Spectrum (Frerard, Petekey)

27: There's A Lot Of Crying In This Chapter

Ray just somehow, magically, always seemed to understand, and Frank was beginning to question if Ray Toro was the only truly kindhearted understanding person in the world, but most of all, he was just generally insanely thankful to have the guy as a friend. And of course, that Ray wasn't moving to the other side of the fucking country.

He was always going to have Ray. He just wasn't in love with Ray, so that seriously sucked, because the person he was in love with, was indeed about ninety percent sure that she was going to fuck off to California.

And sure, it wasn't like it was Japan or anything, but still, it was too fucking far away. Frank sometimes struggled with Gee living in a different house to him, as fucked up as that sounded, and honestly he didn't know how the fuck he was supposed to cope with California.

He was fucked up, more fucked up than usual. It wasn't Gee's fault by any means, but he hadn't fucking needed this, perhaps he'd had some hope of getting to a place where he was both doing well mentally and being okay with himself, but that was now all thrown back into his face, due to fucking California.

But still, it wasn't Gee's fault. And Frank knew that.

And Frank knew he shouldn't have been pissed off with her, but it was hard to control his fucking head sometimes, a lot of the time, truth be told, and he was fucking sorry, but he kept slipping up - it was like he was desperately trying to get everything together but all the pieces of his life kept slipping through his fingertips, and goddamn he fucking wanted to relapse, goddamn he fucking wanted coke more than anything in his life.

And as heartless as that sounded, it was one of the main reasons he was hanging out with Ray, because Ray didn't know, and he didn't want Ray to know, and therefore, as long as Ray was with him, he could be certain that he'd do nothing more than some pot, and even still, chances were that Ray would tell him it was a bad idea.

Ray was a fucking good friend.

And Ray wasn't moving to California.

And Ray's parents were nice people.

Frank didn't even think he'd ever really met Gee's parents. However, he didn't really want to, but still, meeting someone's parents meant something, the significance of a relationship, like sure, it seemed like Gee was even closer with Frank's mum than he was, but fuck- fuck, fuck, what relationship did they even have anymore now that California was involved?

Of course, they hadn't specifically broken up, and Frank didn't want them to, and he didn't think Gee wanted them to either, but still, his head was all intrusive thoughts and ridiculous worries, and he'd smoked at least eight cigarettes since he'd ran out the house and over to Ray's.

They were sat on Ray's roof.

Something Ray had told him was the worst idea in the world, but Frank had seen the ladder up to his attic, and had asked, and Ray had explained that you could get onto the roof from his attic and one of his mums had reached up there to get a football off that some kid had kicked onto their roof.

Frank had been intrigued by the idea, and practically rushed up there, disregarding all health and safety and leaving Ray to follow after him and hope to fuck that this wasn't how they died.

At least, it wasn't entirely a total death trap, in that the part of Ray's roof his attic led out onto was flattened off and was actually okay to sit on top, as long as you didn't really get up and start moving, so they were fine or something like that, anyway, the sudden risk of death seemed to take Frank's mind off Gee a little, so Ray reckoned that maybe it was for the best.

Frank had really worked himself up, and Ray didn't blame him; he loved her and it was a lot to take in, and maybe him sitting on his roof and smoking the whole world away was a much better alternative to yelling at Gee until she went away to California with a determined hatred for him.