I'm Not Okay (I Promise)

I Don't Feel Bad About It

Gerard's POV:

We needed a distraction. We needed the combination of Zach's locker. And we needed lots, lots of medicine.

I'll always admire Frank's courage. He volunteered to be the distraction in the following day. A little bit earlier, Mikey hid close to Zach's locker to find out his combination. Ray bought about 60 tubes of Lorazepam, and actually managed to fit everything in his backpack.

We waited till the end of the classes to put our plan in action. Frank said goodbye to us and left school to meet with the Jocks outside and make sure they wouldn't enter while we were working.

Once he was out, Mikey opened the locker and we filled it with the medicines from Ray's backpack. It took a while, but it worked.

Finally, the three of us left, leaving no clues behind. We met with Frank outside.

He was gasping, had a bleeding nose and dirty clothes.

"Worth it." It was all he said.

On the other day, we were all actually excited to go to school. I wanted to be right there in the exact moment Zach opened his locker.

The four of us were standing next to Ray's locker when the Jocks entered the corridor. They walked towards us and slapped our heads, laughing. But, honestly, I couldn't care less.

"Wait, I need to get something." Zach said. Yes, he was doing it!

Still laughing, Zach opened his locker, only to see a wave of tubes of Lorazepam falling and making a loud noise. Everybody stared at him. The Jocks stopped laughing. The corridor was pure silence.

Zach's face started getting red and he loocked around, trying to figure it out what to do. In the end, he closed his locker forcefully, making a loud noise that echoed the corridor and left with the other Jocks.

Slowly, the corridor started being noisy again. I turned to the guys. We all smiled.

During the rest of the day, Zach's story was the principal subject in school. I always walk in silence, minding my own business, which makes easier to hear everybody gossiping about it. I tried to hold my smile, but it was hard sometimes.

At the end of the day, Mikey was late (as usual), and I was waiting for him at the school's gates. I opened my backpack to get my notebook, only to realize it wasn't there. After thinking for a couple of seconds, I remembered I had last used it in History class, so it should probably be there.

I entered the school again and walked across the empty halls. Entered History classroom, and there it was: my notebook on the table. I got it and left.

And saw that the corridor wasn't empty anymore.

"WAY!" Zach screamed. "I KNOW it was you!" he got closer, walking with his fists closed.

Before I could do anything, he grabbed me by the collar. We were face to face. He was red of anger.

"I wanted to find Iero, I know it was his idea." He was so angry he was shaking.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said, calmly. He punched me in the face.

"DON'T PLAY YOUR STUPID GAMES WITH ME!!" Zach screamed. "As I said, I wanted to find Iero. But you'll do it."

I stared at him, wondering what he would do.

"You like to put things in people's lockers, huh? Let's change places, then."

Without letting me go, he kicked the closest locker, that opened right away. Then, he pushed me to come in. I struggled and he punched me in the stomach, taking my breath away.