The Fourth Fall (Sequel to Boy In My Class) Gerard Way

Chapter 2: One Last Shot

As the weeks went on, the trees became more and more bare and the sidewalks became covered in those orange and red crunchy leaves. Every morning I still angrily kicked through them to get to work, and every evening I would sigh to myself as it became darker and darker each day that I would walk home alone, back to my empty apartment. On this particular day, I was meeting my favourite student Olivia to discuss her dissertation with her. She had given me directions to a bar close to NYU, and I was following her directions absent-mindedly, when I noticed all of a sudden in the distance my old university dorm. I looked at the singular lamppost that stood outside and I remembered vividly the sight of Gerard stood beneath it, holding a single lily flower and waiting to take me on my first date. After years of suppressing all of my feelings I felt a huge wave of emotion crash over me and found myself sobbing hysterically on the street. Luckily, New York City is home to a lot of fucking strange people and so nobody paid much attention to me. I walked over to the lamppost and stood underneath it, closing my eyes and wishing that I could turn back time and fix every fucking stupid mistake I had made.  I pictured that first date we had, and I pictured coming back here when he made that ridiculously cute game that had eventually led to him proposing to me. I realised in this exact moment that I had thrown away the most incredible relationship, and now I was stood alone, for the fourth fall in a row, crying like a lunatic over a lamppost.

I quickly snapped out of my crazy breakdown and dried my eyes, before rushing to the bar to meet Olivia. I had to remind myself that I was a teacher who was helping a student and therefore I couldn't stand on the street hugging a lamppost all night. 

“I’m sorry Livvy,” I blabbed as I sat down at a table in front of her. 

“Shit, Miss S, have you been crying?” she asked.

“Isabel,” I said, taking out my cell phone and inspecting my face. My cheeks were conspicuously stained with make-up.  “Shit.”

“Jack said that you used to date Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance,” she said bluntly.

“Who’s Jack?” I asked, rubbing my cheeks to get rid of the eyeliner and mascara mixture that was stuck to my face.

“My boyfriend,” she grinned. “We met in class on the first day.”

“Oh, you’re still with him?” I said, feeling surprised and a little jealous that my pessimistic attitude towards her relationship was wrong. “That’s so cute, I wondered if you two would stay together.”

“Yep,” she grinned. “But uhm…did you date Gerard Way?”

“Is that really appropriate?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re like 25 Isabel, I’m 23. You’re not even my teacher anymore, you just tutor my essay.”

 “You’re right, I’m being a dick,” I sighed, putting my phone back in my bag. “Sorry Livvy, I’ve been so preoccupied these days. I feel like shit.”

“It’s fine,” she said with a reassuring smile. “I don’t really need much help with my essay, I actually just wanted to hang out and see how you’re doing, because I have a few friends in your class that say you just read out the book and don’t even smile. They’re worried about you. When you first started teaching at NYU you were full of life- I remember being impressed by how much you cared about History- you reminded me why I wanted to study it. But now, something is different."

“Shit,” I muttered. “I’m just like my old professors. Boring and disinterested. That's everything I never wanted to be."

“I don’t really give a shit about that, because all the professors do that, so it’s not really a big deal,” she explained. “But, you taught me for three years and now you’re still helping me with my work so I just figured I should get to know you and work out what the fuck is going on in your head- maybe help you out a bit?” 

“I don’t think I’ve socialised with anyone other than my family in the past four years,” I said, feeling horrified at how much I had let myself go. I used to have friends that I would hang out with all of the time, and yet now I just seemed to drift through life, not even realising what my social life had become. “Fucking hell…”

“I thought as much,” she smiled. She encouraged me to talk to her so I spent the next forty-five minutes talking continuously about everything that had happened between Gerard and I. It felt incredible to talk about it to somebody- I had barely told my parents the story because it was too painful to relive so soon, and they were so disappointed about the marriage not working out that I just told them that Gerard had wanted children and I hadn’t, and avoided telling them all of the horrible emotions I was feeling. My mother would have only freaked out and told me to move back to England anyway if she had any idea how miserable I was here.

“Wow,” Olivia said as I finished my long and miserable story. “So to summarise, you didn’t want children, Gerard wanted children, but now you want children, and Gerard probably still wants children, and…. what’s the problem? Just call him up!”

“I can’t,” I sighed. “I read somewhere that they all have families, and I’m terrified to check it out in case I realise that he’s already got kids, or got married or something. Actually, he can’t get married because he’s still married to me.” 

“You’re still married,” she nodded, as if she was trying to process all of the information but struggling somewhat. “Fuck it, I’ll find out for you.” 

She pulled her phone from her pocket and began to type into it, to my horror. 

“Please don’t! I can’t bear to know what’s going on,” I begged, trying to snatch her phone from out of her hands but she was too quick.

“You’re in luck,” she said. “Well, kind of. He’s got a girlfriend, but they’re not engaged and they don’t have kids…I wonder if she knows that you’re still married?”

Her jokes were wasted on me because I was so horrified to hear all of these things that I had tried to ignore for the past four years.

“Is it Lindsey?” I gulped.

“Yep,” she nodded. “Been together three….years…” she added slowly as she browsed the internet on her phone. “Frank is married.” 

“Frankie got married?!” I almost shouted. “Fucking hell I miss those guys so fucking much.” 

“So…if I like Google your name and Gerard is it gonna come up with loads of crazy fans who hate you or something?” she asked with excitement. I begged her not to do it but she’d already done it. 

“Eh…not much to tell,” she said before quickly thrusting her phone back into her pocket. “Anyway…so...My Chemical Romance are playing in New York tomorrow night.” 

I knew from the way that she was acting that there was something about me that had popped up on the internet after she typed my name in alongside Gerard’s name, but I didn’t ask because I truly didn’t want to know. After processing all of that in my mind, I heard the last thing that she had said. 

“What?” I breathed. “Tomorrow night?”

"Apparently they're performing some songs from their new album at some TV studio," Olivia explained. "It's one of those events where the fans get to watch from the street through the big windows. We should go!"

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" I almost laughed, but my heartbeat was increasing rapidly just knowing that Gerard was going to be nearby.

"Izzy," she said, leaning forward and locking eye contact with me. "You're in love with him. He was in love with you. You had different interests when you were younger, but you're different now. And to top it all off, you're still married. Eventually you'll have to talk to him to arrange a divorce, so why not give it one last shot and try to win him back?"