Three Cheers for Sweethearts [Frerard AU]

PART III: Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9 – HALLWAY OF HEARTBREAK

A/N: That word that Hunter used at the end of the play will be used quite a lot in the coming chapters. On the plus side – spoiler – Frank's going to completely shut it down soon enough. :)

"Gay."

"FAG!"

"Homo!"

"Pussy."

"Faggot!"

"FREAK."

"Queeeeeer!"

By the halfway point of the week (the week which I honestly suspected was going to go on forever and I would have to deal with the consequences of trying to get Hunter off of my back since he was always in the wrong place at the wrong time and for some God-knows-what reason I was being punished for it for the rest of my days), I had heard every even slightly offensive or derogatory use of the word gay. Somewhere deep inside me I knew Frank was getting it pretty badly, too, no matter how hard he tried to make it look like he wasn't.

Lately, we never talked about anything except Hunter and his group. While Frank usually had at least one of us in each of his classes he could go to – even if just to have a familiar face to stand next to while insults were being thrown – I was not as lucky. Ray and Mikey were the most fortunate of all of us, as they very rarely got anything from them. This Romeo and Juliet thing had set off a fire, and by comparison, Ray and Mikey were just boring candles. They were invisible to Hunter's posse.

In Theatre class, we didn't get a chance to talk about the shows (...that were probably going to be the death of me...) quite yet. Amy, Tom, and Vanessa still had to show their scene from Merry Wives of Windsor, where Tom looked like he was way overly prepared for the scene, whereas both Vanessa and Amy forgot a few lines here and there. Funny, I probably wouldn't have even noticed if they hadn't both broken character to either wince or apologize. With that, the whole damn thing was over.

Hunter hadn't even bothered to wait until the weekend to decorate my locker a new way. By Thursday morning, the red writing which had said MAYBE YOU SHOULD FINISH THE PLAY was gone, but the area was completely red. They'd painted my entire locker. Instead, on top of the red paint was a new message in black.

FAGS GO TO HELL

Just me, or were these getting worse?

I was glad Frank had come out to us. I knew it was of the utmost importance that Hunter never found out, but at the same time, I think (as much as he wanted to be right) he didn't really, honestly believe we were gay. He was just having his own version of fun.

When I got to Theatre that day, Mr. Burner still couldn't get over how well our performances had gone a few days ago. We discussed upsides and downsides of each performance, by group, and the group being analyzed couldn't say anything about it. We talked more about the experience of rehearsals and how procrastination only hurt us. Soon we were told to pull out our notebooks.

"Turn to a blank page," Mr. Burner instructed.

"Every page is blank. We haven't used these all year," Hayley pointed out.

"Then it shouldn't be a problem! Yes, Gerard?"

I put my hand down. "I left mine in my locker."

"Go."

"Me too..."

"Go."

I looked to see that Frank would be following me to the locker bay. He jogged to catch up to me in the hallway, my strides being almost twice the length of his. "Hey," he said.