Thirty Five Days

10: Problems and Solutions

Wednesday couldn't come fast enough in my opinion. Unfortunately, Mr Urie had other thoughts.

He pulled me out of English for the third time in four weeks, much to Ms Nestor's displeasure, just to talk to me again about my fucking feelings. Apparently he didn't understand the concept of people wanting to be left the fuck alone.

"So,now you've actually invited Mikey somewhere?" Urie's incredulity was very obvious in his tone after I explained to him about the concert.

"Yes.I invited Mikey and his brother, Gerard, to the Black Flag concert with me at the end of term. Matt and Chris didn't know about it so there's no problem there, is there?"

"I suppose not, but Frank, you were trying to get close to them,remember? You were trying to become an actual member of their group.I'm not sure you can do that by inviting other people to go to concerts with you."

He really wasn't grasping the whole idea of me and Mikey being friends and that annoyed me more than I could have guessed it would.

"Well,I'm going. With Mikey and Gerard. And there's nothing you can say to make me change my mind."

"No,I see that. Why is Mikey's brother coming, isn't he quite a bit older than both of you?"

"He's not that much older than me. He's twenty one and I'll be eighteen at Halloween so that's not that much of an age gap..."

Perhaps I was reassuring myself with that, as well as Urie.

"I see... And, have you spent a lot of time with Mikey and Gerard outside of school or do you just see Mikey here?"

His probing was annoying, as if he was trying to uncover some secret,hidden so far inside myself even I didn't know of its existence.

"Actually,I've been to his house, he's been to mine, we've been to band practice together and Gerard's driven me home a few times. I would say that's quite a lot, considering Mikey's not even been here that long. Oh, and did I forget to mention that they live across the street from me so sometimes I bump into Mikey when I'm out for a walk or I meet Gerard when I pop into the shop. Honestly, I think I see them enough, don't you?"

There was a long pause as Urie looked very deliberately at his fingers. I stared at him, waiting for him to respond so that I could finally give up on this whole personal therapy thing he had started for me.

The longer the silence dragged on, the more I wanted to scream. The clock ticked incessantly and it was bugging the hell out of me.

Eventually I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. Clearly, Urie had nothing left to say to me and honestly I couldn't be bothered waiting another second for him to dismiss me.

"Frank?"

I turned round just before I left the room. He was looking at me strangely now, as if he had never really seen at me before.

"What?"

"I hope this works out for you. Maybe Mikey and Gerard are the people you need right now and as long as they're there for you then that's really all that matters. My job is to make sure you're happy and I think that maybe I haven't done that very well since Mikey started but..."

He trailed off, looking back at his fingers once more.

"If something changes, don't feel like you can't come and talk to me but I don't think I need to take you out of classes like this any more.Good luck with Mikey and Gerard, Frank."

"Thanks,I guess."

Thank God I didn't have to go back to that any more. Still, it was nice of him to finally recognise that I didn't need his help.

***

No matter how many times I tried to explain to my mother that Gerard coming over didn't mean the house had to look like a showroom, she just didn't listen. I overheard her suggesting to my dad that maybe we could get some new paint for the bathroom "just to brighten it up a little".

"Don't you think you're overdoing this a little, Mum? You clean the house all the time and anyway, it's not like he's going to be spending that much time anywhere other than my room and maybe the kitchen."

She had hoovered the basement three times, the hallway four and my room once. Apparently that was so it didn't look like we were trying to hard to be clean. At this rate, the house was going to have surpassed cleanliness and become almost non-existent in its homeliness by the time Wednesday came around.

"It doesn't matter Frank, we have to give the impression that the whole place is well looked after."

"It is well looked after though, Mum, and every surface in his house didn't look scrubbed within an inch of its life when I was there so I think you can probably give it a rest now."

Fortunately my phone buzzed in my pocket, saving me from whatever long-winded,cleaning rant my mother was undoubtedly about to go on.

So Gerard says hes going to yours tomorrow?

The message was from Mikey, and made me feel a bit guilty.

Shit Mikey im so sorry I forgot to text you. I just assumed Gerard had spoken to you about it – mum wanted to meet the adult responsible for me at the concert so she invited him for dinner. I hope you don't mind and im sure you can come over some other time. Sorry again.

Desperate to try and avert the situation further I text Gerard as well.

I only invited you over tomorrow and I think Mikey is a bit upset about that so I told him that my mum wanted to meet the responsible adult who was going to the concert with me. Can you go along with that just so Mikey isnt too upset. I would hate for him to stop talking to me just because I wanted to talk to you. X

The kiss on the end of the text was very deliberate. I was trying to do exactly what Gerard did to me and get him to go along with my plan because I was nice to him.

Tut, tut Frankie.You should have thought this through more - for all I don't leave my room, Mikey and I are pretty close. Anyway, I'll go along with your idea just this once (since you put a kiss at the end) but next time,either invite him as well or tell me to be discreet about it. G x

Seconds later the reply came through from Mikey.

Well okay then. At least she wants to make sure youre not going with a mass murderer or something. Ill see you at school tomorrow.

I sighed with relief as I finished reading the message, making me realise just how much I already valued my friendship with the younger Way brother. I sent him a quick smiley face in response to his text,just so he knew I had seen it, before moving on to Gee's.

Thanks Gee, thats great. Although what makes you think there'll be a next time – you havent made it through the first time yet?! Xoxo Frnk

The fact that you invited me at all suggests you want to spend time with me and the fact that you didn't invite Mikey suggests that maybe you don't want this to just be a social call between neighbours. Still, I'll guess we'll know for sure after tomorrow. ;) G x

Mikey may have been my best friend but Gee wasn't far off when he guessed I wanted him to be my closest friend.

We certainly will Gee, we certainly will. Xoxo Frnk

AN: So, 15k words! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and as always don't forget to comment/vote. Thanks for reading!

PS - I have the weirdest search history because of looking up images to headline each chapter of this fic. :)