Worth Living For

Chapter 17

~Frank’s P.O.V.~

A week had gone by since I last saw Delilah. Three weeks had gone by since I last saw Gerard. A month had gone by since I last saw Ava. I was losing my mind.

I had gone to work all week, sat through painful interviews with artists I hated, knowing I would give anything for it to be Gerard sitting in that chair in front of me instead. I came home from work every night, stood in front of the easel in the middle of my living room. The same blank canvas has sat on the easel for days. I would stand in front of it until my eyes grew heavy and I couldn’t stand to stay awake any longer. I couldn’t paint. I just didn’t have the strength any more.

I had to see Gerard. I knew I couldn’t paint him anymore because I had been away from him for too long. He was my passion, my art, and I couldn’t replace him with a painting. It just wasn’t right. I needed to see him, to be in his presence. I craved it. And I couldn’t go another minute without it.

I dragged out my dusty phone book and sat on the floor in the middle of the living room, in front of my easel. It took me awhile to pull his last name out of my memory, but I did. I flipped to the back of the book, running my index finger down the pages, over all of the names, until I saw his.

His name caught my eyes just like it had on the list full of artists. My heart jumped when I found it, and I swear I held my breath for at least two minutes.

Moving my gaze from his name to his address, I saw something that looked familiar. It took me a minute to remember where I had seen the address before, but I figured it out. To make sure I wasn’t going crazy, I grabbed my wallet out of my pocket and pulled the folded up napkin out of it.

Delilah and Gerard lived together.

~

I was out of my apartment and in front of the house that had the address of both the napkin and the phonebook before my mind even registered it. I stood in front of the door for a while before I finally raised my arm and let my knuckles knock against the door.

It swung open shortly after I knocked, and Gerard stood in front of me. I could see Delilah sitting on the couch from over Gerard’s shoulder. She smiled when she saw me, but I didn’t smile back.

Gerard looked surprised to see me, but he looked happy. He must not have known that I caught him, that I found out his little secret.

“What the fuck is this?” I said quietly through my teeth. My throat was closing up and burning.

“What are you talking about?” Gerard asked, his forehead creasing.

“I asked what the fuck this is!” I threw my hands up in the air. “You didn’t seem to mention that you lived with a woman, Gerard. Am I just your little boy-toy?” my chest tightened and my stomach tied in knots. “What do you want from me? Why did you come to the interview, travel to California with me, go to my mom’s funeral? Why did you kiss me? Why did you do all these things, make me fall in love with you, when you were with someone else all along?” I closed my eyes, whispering my last question to him. “Did you ever have feelings for me at all?”

I opened my eyes after a few seconds of silence. I looked up at him, shaking my head, tears filling my eyes. I didn’t give him the chance to answer any of my questions before I turned and ran as fast as I could down the street. I heard him chase after me for a while, but the yelling and pounding of feet slowly faded until I couldn’t hear them any more.

As soon as my apartment door shut behind me, I collapsed to the floor, tears spilling from my eyes for the first time in my life.

I stayed in that same spot on the floor for hours, just crying. I screamed as loud as I could and let myself cry until there was nothing left in me. I crawled to my bedroom and onto my bed, curling up and wrapping myself in blankets.

I had been loving someone and caring for someone that never even loved me back. I had dedicated my whole life to someone and didn’t even bother to think about if they even shared the same feelings. I was the stupidest fucking person alive, for believing that he loved me. I actually believed that I would be with him for the rest of my life. How could I be so fucking stupid.

I had lost everything. I lost my mom, I lost my dad, I lost Ava, I lost Delilah, and now I had lost Gerard. And with losing Gerard, I lost my passion. I lost my ability to make art. Which meant I would probably lose my job. Then lose my house. Everything had been taken away from me in a matter of weeks, and all that I would end up with was 26 years of happy memories and the memory of a handful of weeks where it all burned to the ground.

I don’t have enough strength to keep fighting. I give up.