NINETEEN

16 2 0
                                    

Gerard was woken up near midnight by his phone. He fumbled for it, eyes bleary with sleep as he tried to see who was calling. "Yeah?" he mumbled.

"I need to talk to you. Right now. In person." Frank was clearly nervous.

"Should I come to you or are you coming in here?"

"I'll come to you. I don't want to wake Ray up."

"Okay." Gerard ended the call and put his phone back on the nightstand, rolling onto his back, waiting in the darkness for Frank to open the door.

A sliver of light appeared as the door cracked open. "Hey," Frank whispered. He shut the door, crossing the room, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

A thousand awful ideas of what Frank was going to say were racing through Gerard's mind, from a break up to Frank having cancer.

"I had a really weird dream," Frank said.

That's all? Gerard thought, almost weeping with relief. "Tell me about it," he said encouragingly, fumbling for Frank's hand in the darkness.

"It was... well, you know that hill leading up to the lighthouse that's past the downtown area of the Bay?"

"Yeah."

Frank sighed. "I dreamed it was raining – and I mean fucking pouring – and I was fighting my way up the hill. People were screaming somewhere behind me, but I couldn't turn around. I kept fighting my way up the hill. And when I reached the top, and was almost at the lighthouse, I could see a tornado, and it was headed straight for downtown. I tried to raise my hand to turn back time. I guess I thought I could stop it. Then I woke up with this weird feeling that the tornado had been my fault."

Gerard was silent, trying to process what he said. He tugged Frank by the wrist. "Come here."

Frank slipped under the blankets, curling against Gerard in the darkness. "Do you think it means something?" he whispered.

Gerard sighed. "I don't know. I was just thinking about the eclipse earlier. It was... really weird. And Mr. Cool said it lasted an hour longer than a normal one."

"What's that theory called? Cause and effect or something?" Frank mumbled.

"What about it?" Gerard gently ran his fingers over Frank's hair.

"What if... my time altering is fucking with reality?"

"Frank, I just don't know." Gerard paused, his fingers tracing along Frank's jaw. "You haven't messed with time a scary amount."

"Are you kidding?" Frank captured Gerard's hand in a firm grip, holding it to his cheek. "When I went back in time, you made me kill you."

"You never told me what happened," Gerard said.

"For one thing," Frank said, "You were straight."

Gerard giggled, incredulous. "You're joking."

"For another, more serious matter, you were paralyzed. Gee, if we saved your dad, you would have lost your grandma in an accident, and then you would have gotten in a wreck a couple years later and you'd be paralyzed. Wasting away."

Gerard sighed, a strange numbness settling in his gut. "What's something positive?"

"I kissed you."

"Did you turn me gay?"

"To quote you, 'if I was gay, you'd be my first choice.' Or something to that effect."

"I rejected you?"

"No." Frank laughed softly. "I have a feeling that if you hadn't been dying, you would have gotten a boner."

Death Is StrangeWhere stories live. Discover now