Kill All Your Friends (My Chemical Romance)

N°3

"So you're dead." I said the words slowly as I sat on my duvet across from Mikey Way, who sat in my desk chair seemingly real.
"Yes."
"So how am I talking to you? How can I see you?" I leaned forward a bit to see if he would change, if I would see a crack in his image. But I didn't.
"Well, I'm not quite sure, if we're honest. I was simply following my mom, making sure she wasn't waltzing into a crazy house, and then you saw me." He shrugged and started tossing a small stress ball in the air and catching it. He wore a thoughtful look on his face. "I'm more real around you. I can interact with the living world."
"So are we somehow connected?" I wondered out loud. The paranormal might as well have just been normal for all I cared in that moment. I had made a friend, regardless that he was dead, and now I wanted to know how this worked.
Mikey startled me with an answer. "I think you needed me."
"Bold assumption." I snorted.
"Is it?" He caught the ball and leaned forward to peer up at me. "Because I can't think of any other reason."
"Can your mom see you?" I asked.
He was silent.
"What about Gerard?"
Still silence. I didn't say anything else and we simply sat there wondering how I was talking to a dead person.
"Maybe you're dead, or dying." Mikey startled me out of my head. "Maybe not completely, but maybe a little."
"I'm not going to believe that." I said firmly.
Mikey shrugged. "Believe what you want. We'll figure it out eventually." He went back to playing with the ball.
I pulled out my laptop and start scrolling through Instagram, even if it's just a distraction. I see Green Day is on tour again. Strangely enough, I have a new message request. I click it and the user is '.he.wentz-that_way-' The message read, "Hey, Ryan said you were asking about Mikey?"
I accepted it and typed out a response. "Yeah. Do you know anything"
The reply was fast. "Probably more than the average person. I'm Pete btw"
I glanced up at Mikey. "Did you know a guy named Pete?"
Mikey froze. "Yeah... he uh, we were close."
"How close?" I asked testing the waters a bit. I didn't want to piss off a dead person.
"He was my boyfriend." Mikey shrugged.
"Oh." I looked at my computer, hesitating for a moment before I typed out a response for Pete. "Do you wanna meet later? I think I'm going crazy."
"Yeah before school Monday" Pete texts crazy fast.
•••
Monday morning was cold. Really cold. And Pete was late. Although, I guess we never said a time, but I figured it would be kind of early for something regarding your dead boyfriend and a best friend that's a ghost. Pete showed up 10 minutes before school was supposed to start wearing about three sweatshirts, Captain America pajama pants, a brown messenger bag, and bunny slippers. He had a grey beanie over his visibly greasy hair that reminded me of Mikey. Maybe it was Mikey's.
"I've seen Mikey." I blurted out without thinking. So much for first impressions. "Like, as a ghost. He talks to me. He said you were his boyfriend."
"I didn't know he thought I was his boyfriend." Pete blushed looking away. "It was kind of casual; he wasn't even out of the closet when he..." He trailed off with a shakey breath.
I felt as if a boulder had been lifted. "So you don't think I'm insane?"
"Actually, I do." My heart lodged somewhere in my throat. How do I know? It felt as if I would throw it up. "But Mikey tended to like insane people," Pete paused to gesture to himself, "So it's not so far fetched."
"Thank God!" I exclaimed.

"You seem pretty chill about talking to the dead." Pete laughed sitting down and pulling a breakfast burrito out of a messenger bag. "Want one?"
I nodded, and he pulled out a second one. How many he had, I didn't know. It felt rude to ask. "I think I've done it before."
"Really?" Pete looked surprised.
"It's blurry, but I have this memory. I always thought it was a dream..." I furrowed my eyebrows as I tried to remember. "My grandmother's funeral. She had talked to me. Told me not to miss her, not to be sad."
"Dude, so you're like a necromancer or something!" Pete exclaimed balling up his burrito's paper, tossing it to a garbage can, and missed. When he missed he looked faraway and deadpanned, "My aim is as straight as I am," before pulling out another burrito.
I laughed a little. "I guess so."
"Why would Mikey wanna talk to you though?" Pete wondered out loud. "No offense, you seem pretty cool, but he was just so shy."
I shrugged, looking down at my clothes. I was wearing an oversized olive-green Green Day sweatshirt, because merchandise was essentially my entire wardrobe, Van high tops, striped leggings, and a dark purple skirt. "He seemed kind of lonely."
"He hated being alone." Pete looked up at me with a pained expression. "He overthinks things too much."
"I could tell." I started to relax. Mikey just wanted company. I've watched too many horror movies. "Do you think he just wants a friend, or should I be worried about a horror movie plot?"
"You should be fine." Pete had a smirk and a far away look about him as he balled up the paper of his last burrito. "Mikes never hurt a fly."
I nodded just as the warning bell rang for home room. "Hey, do you wanna hang out later?" Pete asked standing up.
"Sure, burrito boy."
"See you later, Capulet." I chuckled in cheap appreciation of his literary joke and slowly walked to home room. Ryan Ross, wearing a different scarf than Friday, gave me a wary glance. I decided I'd tell him some kid played a prank on me later.