Another Reason To Live (Watty Awards 2014)

Chapter 29

Chapter 29:

“Well, here you go.”

He stepped to the side to get out of my field of vision.  I scanned the contents and nodded absent-mindedly, pursing my lips.  It was just like I suspected.

“So I’ve come to a rather abrupt conclusion: it appears that almost all of your clothes are black.”

“Are you really surprised by that, though?”

“Oh, of course not,” I quickly replied.  I brought my thumb nail to my mouth and began to bite it.  “I’m just trying to decide what my parents will like the best.”

We both stood there for a few silent moments, side by side, looking at the clothes hanging in his closet.  Tonight was the night we’ve both been anticipating since before the accident.  My parents would finally meet Gerard properly, and Noah would finally be able to meet him as well.  Somehow, I didn’t think that arriving in a Metallica t-shirt would impress my mother too much.  Maybe my dad, but I doubted my mom.

“Wait a second,” Gerard mumbled.  He stepped forward and searched through the sea of black until he pulled out a dark, navy blue t-shirt.  The collar came to an extremely shallow V, and it didn’t have a design on it.  “I almost forgot about this shirt, I had to wear it to my GED ceremony.”

He held it against himself, lining it up with the dark shirt he had on.  He looked down as he did so, making his even darker hair fall in front of his face.

“That actually looks really nice,” I commented, picturing him with it on.

If you haven’t caught on yet, I was at Gerard’s house, helping him pick out an outfit for tonight.  We had about ten minutes before we had to leave, so we were doing last minute preparations.  The shirt was pretty much perfect for this occasion; it was dark, but not black, and it didn’t have a band reference on it.  Parental disapproval was nearly impossible now.

He looked up with a small smile on his face.  “I think so, too.  I’ll go ahead and wear this, then.”

“Okay.  I’m just going to-” I started, but I was interrupted by Gerard’s sudden decision to change his shirt right then and there.

I swear to God, his sudden confidence boost recently would be the hypothetical death of me.

He turned his back to me and faced his closet, yanking his t-shirt over his head, revealing his pale torso.  I sucked my lips into my mouth as the movements of his arms moved some of his more prominent back muscles.  Not that he was overly muscular, but he was thin enough where you could see the outlines of some back muscles.  I froze, however, when I saw a faint pink outline of a scar from his accident, stretching from his left side and making its way towards the front of his body.  But before I could look at it closely, the navy shirt covered it up.

Gerard turned back around and held his arms away from his sides a few inches so I could get a proper look.  “What do you think?”

I released my lips and examined the shirt. You should’ve left the shirt off.  “To be completely honest, it looks great on you.”

He smiled and put his hands back at his sides.  “Thank you, Scar.  Should we get going, then?”

The replacement of his shirt messed up his hair, but he seemed oblivious of it.  Some strands were going horizontal where they were supposed to fall vertically, and it didn’t appear that he would fix it between now and when we got to my house.

“Just one last thing before we leave,” I said slowly.  Walking up to him as slowly as I spoke, his eyes were glued to mine.  He seemed frozen, watching me as I approached him.