The Artist (Frerard)

Chapter 29

Gerard's POV (Age 14)

Standing in the doorway of Matt's house, – which was several times bigger than mine – I waved at my Mom as she walked down the road to where my Dad was in the car. For me this was a big deal, sure I was fourteen and everyone else had had sleepovers before, but I hadn't and I couldn't wait, my first night without my parents, staying with my best friend, what could go wrong? Little did I know of course that, 'what could go wrong?' was without a doubt the worst thing I could have thought, it was the worst thing you could ever think without knocking on wood first. I was hoping to have a wonderful time, my first sleepover, my best friend and we had the house alone until eleven, we could play our music and our games as loud as we wanted.

For best friends, Matt and I were unbelievably close, we were like brothers, only our relationship was so different to mine with Mikey; we were best friends but better. Sometimes I wondered if maybe, as we were both as gay as gay could be and absolute best friends, maybe we were really like a relationship. We probably were in many ways, we knew each other so well, we spent all our time together, we even held hands sometimes, but it felt weird to take it any further than that, because sometimes I saw other people too. It got really intense too though sometimes, because it felt so awkward, sometimes he would seem like he was trying to kiss me, I felt like he really wanted it and I felt so bad to let him down, like I was the one stopping this from being a relationship. But we had been friends for so long, I didn't want to lose that, we were only fourteen.

Virtually as soon as my parents had gone and Matt and I had taken my bag to his room, his Mom called him downstairs, "We're going to go now boys." She smiled at us glancing up at the clock on the wall, before kissing Matt's forehead, which he had always hated but I thought was really cute, "It's almost eight so don't go out, we'll see you boys later." She smiled ushering Matt's Dad out of the door as she waved goodbye to us sat at the bottom of the stairs. My parents didn't leave me alone very often, but that was because they didn't like leaving me alone and Mikey hated being left with just me. Being without parents was really cool to me, I knew Matt's parents left him a lot, but my parents never left especially when I had friends around.

"So Gee, I had an idea." Matt grinned naughtily grabbing my hand, pulling me onto my feet and running up the stairs with me behind him. Matt always had ideas and they got him into trouble a lot too, I found them amusing most of the time, but sometimes he said he was going to do stupid stuff, like drugs just because others did, that wasn't so cool. Maybe his problem was that he didn't want to be cool, but at the same time he did. He'd say he didn't want to be cool, he didn't want to be with the 'cool kids' but he wanted to be seen as a rebellious outcast, he wanted to be the kid who is really cool, but chooses not to be in with everyone else. That wasn't the same for me, I just valued the friends I had and kept them close to me, because life is better with people by your side, drama is a waste of time. Then again, a lot of people told me I thought far too much and I was a little too philosophical for a fourteen year-old.

"Okay sure." I nodded sitting on the bed by his side and taking off my jumper, his room was unbelievably hot, "I'll do whatever you want." I smiled watching as his smile widened into a happier and relieved smile. Most of the time my view was that you can't say no until you've tried it; you can't dislike something until you've given it a shot. Matt knew what sort of things I would and wouldn't do, he knew I would never do drugs, that it would take him hours to convince me to smoke or drink and he knew I'd do anything which wasn't stupid, I trusted him not to push my boundaries.

Playing games stuff like truth or dare and being dared go out when his Mom told us not to and doing stupid or 'inappropriate' things were fine, I didn't mind but it was only the really over aged stuff. If he asked me to sneak into a strip club of course I would, if he asked me to go to the bar and get a drunk man to buy me a drink, then that's when I would turn around and say no and I was sure he knew my limits. We had been friends long enough, we were close enough to know what we each wouldn't do, I sure as hell knew everything he would do a.k.a everything and what he wouldn't a.k.a anything sensible. That was how our friendship was, he was stupid and reckless, I was like the aunt who pissed about and had fun until it got too pathetic, then decided it was time to stop. Some would say I was sensible, I wouldn't go that far, I was just a killjoy for the really stupid stuff. Matt on the other hand, he would do anything, you asked him to jerk off in public and he would, you told him to sit in a tree and spit on people who walked by, you could bet your ass he would do it.