plastic flowers || frerard

chapter 2

we arrived outside of this fancy little banquet hall. i felt like i was a trash bag walking into here. i forgot that we had to look 'fancy'.

ray was standing by the door "hi, im glad you could make it he- wait. is that gerard?"

i smiled and waved to him "hey ray."

"holy shit, gerard it's been forever. you look so different? im glad you could make it here!" ray said and hugged me.

"sit wherever you want and do whatever you want until they decide to feed us dinner."

as soon as i walked into the big, bright and fancy room, i ran to the table on the side where i could play with my phone until i have to move somewhere.

a group of boys came up to me "hey gerard! i haven't seen you since freshman year, how have you been?"

i shook their hands "hello! i switched to cyber schooling and was never to be seen again."

"well it's glad to see you again." said the tall curly haired boy standing in the middle. "hopefully you come back again for junior year, i honestly miss seeing you around the hallways."

"well that touched my heart. i remember you being in all my grade school classes, good times." we all laughed.

"nice seeing you again, also thank your brother for telling us that you're here."

i smiled as the small group of boys walked away. i felt slightly cared about after that, people actually remembered me.

i went back to playing around on my phone until i heard someone sit on
the chair next to me "gerard?"

—
frank's pov

i've been helping out ray all day decorating for his party. ever since he told me that gerard's coming, i've been so excited to see him again.

i anxiously sat by the door waiting for him to come. my friends sat around me as i continued to try and spot him.

i just want to apologize to him, i've been waiting for 2 years to simply tell him "i'm sorry."

kids continued to keep piling in more and more, still no sight of gerard. i walked over to ray, greeting guests by the door "is gerard here?"

"frank, be patient. i'm sure that you'll have time to apologize to him." ray assured me.

"i know, i'm just nervous." i mumbled as i sat back at my table of friends. all of us were joking around and laughing as usual.

i started getting my mind off of it until i saw mikey walk in the door, that's when my heart started rapidly beating.

a boy with short black hair bounced behind him and at that moment, i knew it was gerard.

everyone noticed how scared and quiet that i became. "frank, are you okay?"

"dude, gerard's here." i nervously said.

"do you want us to go over and talk to him? i won't mention your name, i promise." my tall, curly haired friend named brian said.

"yeah just come back as soon as you're done." i rested my head on the table, thinking of multiple things to say to him tonight.

within 2 minutes, they were back already "frank, go talk to him now."

"well how was he?"

"it's definitely gerard, he was nice to us so this is your chance."

i began to shake as i pushed my out of my chair and stormed over toward him.

i pulled a chair out next to him and slammed down into it "gerard?"

he looked up and as soon as he did that, his smile dropped real fast "oh fuck no." he said out loud and stormed off.

"gerard, wait!" i yelled towards him. i shamefully walked back to my friends "that flopped."

"run after him! he went out the front door, go!" they yelled at me simultaneously.

i followed him out the front door and found him on the steps, smoking. there's another thing that changed about him besides his hair.

"gerard, give me a chance to speak?" i said coming from the door.

"what do you want?" he yelled back, not facing me at all.

"please listen to me, i'm here to apologize." i pleaded. "i'll get on my knees if i have to."

"go ahead and try, frank. give it your best shot because if you fuck it up, i'm going home."

"ever since ray told me that you were coming, i've never felt happier. i finally get to speak to you again, i get to see you again. i've missed you too much. we've spent all our lives together."

"you should have thought of that when you were making my life miserable."

i decided to sit next to him on the steps "remember when we were sitting on my bedroom floor, the summer of 8th grade and i said to you that we're never going to leave each other's side. the last time you've ever slept over at my house, we made a promise that these next few years would be the best of our friendship, look where we are now." i started to tear up a little bit.

gerard sighed "frank, the damage has been done. this is our second summer without each other. do you not realize that you made me waste 2 of my years away, trapped inside my room? i don't care how long your speech is until you decide to give me a good reasoning why you fucked up my life, you're not winning anything."

"i let high school get the best of me. learning about how you're a big kid now and you can do stupid shit to whoever you know. as soon as i began to realize that you were gone for good, i have been mad at myself ever since. i can see that you've changed a lot on the outside but i know in your heart, you'll find light in this whole thing and forgive me."

"how do i know that you've changed? how do i sincerely know that you're not doing this again since you've ran out of people to target?"

"gerard, i miss you. i was stupid, now please stop being stubborn and just give me another chance. you can't just throw away a 9 year friendship, you simply can't."

"you should've thought about that earlier. i'm different now, i guess you're different for the better. if we're not the exact same, how can we create a bond again?"

"i know we can do it, please just can we be friends again? i'm sorry."

gerard sat in silence for a minute "you know what, i'll see you at dinner. i'll see how much you've changed. we're going to get to know each other again like its the first day of 2nd grade."

frank smiled as gerard walked back inside the building to get ready for dinner. i ran to my friends table as fast as i could.

"how did i go?" i was flooded with questions as soon as i sat down.

"i think he forgave me." i said with a huge, genuine smile.