I'm Not Okay (I Promise)

Paint It Black And Take It Back

Gerard's POV:

At least to me, it seemed like giving the band a name made it feel more real. Now, we were not just rehearsing and playing some covers for fun at my garage. We were an actual band, creating actual songs.

After the fight with the jocks and the detention, two things came to me: first, I notice that the Jocks were messing up with us a little bit less than usual. It seems it's not so cool anymore to bully us now that they know we can fight back. And second, my creativity for writing came back. I manage to write a couple of songs through the week, and the melody for some of them. I wanted to show the guys my songs... Even though I was a bit insecure.

When we all met at my garage, before the rehearsal, I told them about it and they seemed happy. I gave them my notebook and waited. They started reading, silently.

"What's with all this moaning?" Frank asked. I supposed they were reading Destroya.

I smiled, really embarrassed.

"I was sleepy when I wrote it. Don't judge."

He smiled back.

"I like it."

Mikey turned the page. More silence.

"I liked this one. Can you sing it? Have you got the melody?"

I looked in the notebook to see what song he was talking about. I nodded and started singing.

Stay out of the light
Or the photographs that I gave you
You can say a prayer if you need to
Or just get in line and I'll grieve you
Can I meet you, alone
Another night and I'll see you
Another night and I'll be you
Some other way to continue
To hide my face

Another knife in my hands
A stain that never comes off the sheets
Clean me off
I'm so dirty, babe
The kind of dirty
Where the water never cleans off the clothes
I keep a book of the names and those

Only go so far to bury them
So deep and down we go

They exchanged looks, then smiled.

"I can work on some chords for that" said Ray.

I grinned, getting excited.

They read all my songs. Destroya, I Never Told You What I Do For a Living, You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison, Thank You For The Venom, even Dead!, the song I was writing on detention.

The guys were so happy. They spent the entire day complementing me and creating the melody to the songs. Having the support of my friends made me more confident.

In the evening, we were just laid on the floor, in silence, too lazy to do or say anything. I was almost sleeping when I heard Frank's voice.

"I got Chemistry tomorrow. With the Jocks and Ashley and stuff."

"Good luck." Said Mikey.

"You'll need it." Ray complemented. I laughed.

"You know" Frank sat on the floor. "It's so unfair that we got detention and they didn't."

"Yeah. But what were we supposed to do?" I asked. "The principal would never prejudice his perfect hockey team."

We all remained in silence for a while. Frank was the one to speak again.

"I want revenge."

Ray, Mikey and I sat down and stared at him.

"What do you mean?" Ray asked.