One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret, never to be told, eight for wishes, nine for treasure, ten for years of endless pleasure, eleven for a love so true, twelve to spend an eternity with you.
It's another one of those days, the kind that seems to have dragged on for hours before Gerard has even open his eyes for a second. It’s not even like the weather is bad, thanks to it being June he can actually leave your house without getting completely soaked or dying of sun stroke. Gerard doesn’t really even know why today sucks so much, it’s a Saturday,he doesn't have work, but now the day is just full of thumb twiddling and mild attempts at avoiding conversation with strangers.
Gerard is determined not to just sit on his ass all day today though, in fact, he's even gotten up before nine to push past the decaf coffee he bought so that he could reduce the risk of having a heart attack and dying from a caffeine overdose, only decaf is borderline blasphemy, so he never drinks it. He stares blankly out of the window as the beans percolate and then grabs milk and sugar, the lights in his eyes on, even though he's mostly still asleep. Zombie barrister, he thinks, taking the first sip, Italian roast with brains on the side.
He collapses onto the sofa ready to never move again when the coffee fails to provide him with the motivation he needs to make plans for the day, because he's an asshole who never sticks to his guns.
He thinks about how far away the remote is and about how he should probably go check up on Mrs Harte down at twenty-three later because even if she does smell of cats Gerard doesn’t want her to have died in her sleep or to have forgotten how to work the microwave; because unlike most old people she’s totally rad and is the only person Gerard can relate to in this town.
He thinks about how he hasn’t seen his brother in weeks, and how he should probably give him a call too, since texting is never really the same as hearing someone’s voice. He wonders if Mikey is still having problems with his wife or if it was just PMT or baby stress after all.
Gerard wonders which option he’s hoping for because while Alicia and Mikey used to be the cutest couple in Newark, he kind of misses having his little brother around to bitch with.
He feels guilty for resenting Mikey the way he does, for being able to actually live his life and go to parties, and still have a good job because he doesn’t have to drink every night of the week.
The jealousy is just as much of an unwelcome feeling, it's not mikey's fault Gerard’s never been able to connect to people in the way he does art, but the thing is Mikey’s fucking marriednow and Gerard’s twenty-seven and left with the realisation that he can’t rely on his baby brother for the rest of his life and that if he doesn’t want to die alone he’s going to have to actually interact with people.
Gerard's not even sure he wants to connect with anything that isn't his paints and brushes and inks. He used to have a cat called Otter and Gerard really liked that cat until it got AIDs and died.
He remembers how awful it was, having this tiny fluffy thing bouncing around his living room and sleeping on his face one minute and then the next having nothing. Gerard guesses that trying to keep hold of another human would be even harder; cause even if they didn’t die after a year or so, you can’t keep people locked up in your house while you’re out at work all day so they’d probably just leave anyway.
Not that Gerard wants to lock someone up in his apartment, that's never really been his thing. He would just like some company sometimes, maybe somebody to say they like his stupid face and squawky laugh.
