Before Killing Was Cool ➊ FRERARD

23: Stomachaches

C h a p t e r | T w e n t y - T h r e e

Present Day - Frank

"Can you tell me what happened, Gee?" I finally break the silence that's been thick in the air for around four minutes as I drive in the dying down rain.

He hasn't even looked at me yet. He leans his head against the window and pulls his sleeves over his hands. "I fell asleep next to you... I woke up in the cemetery."

We've got a long drive ahead of us. The dashboard clock tells me it's well past midnight and sleep is heavy on my mind. Since the storm has almost passed, it's a blessing for the road conditions so I don't have to concentrate so hard on what's in front of me. I can let my mind wander and consider all the events of tonight.

"Do you think someone took you there?"

That's the logical explanation. People don't just teleport to locations they've never even been to before. Gerard visibly racks his brain, trying to conjure up a solution to this impossible equation.

"There was nobody else there," he insists, "I woke up totally alone. And why would anybody do that, take me all the way up there then vanish?"

"But you couldn't have just walked." I cut in.

"Of course not. It's hundreds of miles." More thinking passes through his expressions, a million unattainable ideas beyond the realm of basic laws of physics. "It's like I blinked and I was just there, as if I skipped through time and space."

There's no such thing. "That's delusional."

Gerard shrugs and continues, "I don't know what happened." His voice is dead, void of emotion, reminding me of the time he almost wished me to shoot him. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

I can't help but wonder if it's my fault. Everything awful that's happened to the innocent boy beside me in the past few months I've known him has been at my hands. He's emotionally distressed being away from Mikey and his regular life, mentally scarred from the multiple times I hurt him, and now he sounds empty, like I've broken him down and he's been built up again as a drone incapable of happiness.

We're sitting ducks - what do we do if we're not running or dying? How do we go home without this purpose?

"Are you okay?" I finally ask, a question that I should've started with.

He appears troubled and caged off. "I'm not hurt."

"That's not what I meant," I oppose. I'm not thinking of the physical side of things and he knows it. I sigh, my hands tightening around the steering wheel when he doesn't respond. "It's gonna be hours until we get back..."

"I don't feel much like singing," he comments weakly.

"That's okay." I switch on the radio. The late-night stuff is mostly reserved for insomniacs and travelling night-shift workers, something I'm not familiar with. I pick an obscure station so we can listen and ignore the uncomfortable silence.

"...Ending at oh-six-hundred this morning, Ts and Cs apply. Next up is a request: this is an exclusive acoustic issue of 'Grand Theft Autumn / Where Is Your Boy' by New Jersey based pop-punk band Fall Out Boy."

A man starts singing but it doesn't fill the car like I hoped it would. Gerard stares blankly out the window at the trees that pass. Just as we're approaching a turn, I start to bounce my left leg in unease, restless at the horrific silent treatment. I wish I could be asleep in a warm bed to escape it.

"'I could be an accident but I'm still tryin'...'" I switch it off and the voice is sliced and culled.

"I can't read your mind," I say, "it's driving me crazy."