When We're Both Thirty

Fuck It

"How was that blind date thing going for you then?" Mikey asks.

"We've been through this, I haven't talked to Frank in almost a week," Gerard says.

"Right. How's that avoiding the problem thing going? Have you sat in the corner every day for the last week rocking back and forth crying?"

"It's been fine. I don't miss him or anything," Gerard replies.

"Yeah, so you say, but we both know that ain't the truth. You love him."

"I don't!"

"Yes you do," Mikey responds, "You love Frank, and you're too chicken to admit it. You'll admit to having a crush on him, but you won't even get to the whole truth which is that you want to have his babies, and you want to wear those god-awful matching T-shirts that couples have, and you want to kiss him at New Year's Eve, and you want to watch bad horror movies with him. You want to do dirty dirty things to that guy, I mean to say, things you haven't already done-"

"Shut up!" Gerard says, considering the option of just hanging his phone up altogether, because he cannot deal with Mikey right now. Or at all. Or ever. Mikey's just too much to ever have to deal with, and if Gerard didn't care about him so much, he'd have pushed Mikey down an elevator shaft many years ago.

"So we've established that you love him, then," Mikey says, "and you know what today is? Saturday. You know what Saturday is? It's a weekend. You know what weekends are ideal for? Fuc-"

"Stop right there or so help me god I will stable your fingers to a railroad track," Gerard says.

"Well, that's colorful," Mikey says, "Being around Frank has really buffed up your insults. It's fine with me. You know what might help you though is if you go hang out with him again, because then you'll be forced to come up with ever more creative disses."

"You can try all you want, but I'm not going to go see Frank."

"Ugh, but Gerard!" Mikey groans, "You've got what, like twenty days left 'til Halloween?"

"Eighteen," Gerard corrects.

"Oh, so you know the exact number. That'll make me believe you don't love him, really, good job, absolutely fantastic. You've convinced me. What, did you, like, download a countdown app for your phone or something? Can you tell me how many minutes and seconds there are to Frank's birthday too?"

"No! I just know how to read a fucking calendar."

"You knew the answer from the top of your head though. Gerard, I usually don't even remember my own birthday more than a week in advance, but here you are remembering something over two weeks away."

"Okay, fine, maybe it's important, alright? Maybe I do know when his birthday is, but that's only because it's an important date for me too. As soon as that holiday passes, mom's going to give me shit about it until the day I die. So yeah, I know when it is, and yeah, I hate that it's so near to now, but what can I do?"

"Right, whatever you say, Gerard," Mikey says skeptically.

"Ugh, okay, so what do you want to tell me then?"

"What?" Mikey asks, "Oh, right, that, yeah. I tracked down all of your classmates from second grade, that's when you and Frank had your falling out, correct?"

"Uh, yeah, hold on, you did what?"

"You know, everyone's on Facebook these days. It's insane. You missed out on some crazies, not going to lie. One of the guys who you went to school with was admitted into a mental hospital. Wild stuff you can find out about people through google."