The Sharpest Lives

Chapter Twenty-Two: Four Years (and a Broken Heart) Later

[Frank]

I still didn't get it.

Over time, my 'love'- I don't even know why I thought of it as love in the first place- had grown into hate. What it had meant to be from the beginning.

This man…he'd killed me, he'd killed the band, and his brother…his brother was receiving the best treatment in the country. He made sure of that before he took his ass and threw himself off a bridge. Or maybe he shot himself in the head. Or went for the hanging. Tied himself to train tracks, maybe?

I'd thought about it a lot.

Mikey was actually doing spectacularly well. The worst that he had were a few scars and multiple operations to fix bones and shit that I didn't even want to think about, because it was way too complicated.

I, on the other hand, ended up much better. Everything healed okay, apart from my right leg which had to be rebroken because I tried walking on it sooner than I should have. Permanent scarring, which kind of pissed me off, considering I spent so long getting those tattoos.

I'd also been left with a dead, broken heart, but that didn't really matter.

Of course I'd thought about that day, when he disappeared and left. How he did it, we'd probably never know. Now that he was dead.

I was pretty sure he was dead. In fact, I was sure that when official news came, I wouldn't even be surprised.

I'd just be pissed that I didn't get to kill him myself, and he got the privilege instead, the little prick.

I could still remember. The horror. Ray's reaction. Bob's reaction. Mikey's reaction when he finally woke up to the news that his brother had killed himself. Wonderful news to wake up to, I'm sure.

I didn't go looking for him. I was tempted at first, of course. Eventually the temptation faded. I decided that he wasn't worth my time anymore.

Part of me, that tiny part of me that I was slowly- and successfully- starving off with pure, cold hatred, still hoped. Still wanted to find him. Still wanted to find out.

The rest of me told that part to piss off and grow some balls.

We'd all split up and done our own thing once the uproar he'd caused had died down. When he left, it was like the life had been sucked out of us. There was no way we could keep the band going. So we killed another couple thousand hopes and dreams, killed the band and went back to what our lives probably should have been in the first place. From the last I'd heard, they rest of 'em were all doing pretty well.

Bob was studying to become a pilot.

Ray was teaching guitar somewhere. I don't even know where. I don't give a fuck really.

Mikey was healing. That's all he could fucking do anymore.

Thanks for killing us all, you dickhead, son of bitch Way.

Well, not all of us had been killed. Matt lived and decided not to press charges, much to the bewilderment of everyone who didn't know him, obviously because he had so much against him anyway.

But I would never, ever forgive him for taking the coward's way out. Ever.

Me? I was walking the fine line between normal man and hobo. I just didn't give a fuck anymore. I was living off whatever money I'd accumulated being in the band, in some shitty apartment in some shitty area, in the shitty suburbs of New York.

Nobody gave a fuck about me, and I didn't give a fuck about them.

It was perfect.

I really wondered how long I could go on like this.