invited you today – if I had remembered I probably wouldn't have told you all that stuff about me."

I was starting to regret it now, I should have just kept my head down and my mouth shut. It should not have been that hard to stay silent for a month. To my surprise however, Frank was nodding.

"That's fair enough I suppose. I'm not sure I'd have done any different in your situation. I would still like to go to your house,if I am still invited – my parents aren't expecting me here now anyway."

I gave him a small smile then replied to my brother's text.

Yeah sorry gee – we just stopped at franks on the way back to ditch his bag. Well be back in a minute. M

"Well then, you ready to come meet the family?"

 He grinned at me almost wickedly, "Hell yeah Mikey Way."

AN: Hope you enjoyed this, don't forget to comment/vote. Gerard is in the next update (I managed to write ahead a little bit) so I'll post that tonight if this gets even one comment within 30 minutes of going up. (If the comment is later than that I'll be watching the Oscars on TV so there'll be no time for updates!) :)