Anatomy Of A Fall |Frerard

Chapter 10

The next day, they all trekked out to the gorge and Frank waved a hand out sardonically over the empty air.

"Behold my tomb," he intoned sepulchrally, and Gerard winced.

"Fuck," Ray said, rubbing his arms, peering down through his hair. "Jesus fuck, Frank, how'd you end up down here?"

"What, you want the whole sordid story?" Frank asked, smirking. He sat down at the edge of the cliff, kicking his feet as Gerard wrestled with the fishing line. He'd asked if Frank could bring a piece up, but Frank had gone sullen and sharp, told Gerard that he'd have fucking moved his own body where it'd have been found if he could have, he's not that fucking dumb. Best he could do was move some rocks around, protect his body from the river a little.

Gerard tried not to be hurt. The bitterness in Frank's voice wasn't for him. He knew that. He did. He'd just... Anyway, he'd thought that might be the case, so he had a little basket thing he'd found in the house, and a fishing pole from the garage. He could lower the basket and maybe he'd ask Frank to go down and move that for him instead, if Gerard couldn't snag anything himself.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want," Ray was saying earnestly. "But, I mean, did you fall or something?"

"In a manner of speaking," Frank said, picking up a rock and chucking it across the gorge. "Yeah, you could say that. I fell."

Gerard bit his lip until he tasted blood, and then he gave up. "Frank," he said, staring at the snarled fishing line in his hands. They'd kissed here, right on this ledge, but he couldn't think about that now.

"Oh, come on, Gee," Frank said coolly, leaning back and looking over his shoulder. When Gerard glanced up, he raised an eyebrow, smirked. "You're a smart guy. You have to have guessed."

"Not the details," Gerard replied quietly. "I thought you didn't want to talk about it." But that sounded like an excuse, now. He hadn't wanted to look at the whole picture. He was a coward like that. He didn't know if he could bear knowing the details. But Frank knew them—had lived and died by them. Gerard could at least face that it had happened.

"Go on, then," Frank said, staring at him. "I'll fill in the holes as you go."

Gerard lay down on his stomach at the cliff edge, looking down. Frank was next to him, radiating cold air, and Gerard could feel him staring. Gerard didn't want to say anything. He started lowering the wicker basket, swallowing.

"Your neck was broken," he said, lowered the basket another couple feet. "Someone—probably more than one—person attacked you. I think—from, uh, some of the things you've said, that maybe they didn't mean to murder you? But they did, even if it wasn't on purpose. And they covered it up. Threw your body in the river." It was hard to keep his voice from shaking, and he couldn't see anymore, eyes too wide to keep the tears in. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd known that was how it'd happened, but he'd never articulated it, even to himself. Fuck. Fuck.

"Gold star," Frank replied into the silence, startling Gerard. The basket snagged on an outcrop when he jerked his arm, and he bit his lip, tried to concentrate.

"I knew you didn't run away," Ray said quietly, and Frank shrugged at him.

"Fuck," Bob said succinctly. "Who did it? They should have been arrested. They should be in fucking jail. Intent or not." And Ray looked distraught and horrified and angry, pacing and wringing his hands. Gerard just felt numb and terrified. It was like the world had been broken somehow, jagged and treacherous.

He drew in breath to speak, and then Frank cut him off. "Christ, you're taking a fucking ice age over there. Let me help you with that." And without further ado, Frank jumped off the cliff.