Fever Dream || Frank Iero

.22.

FRANK

My time on stage seemed to be the only time I had a solid grasp on reality. I wanted to feel the sting of blue and red lights shining in my eyes, and the sweat sticking the shirt to my back. I knew those feelings. Unlike everything else around me, they were safe- up until the week following the night she came into my hotel room.

All I wanted was for things to go back to normal, but lately onstage I found myself feeling nothing but anger. The image of Sam's face popped into my head without warning, making my blood run cold with every smile. No matter how hard I tried to shake it and focus on playing, the second thought of myself asking why I even cared followed not a moment later. All I could do was let the aggression pour out into the performance and hope it was drained completely by the time the lights dimmed for the last time.

Pulling myself off of the ground, I wiped the sweat off of my mouth and looked behind me to see a microphone stand mangled behind me. Gerard looked over to me and mouthed "tone it down" before stepping onto the riser and speaking to the crowd to give us a short break. I tried to catch my breath as I surveyed the people around me, and my eyes landed on the opposite side of the stage.

Melissa stood leaning against the wall out of crowd view, a small pool of stage light trickling onto her face. Her arms were crossed, Jessica whispering something in her ear, though it almost seemed she wasn't listening.

The bruises on her neck began to fade by now, but there were still small purple blotches trailing down to the collar of her shirt. We hadn't spoken about what happened since, but I still caught myself wondering how she might be feeling. I kept telling myself that I didn't have time to deal with someone else's problems, so don't ask.

In the midst of her blank expression, Jessica must have said something that struck a chord because a warm smile spread across her face. For some reason I couldn't look away- and it wasn't until our eyes suddenly met that I realized I was smiling too. Her face remained unchanged other than her eyebrow raising in question at me, and I quickly lost my expression and looked back down at my guitar again.

What the fuck am I thinking? Pete is right. I have to knock this shit off, and fast.

.

The moment the show ended I barreled off of the stage, frustrated. Pete called out after me as I went through the back door in search of a beer from one of the coolers in the lot, but I ignored him and kept going. My irritation appeared out of nowhere in the middle of our set and refused to go away, and I would be lying to myself if I said I didn't know why.

"Dude, wait up," Pete said, jogging up behind me.

I grabbed two beers and immediately chugged down the first one before even looking in his direction, cracking open the second right after.

"Oh, it's going to be that kind of night? Sweet, I-"

"I need to regroup," I said, cutting Pete off.

He looked at me in confusion and grabbed himself a drink. After what happened in Sam's hotel room, it was hardly spoken of between us. Pete never held onto much- at the end of the day, all he really wanted to do was have a good time. Whether that "good time" happened to be a little callous or not never seemed to be any of my business.

"So you're finally coming back around, huh? That's the Frank I remember, thought I lost ya there for a minute," Pete smiled.

"She's too comfortable with me now."

"Isn't that kind of what you want?"

"No," I said, half lying. The fact that it's a little of what I wanted was the reason I was so annoyed in the first place.

"Well what's your plan then?"

I looked over and saw Melissa walk out of the back door with Jessica and Gerard. She stretched her arms up in the air and closed her eyes as Jessica spoke, a breeze brushing the hair off of her shoulders. Gerard said something to her as he bumped his elbow against hers, and she laughed. I got a small pitfall feeling in my stomach, and I took in a sharp breath to make it stop as I looked back over at Pete.

"We're all going to that club tonight right?"

Pete nodded.

"Then my plan is to get drunk and do what I do best," I said, chugging the rest of my second beer.

"Ah, that's my boy," Pete said, throwing his arm around my shoulder. "Tonight is going to be fun."