The Ghost of Him

9. Beginnings

*Melanie's POV*

Fear. That's something that was almost completely gone at this point. Gerard thought that that was why I ran. Which, it sort of was, but not towards him; I ran because I was scared of my own actions.

I couldn't believe that I had kissed a murderer, not to mention the fact that I enjoyed it. And that I wanted to do it again.

I only ran because I didn't want to end up going any further with him, because that would be problematic. I never really got lost either, I just sort of wandered around the woods for a bit before making my way back to the tiny RV.

When I found Gerard trying to shoot himself, I had actually debated on just standing there and letting him do it for about 0.5 seconds. And them my emotions took over and I leaped forward to stop him.

I hated that I was becoming attached to him.

Now we were laying in bed, and I was pretty sure he had fallen asleep by now, because he had been quiet for quite a while now. I couldn't check his breathing because he wasn't close to me, and I couldn't look at his face because he had turned around and faced the other way. I was too scared to go to sleep myself, because the revolver was still lying in the corner of the room and I didn't want Gerard to kill himself while I was asleep.

I sighed and tried to reach down for blankets but then remembered that there were none. Frowning, I just curled in on myself and ended up shivering slightly. For how moderate and fairly warm the temperatures were during the day, they dropped pretty drastically during the night. It was freezing, and I wondered how Gerard even managed to survive during the winter in the little camper without any blankets. Why he hadn't stolen some from the store yet was a mystery.

Gerard made a small moaning sound and turned around to face me again, and this time it was obvious that he was sleeping. His eyes were shut and his mouth hung open a little more than I found necessary, but it was still cute. He reached up and scratched his nose, waking up enough to close his mouth and take a deep breath to restore his lungs with oxygen.

He murmered something inaudible and I wondered what he was dreaming about. The sides of his mouth twitched upwards for a moment before his mouth fell open again, but this time not as wide.

Realizing I was watching him like a creeper, I looked away and focused on a small dark stain in the ceiling. How does one get a stain on the ceiling? Maybe there was a leak? That wasn't very promising.

"Mel?"

I glanced back over at Gerard, who had sleepily opened his eyes and was now squinting at me in the dark room that was sort of bathed in a washed out light from the full moon.

He took my glance as an opportunity to speak. "Why didn't you let me die earlier?"

I paused. He had just woken up not even five minutes ago and he was already pounding me with hard questions. But he had seemed so happy inside his dream; why was he asking about something like that right now??

"Because I couldn't watch you die," I said carefully.

"I deserve it."

I didn't answer. In a way, I guess, he sort of did. But at the same time I didn't think he should say that about himself. And I didn't exactly want him to die.

"See," he said, still groggy. "You can't come up with anything."

Frustrated, I positioned myself so that our faces were level. "Stop it. You're half asleep, we can talk about this in the morning when we're both awake."

"But -"

I cut him off by gently kissing the side of his face. It was sort of weird, because half of my mouth got his cheek and the other half got the side of his mouth. I was sort of surprised at myself, but at the same time I was really pleased.