Three Cheers for Sweethearts [Frerard AU]

PART II: Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5 - NOSEBLEED FOR LESS THAN 20 DOLLARS

I awoke in a bright white room. My mother and Mikey were sitting next to me, and when Mikey saw me, he nudged our mom.

"Gerard! Good, you're awake," she said.

"How long was I out?" It wasn't that long, was it?

"Ten minutes," Mikey said at the same time Mom said, "Almost an hour." I knew Mikey was right.

A doctor walked in and informed us that the x-rays (evidentially they had taken x-rays of my face before I was conscious) showed that I'd fractured my nose.

Fantastic.

They bandaged up my nose in pounds of plaster and gave me some instructions on how to keep it from getting worse. All common sense, really. They promised me the swelling would go down in a week and it would all be better by February.

Thank God it was Friday, so I got the weekend to get used to my nose feeling bigger than my face.

I was still trying to remember exactly how it'd happened, because I was only getting flashers of memory, like clips of a tape thrown together in a random order in my mind. I had next to no recollection of the incident itself.

I went home and just flopped onto the couch. I didn't feel like moving.

But I didn't get to relax for long. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I slowly pulled it out, grumbling something about not having friends.

It was from Ray. Frank said you were in the emergency room bc you fell down?

Well, when he put it that way, it sounded awfully pathetic. Not really sure what happened, but we stormed the court and somehow I broke my nose.

I sent a second message, just in case: I'm fine though.

Ray wanted all the juicy details.

From Ray Toro: were you pushed?

From Ray Toro: was it hunter?

From Ray Toro: did you seriously trip over nothing?

From Ray Toro: how did no one see what happened?

I replied to all of these the same way. I don't know. Ask Frank, he was near me so might have seen.

There was a short pause where no messages were sent, but it only lasted a few seconds.

From Ray Toro: Frank wants your number. cool if i give it to him?

Sure

It only took a couple extra minutes for the three of us to piece together what had probably happened. After I reassured them that I was perfectly fine except for the huge hunk of plaster over my face, Frank said that I was in front of him, and his first thought when he saw Hunter near me was Oh, well so much for never seeing Hunter through this whole game! as a sort of ironic thought, but he didn't think anything of it other than that it was funny. Then everything happened really fast even for him – I was suddenly on the ground, blood all over and around my face. Hunter got the hell out of there, jumping around on the opposite half of the court. Only a few people noticed I was down. Frank added that someone only thought to get me help after most people had left. Mikey drove me over to the hospital and notified our mom where we were.

Ray, during all this, obviously didn't know anything at all about what did or didn't happen, but he loved pretending that he did. He was convinced that Hunter had either tripped me or pushed me and that's why he'd run to the other side as soon as I was down.

From Ray Toro: Mikey was really pale through the whole thing. I think he was worried about you.

Once we had all of that much figured out (or at least once we assumed that everything we had figured out was accurate), Frank had to leave to eat dinner and Ray had homework to finish. So I flopped back on the couch and deliberately didn't stare at the ceiling (doctor's orders), falling into a daydream over whether Ray's theory that it was intentional was possible or not. It was doubtful, but if no one had seen it at all, it could never be proven.

I asked Mikey for his side of the story later on, out of sheer curiosity. He told me basically the same thing that I figured had happened – he didn't see it, but Frank had found Ray, who then told him after the crowd had dispersed. The one thing my brother added to the story was this: He had a really hard time with all of it. He confessed that he had had a small panic attack throughout the basketball game, and I instantly felt bad. I knew Mikey had pretty severe anxiety... I should have thought of that. He probably felt pressured to come.

Well, that hardly mattered now. It was over.

When Mikey got to the part about storming the court, he told me he truly hadn't planned to get up, but Ray dragged him along anyway. "It was nice of him, but I don't think he realized that he was not doing me a favor." Ray had let go of his hand at the bottom of the bleachers, and Mikey had to sit down for a minute to catch his breath.

Storming anything, court or otherwise, must have been Mikey's worst nightmare, what with his anxiety and his asthma. Poor kid, I should have said something.

Again, I told myself, it's over, so it doesn't matter anymore.

When Mikey stopped talking, I simply nodded. "Thanks for clearing that up. The rest of us are trying to figure out what happened... Say, does Frank have your number?"

He shook his head, so I gave him Frank's.

"Now we can add you to our group message. I think we should use it a lot more often, since we never see each other in school." I said. "It makes me feel like I'll always have people I can talk to," I added under my breath, letting fate decide if Mikey would hear it or not.

"Thanks, bro," he said, then returned to his silent state and walked away.