The Ocean's Enigma ♡ Frerard

XVIII; Visions of Desperation

We're back! And the ending is so close...
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Gerard looked tirelessly through the remnants of the night. He scoured whichever places he could think of, revisited them when he began to run out of options, and submerged into the crowds of familiar nightlife in hopes of detecting one recognizable face within the sea of many. He searched the places the darkness touched, robbed by tender sunlight or the artificial florescence of street lamps bleeding orange over the roads and the asphalt. Perhaps he'd discover Frank twirling underneath the lights strung through the trees to the tune of the live music floating across the boardwalk to the evangelical lighting bathing restaurants and gift centers so splendidly that tourists couldn't help being drawn to them.

Unlike Gerard's desperate hopes, the boardwalk was barren of the gleaming presence of the man he searched for far and wide, the realization slowly beginning to puncture the heart that was filled to the brim with joy and adoration mere hours before the disappearance of the ocean's angel. The despair grinding his adrenaline into dusty residue slowly cut through his rapidly beating heart and encouraged him to stop making a fool of himself by hopelessly begging the people he'd crossed paths with to inform him if they'd seen Frank, offering a description of his appearance and offering the single photograph living in his phone. Neither one could recall seeing him, sinking Gerard's heart deeper into his gut with each failed attempt to locate the man he loved. Soon, he came to the agonizing conclusion that he wouldn't find Frank anywhere at any time that night. Frank has vanished into thin air.

Gerard slumped onto the uneven sands at the beach for the third time that night. His legs were giving into his mind's exhaustion. He hadn't been able to stop himself from taking a moment to rest, his thoughts didn't staple to his own wellbeing while running through crowds and exploring the entire expanse of the private beach he'd last remembered Frank lingering at. The terrible waves of anxiety began to pulsate through his gut, giving a stirring motion there that developed into nausea. He held in his urge to give into the sickly feeling as he stared out into the massive ocean sparkling pitch in the silvery spotlight of the moon. He searched for the answer inside of the waves as he always did during times of distress, but he discovered there was no solution pushing against the shore he resided on.

Gerard felt betrayed by the ocean's silence. In the same movement, he couldn't blame her for being yet another piece of the earth that didn't contain Frank's presence, because some spiteful part of the universe made his whereabouts a mystery to every living thing. His heart, sickened by the contusions and undergoing the inability to mend, wept for the loss he met, and he wished to cry out to the heavens to pleads for reasons why and how this separation occurred.

Following soon after his heartbreaking thoughts was the insecurity that Frank changed his mind when Gerard retreated for some time to settle with the sudden plan to leave behind the only life he'd known thus far. It was possible Frank realized he couldn't bear to cause Gerard any unhappiness and took it upon himself to dive into the ocean without a farewell, never to be seen again no matter how Gerard would pray to the ocean to return him to his side. If such a possibility was the truth, bitterness curled tightly under the lacerations in Gerard's aching heart.

Selfishness was out of character for Frank, however. He wouldn't tear himself away from Gerard without preparing him first— at least, Gerard clung to his hopes that it couldn't be true. There was no chance of him accepting it so soon when there was still the possibility Frank would return, and all healing could commence for their happiness to continue on as they once attempted to reach it. The longer his sluggish brain pushed the thoughts from his mind, the more relentlessly they entered again, tormenting Gerard deeply.

"He wouldn't leave me like this." Gerard tremulously said out loud, as though it would provide some sort of finality putting an end to the creeping dread trickling loudly at the back of his brain like the mocking sound of a leaking faucet in a time for silence.