He Likes Me

1

Gerard, like few other people his age, was a creative person. He would rather rough sketch that bird outside his window that never shuts up than check how many Facebook friends he had, and he would rather spend hours writing an original song than find some other boring crap to post on snapchat. At first, it bothered his parents that their son wasn't a mindless, zombie-child, hell bent on frying their brain due to an addiction to television. However, after Gerard wrote, published and sold millions of copies of his novel, 'The Black Parade', they weren't so concerned. He was rich, and that was good.

They loved their child. They always had and they always would and they would always support him in anything he did. They spent hundreds on art sets for him and they even bought him an original 1930s typewriter to quell his burning desire to become a successful novelist - as if having a typewriter as oppose to Microsoft Word would make his dream come true.

Alas, like most creative people, Gerard had a lot of time to dwell on life itself and this meant he had a lot of time to see just how shitty it could be sometimes. Depression wormed its way into Gerard's daily schedule like a snake, venomous and unstoppable until it threatened to bring down everything he had ever known. His family worried. His family cried. His family insisted he attended at least two sessions of extremely pricey therapy a week that they were unwilling to pay for - gee, thanks guys - and if Gerard didn't call them every day at eight pm on the dot, they would panic.

That's where Gerard was at that moment: sitting on the plush leather couch in his therapists office. Dr Hawthorne was nice, Gerard liked her, but her couches were mighty uncomfortable.

"Gerard." The older women spoke, startling Gerard out of his daze. "How've you been doing?"

Typical. Fuckin' typical, Gerard decided. You pay a trained, professional doctor to help you out, and all they do is ask you how your week has been? Fuckin' typical.

"Fine." Gerard replied, placing a hand on his knee in the hopes of stopping his leg from shaking so badly. Something about social interactions just brought out the trembles in Gerard, and he hated it.

"Define 'fine' for me, Gee?"

Stupid-ass therapist using a stupid nickname only Gerard's stupid brother was allowed to use. Didn't she know there was like, a social law against that or some shit? You just can't do that!

"Good. Nothing bad happened to me." He said simply, his eyes trained on the large, oak grandfather clock in the far left corner of the room, ticking away. Gerard heard that if you watched the clock, time took longer to pass, but what with being the extremely knowledgable and clever person that he was knew that wasn't true. Time still dragged on and on and on though; Gerard just wanted to go home.

"Have you met anyone new?" Dr Hawthorne asked.

God, she was so transparent? Didn't she realise how fake she sounded? Sure, she was nice, but she was about as deep as a shower and as see through as a window. What she really wanted to know was had he met anyone. Had he met anyone he wanted to fuck? Relationships were overrated.

"No. Too nervous to meet people." Gerard answered, chewing his bottom lip and not stopping when he felt a trickle of blood to run down his chin. He wiped it away self consciously, blushing when he realised Dr Hawthorne was probably writing about his 'unusual traits and habits' because of that.

"What is it that's making you nervous, Gerard?"

Gerard shrugged. "If I met someone, they wouldn't like me. They wouldn't get me. They wouldn't know me."

"What if they did?"

"They wouldn't." Gerard said simply, trying to keep his voice even and un-confrontational.