Like Ghosts in the Snow ▹ ▶︎ Gerard Way

▹ Frank.

▹ Frank.

"So... you know about the band, right?"

"No, Frank. I really had no idea you had a band 'til now."

Cherry was quite... something.

She was one of the biggest, most sarcastic assholes I'd ever met, and I could probably count the times I'd seen her smile on one hand. And yet, I adored that bastard more than words could ever say. It was crazy how, even if we only saw each other for a few hours while she was on her lunch break, and after she got out of work, we'd grown close to the point my day felt incomplete without her.

I suppose sneaking around like teens hiding from their parents wasn't too thrilling whenever I wanted to watch a movie or go somewhere nice with her, but it kept our friendship interesting. There was something strangely exhilarating about our hushed conversations and ducking behind anything we could find every time a car drove by (although the possibility of getting my ass beat by Cherry's 6'3 behemoth of a boyfriend was far less exciting.)

"You eatin' that?" She mumbled between bites of her burrito as she pointed at the uneaten fries on my tray.

I mean, I was initially planning to eat them. But from how she stuffed her face like it was her last day on Earth, I could tell she hadn't been eating well. So I just shook my head and pushed my tray towards her, earning one of her rare, tiny smiles.

"You have a pretty smile," I mused, but she just rolled her eyes at me.

Over the years, one thing I'd noticed about Cherry was that she didn't think she was pretty. She brushed off all of my compliments, and I'd seen how she averted her gaze in another direction whenever we walked past a reflective surface. It was almost like she was... I don't know, scared of her own reflection. And I honestly couldn't grasp how someone like her, someone who looked stunning in my eyes, could think of herself that way.

As I looked at her, sitting in front of me and awkwardly squinting as the sunlight from the window illuminated her face, I was once again reassured of how much I liked Cherry. I liked the way her dark brown- almost black- eyes looked like honey, and her skin, still showing a few tiny spots from her teenage acne, looked like gold under the sunlight. And even if I gave her shit for it, I liked even her shitty, asymmetrical hair.

But we were just friends, and she had a boyfriend.

Besides, our friendship was too good to ruin it with romantic feelings.

"You're spacin' out," she chuckled with that sweet, almost boyish rasp of hers. "And you're freaking me out, dude. You're staring at me with that "serial killer from a shitty 80s movie" look."

"Got distracted by your beauty," I playfully winked at her, but as expected, she just rolled her eyes and flicked my nose. "Also, you have a big-ass strip of lettuce on your cheek."

I reached forward and brushed my thumb over her cheek, and though she tried to play it cool, I noticed Cherry tensed at my touch. And I guess I didn't blame her because I'd seen her bruised and battered enough times to realize that I was probably the only guy in her life who didn't use her as his personal punching bag.

"Anyway, you were sayin' something about your band?" Cherry quickly switched subjects, her eyes darting from my face to the window beside her.

"Oh, right. Uh, we're going on tour!"

Although I was ecstatic by the news, I couldn't help but feel a little... guilty? The last time Cherry and I had been apart for more than two or three days was during my college exams, and we both hated it. So I really had no idea what being three months apart would do to us.