Demolition Lovers

I Mean This

A/N So I'm really quite proud of this...lots of plot twists you would not see coming! I might have an idea of how I'm ending this story [the end is coming soon...this story is so long..] Just want to thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter! 

Beths POV

Back on campus in Gerard’s dorm, a lot had changed. I’d never seen him so distant from anyone, especially Frank and I. He came home after his classes, we ate a mostly silent meal and then he would take a sleeping pill, kiss me and pass out until his alarm woke him up the next day. It was a pretty easy routine to fall into, but was becoming difficult to break. I was afraid of upsetting the balance if I did say something to try and change the direction in which things were headed, and I was scared because a part of me was almost convinced that Gerard was acting this way because he was using again.

Frank disagreed, strongly and fully.

“No way in hell,” he said when I brought it up. And I left it at that because I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want to investigate any more than I had because I was afraid of what deep down I knew was the truth. As long as I pretended innocence, things could still be alright. Right?

But I knew something had to be done when Gerard started coming home later and later at night, clearly wasted, hungry and totally mute. He’d give a kiss, pop a few pills and then we’d cuddle in bed, his alcohol wrenched breath in my face. He was depressed, definitely, but more than that, he had developed a strong dependence on alcohol and sleeping pills. He’d pop 1 or 2, which was normal – his prescribed dose. But as the alcohol started to get worse and worse, it quickly became 3 or 4, sometimes 5 or 6. I became paranoid I’d wake up and he’d be cold, hard and dead next to me. Gerard was dependent on alcohol and chemicals to take away his grief and his guilt, but me? I was just downright dependent on Gerard for everything. Love, lust, care, strength. But it was impossible to get anything from him since he’d gone into his shell.

The paranoia was so bad I stopped sleeping myself. Waking him up every hour on the hour and making him eat a few crackers, drink a few sips of water and sometimes even going as far as to drag his putrid frame into the bathroom so he could puke out the toxins.

We barely talked, but the good times in those few months, were so beautiful. Frank would drive us way out on a weekend Gerard had no classes and we’d camp under the stars and go fishing together. We made s’mores and sometimes went skinny dipping in the river. It was everything I’d dreamed having a boyfriend would be like, but it was like suffering with manic depression. The few ups and the constant, drawling downs of Gerard and his dependencies, can really where a person – or in Frank and I’s case –  two people down.

We tried hiding his pills, that didn’t work, he just bought more. We tried following him after class but even after we approached him he continued to drink. We considered intervention but decided it would only piss him off. It was clear Gerard was only doing what he was doing because it was that or he thought he would die. That was something he told Frank, he’d become so afraid of the thoughts in his own head – mostly suicidal -  that if he wasn’t intoxicated or sleeping, he would kill himself. I knew Gerard didn’t want that fate, he wanted to stay her for Mikey and his mom and I.

I felt unwanted, quite honestly. Gerard was sick, very mentally sick and I knew I should have helped, but I felt unwanted and unloved and forgotten by him. We hadn’t had sex in so long, each kiss was growing shorter and more spread out, sometimes days between having any physical contact with him at all. He was not even Gerard anymore, and I wanted to help him. But I’m only human. And I make mistakes. And that’s why I slept with Frank last night.

It was so different to being with Gerard, who could be a little dominating in bed. Not that I didn’t like it, but Frank was so..smooth and so gentle. Asking over and over if I was sure, even after as we snuggled together on my bed back at my apartment that I hadn’t slept in in what felt like so long. He ran his hands up my arms and back down, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, Beth. You sure you’re alright with what happened?”

“I’m sure, Frank. Calm down, alright?” I turned my head and kissed him, but it just wasn’t the same. Those lips, they weren’t Gerard’s, the tongue wasn’t Gerard and the whole rest of him sure as hell wasn’t Gerard. But he wasn’t drunk, and he was careful and so caring and so loving and everything I needed at that point that Gerard wasn’t capable of doing.