The Sharpest Lives

Chapter Eighteen: I Am Not The Singer That You Wanted

[Gerard]

I couldn't help but wonder what it was that Frank had wanted to tell me. I bet he hadn't heard half of my big speech, but…when he opened his eyes…I felt like…I just couldn't describe it. The relief was so strong, I felt light-headed. I hadn't expected it, with him, or with Mikey.

They were going to pull through. I couldn't let myself think otherwise. I could feel it now, at least. I knew that they were going to pull through.

A voice at the back of my head, however, wondered how great the scars they would carry would be. How that would affect them. Obviously we would all never forget what had happened.

But would the scars left behind leave them with second grade lives? Had I ripped them off the track that they were supposed to live? Had my selfishness resulted in their normal lives being overturned? Every minute where the thoughts I tried to ignore slipped into focus, I couldn't help but worry about it. Their lives, a massive canvas covering in a beautiful explosion of colour and vibrance, had been stained and ruined by the miserable gray and dirty black of my narcissism.

I knew I would leave. I had to. I would clean myself up, alone, without the people I loved and cared about having to set aside their lives aside to worry about me.

The added benefit of being alone was that if I eventually failed in saving myself, I could destroy the one piece left that had started this whole mess.

I could destroy myself, and no one would have to live with that. I would just be another unidentified body in a lake, a river, the burnt remains of some murder victim. Maybe they would find out later, when they had found someone else to replace me. I couldn't be that hard to replace. There are 6 billion other people in the world after all.

Now all that remained was if I would tell Frank how I felt. If I would tell him that I was doing this for him. I didn't want to leave him with the terrible memory of me telling him how much I loved him. What if that wasn't what he wanted? He would hate me. He would hate me for making him feel like he had to reply to my feelings in some way. And I couldn't do that.

Slowly, I was piecing my plan together. I would slowly fade out of their lives, until I disappeared completely. That's what was best for us. For all of us.

I took one last look at his face. Black, blue and purple bruises bloomed on his skin like flowers. The cuts made the stems.  His eyes, the two suns that fed the flowers. I'd never forget them, his eyes; always wide with excitement and mischief, a unique hazel-green that I had always tried to replicate on a piece of paper with pencils and colours of all kinds. They never turned out right, though. I could never get the right colours, could never replicate that glint in his eye that I loved.

I sighed, and forced myself to stand. I hesitated, one foot turned towards the door, the rest of my body turned towards him. My body ached with the painful goodbye that I just didn't want to say.

One…just once, would that hurt anyone?

I inched towards the bed, my heart suddenly skipping upwards into my throat. Slowly, as slowly as I dared, I leant over him and brought my lips to brush against his. One terrified, fleeting kiss that he would never remember.

The last one.

I turned and left before I could give myself enough time to give in and stay. I'd interfered enough.

I opened the door, my mind set to go back to my room and try to find my clothes and then leave as soon as possible. But it didn't happen that way.

To luck, I am the bubonic plague.

Sitting in one of four chairs that were lined against the wall opposite the door, was the last man I wanted to see at that point. Actually, I wouldn't have wanted to see him at all. One of the perks of disappearing; I'd never see this man again.

Or so I'd thought.

"Hey," he said, a smirk tugging at the edges of his lips, "Heard they were locking you up in the madhouse."

And then he grinned, showing all of his disgusting yellow teeth, rotted away by the drugs, booze and cigarettes that he adored.

The devil's advocate.

Matt Pelissier.