Playground [Frerard AU]

FOURTEEN

There's a strange glory in doing something which you were told not to by someone you don't like. Telling my grandma that her son was trying to reconcile his withering relationship with his oldest child was definitely one of these somethings. But while glorifying it did make things a little complicated. She kept making little lists of pros and cons. There were never many pros.

I kept putting off contacting Gerard. I wrote stupid muddled things about him on scraps of paper, and he wouldn't leave my head, but I didn't pick up the phone. I couldn't face him possibly screaming at me, accusing me of being perverted, telling me I was vile. Or worse, saying that he wanted to kiss me again.

The early hours of the morning crept up on me like a child playing hide and seek; impossibly conspicuous but you pretended not to notice them. I lay on my back on top of my bed, clothes still on and eyes strained open. It hurt to keep them staring at the ceiling but I found it just as painful to close them. Stupid indecisive body.

I checked the time; 02:38.

I also checked my messages. Two, both from Bob. He had apologised for his drunken text ages ago and asked how I was. He obviously didn't care so like hell was I going to, sending a lifeless three-word sentence. Fuck Bob Bryar. That wasn't the sentence I sent, but it would have been funny if it were. God, that would have amused my irrationally bitter self.

My grandma thought I was ill, I think. She kept coming to my room and offering me soup and tea with a pitiful smile. I played along with her as I thought it would be easier than giving her a boring teenage spiel of my stupid problems which somehow rendered me unable to do anything. She kissed my forehead each time she came up.

When I was young I got sick constantly, and it would always make me cry even if I wasn't in pain. There was almost always something wrong with me and it was hard for me to go out and play, so I ended up being lonely and bored. Every time I had the flu, or a bout of asthma, or a stomach upset, I cried and cried and cried, and every time my mom would lie beside me until I fell asleep. She would mop at my teary eyes, push my hair out of my sweaty face, and distract me from whatever illness I was struck with. One time, when I ran out of tissues, she told me to blow my nose on the sleeve of her sweater. It was her favourite sweater, too. She didn't mind at all what she had to do as long as her boy wasn't sad.

I imagined she was lying next to me again, stroking my hair and reassuring me that mommy's here. She would tell me that maybe Gerard would come back, or that he didn't matter at all, whichever she thought was right. She always knew just what to say. She even had this little rhyme she would recite to make me laugh:

"Spider, spider on the wall,
You know you shouldn't be there at all!
You know the wall has just been plastered!
Get off the wall,
You stupid spider!"

I learned that word when I was three; our neighbour jokingly called my dad a bastard after he forgot to return her power drill, and I happened to be a few metres away. My mom wasn't too thrilled when I ran around the house the next day banging two pots together and yelling, "bastard! Bastard! Daddy's a bastard!" She wasn't too thrilled when our neighbour kept twirling her hair and giggling around my dad either. It's not my fault, he would tell my mom, I'm just cute! My mom could never stay mad at anyone for long, especially my dad and I. Even when I ran all my crayons up the kitchen wall at once, she wasn't angry at me for more than a few seconds.

I bunched up my blankets, putting pillows in all the right places so I could feel like my mom was still here. I fell asleep before dinner.

-

"You're looking a lot better this morning, sweetheart," my grandma said warmly over breakfast. I smiled sheepishly. "Maybe you should go and check on the Way boy today, if you're up to it."

"Uh..." I said wittily. "Maybe, yeah. Could I please have the butter, grandma?"

My grandma passed over the butter slowly, as though she was reluctant. "Frank, I really think you should visit him soon. Donald said he's been even more quiet than usual, and that you could probably help."

I chewed my bottom lip. Mikey was taking care of Gerard to some extent, I expected, but I couldn't argue with my grandma. She was stubborn, like Gerard. I wasn't a total pushover like my dad, but I didn't stand my ground as hard as my grandma always did no matter what the circumstances. I nodded and I scooped out butter, and she beamed at me. I didn't know if her grin was due to getting her way or her grandson finally making friends again after high school. I didn't suppose it mattered.

In the afternoon I walked to the Way's house, wishing and wishing that things with Gerard would be patched up. My hands were ice cold when they rapped on their front door.

-

do u guys miss frank's mom cuz i miss frank's mom