Gerard had been eighteen when he had received the scars, and he hadn't slept with anyone since.
Frank had been fourteen at the time, a lively, energetic little rascal that spent his days skipping school and smoking in the woods with his motley crew of friends. He had befriended Mikey when he had been kicked out of his catholic school for his absences and sent to the local public high school which the youngest Way had attended. Mikey had been fifteen and put in charge of making sure Frank settled in and went to at least the majority of his classes. The two boys, though different in many ways, had been inseparable from day one, and when Frank met Gerard the three boys became closer than ever.
Gerard had always known he was gay, and he had always been open about it. His family were loving, understanding. No one cared that he had got his first boyfriend at fourteen and started having sex at fifteen. He was happy and healthy and people adored him...
Frank adored him.
Frank hadn't been instantly attracted to Gerard. The Iero kid, as Gerard fondly called him, was very much into girls. It was only at seventeen during a drunken fumble with some guy at some party that he realised there was a whole other side to sex that he could explore. And at first that was all it had been about. Frank hadn't considered himself anything other than straight, but when he got his first real boyfriend he had discovered he could really care for guys just as intimately as girls and he figured he was bisexual. Gerard and Mikey had hardly been surprised when he told them, and it had become just as unimportant as Gerard being gay was. None of them cared who the others slept with, just so long as they were happy.
But of course. Gerard hadn't been happy then. He hadn't been happy since the first year that Frank knew him. Gerard had gone through a phase of sleeping around at seventeen, but the winter of that year he had met a boy and he had fell in love. They stayed together for a year, and when Frank first met him they had been together then. Frank never met the boyfriend though, for only three months after he had started attending Mikey's school Gerard was attacked.
Gerard was attacked by his boyfriend.
Frank didn't know the details of the fight. Hell, he didn't think even Mikey knew. Gerard didn't like to talk about it, and he despised people bringing it up. All Frank knew was that the 'perfect' boyfriend had not been everything he was cracked up to be. In fact, whenever alcohol got involved he was a monster. And so one night Gerard's parents had had to rush to hospital, Mikey sent to Frank's to sleep over whilst doctors fought to save his brother's life. Gerard had overdosed on heroin that had been forced into his system by his partner, in the scrabble to get out of the house he had fought with him and Gerard had been left with scars down the left side of his face.
Frank could remember it all like it was yesterday. Mikey had been terrified all night, confused to what was going on. Frank had been allowed to come with him to visit Gerard in the morning, the four, straight lines that went down his face had been red then, freshly stitched. Frank wasn't sure if they had been caused by the boy's fingernails or a knife, or maybe even something different. Either way, they were there. And Gerard hated them.
After that the eighteen year old had become a recluse. He never went out, he hated visitors. It had taken him a full six months before he even let Frank and Mikey hang out with him in his room again. The scars had been a little distracting at first, but as years went by they became just another feature and Frank didn't even notice them anymore. But he knew when Gerard looked in the mirror they were all he saw, and hadn't been able to hold down a relationship because of them.
God knows he had tried. As Frank and Mikey got older and started being able to go out clubbing like the teenagers they were, they had insisted on dragging Gerard with him. He had despised it of course, but he did try his best. Plenty of guys had shown an interest in him, and sometimes he'd disappear with them but he'd always come back far too soon. He couldn't trust anyone, he was too afraid to let anyone close to him, even for a night. Not even Mikey was allowed to touch the scars on his face, and Mikey was his world.
It had been upsetting for a while, but it soon just became a part of everyday life. Gerard had changed and that was how it was, how it would always be. Frank and Mikey continued living their lives; they went to college, got jobs. Mikey got a serious girlfriend; he had started talking about getting engaged. Frank dropped in and out of relationships with men and women but he was always happy, and though Gerard continued living silently on the sidelines, getting a career as an illustrator where he could work from his own home, he was still very much Frank's best friend.
>X
