Chapter four - yellow
I think the song 'Yellow' by Coldplay suits this entire fic perfectly, and I've been listening to it a lot while writing. The mood of the song fits this chapter pretty damn well too, so I decided to name it 'Yellow' as well.
By the way, have you guys noticed that I'm naming all the chapters after colours yet? I plan to do that throughout the entire book :3
Anyway, enjoy, my awesome rainbow skittles. Enjoy.
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“So,” Gerard said, once we were both sat down on his bed and he was nibbling on a breakfast bar. He paused, not sure what to say.
“Do you live with your mom or your dad?” I asked.
“What? How did you know?”
“There are only three single beds.”
“Oh. My mom.”
I nodded. “Me too,” I half smiled.
“Is she nice?”
“Uh…” I looked up, trying to recall a time my mother had gone out of her way to be kind to me. Nothing came to mind. “Not really. She’s a big fan of the council. Obviously, I’m not. I’m going to make a wild guess you aren’t either.”
Gerard laughed. “N-no.”
“So what’s your family like?”
“Oh, they’re great. Mikey’s sweet. And my mom is awesome. If not a little… eccentric.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well… she’s just quite a unique character. I guess. She’s coming home in a few hours. If you stick around you could m-meet her.”
“Cool,” I smiled. “So, um, what’s school like here? Is it more relaxed, or what?”
“It’s more relaxed, sure. But the education isn’t great. There’s no money in teaching jobs, so nobody takes them but people who are completely b-broke. And since the teachers are all crappy, no one really bothers at all.”
“That must be pretty shit if you’re actually interested in an education.”
He looked up in surprise and his eyes lit up. “I know! Nobody cares but me!”
“Hey, I care about learning. I could be smart. You don’t know.”
“Yeah, right, the kid who s-skives off and doesn’t care is so terribly interested in getting an education,” he said sarcastically, grinning, and I shoved him and laughed.
“I just hate my school!” I said, putting my hands up to show my innocence. “I want to learn! It’s those dicks who keep trying to murder me who you should be teasing.”
His expression softened. “You too?”
I shrugged. “That’s what you get for believing in stuff, I guess.”
He sighed. “I know the f-feeling.”
“What’s up with your school?”
“Fucking homophobes.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
“I mean, I’m not gay or anything, but for fuck’s sake, everyone deserves rights.”
At that moment, I wasn’t sure what to focus on– the fact that I’d finally found a non-homophobic friend, which was really awesome, or the fact that now my heart was breaking just a little bit, because I was fucking stupid enough to think I had a chance with this boy.
What had been going through my head? He was black. A pretty important feature of a relationship was touching, kissing, holding hands at least, and I couldn’t do any of those with a black. Unless I wanted to spend the rest of my life hiding in a muddy tent with Gerard, never going to school, never speaking to anyone outside the incastum.
The picture I had in my mind of having any sort of relationship with a black that wasn’t platonic was really not that great, and involved a whole shit-ton of covering up evidence, avoiding cops, and potentially being murdered.
Wow. I really was fucking stupid.
“Frank?” Gerard said, looking at me confusedly.
“What?” I said, moving my focus back to the real world again and blinking abruptly.
“You sort of… completely zoned out.”
“Oh. Sorry. What were you saying?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t just carried on talking while I was in my own imaginary future world and I’d missed everything he’d said.
“I just said that everyone deserves rights. I’m not gay myself, but those who are should be entitled to all the same p-privileges and rights the average straight person would b-be allowed. Right?”
“Um, yeah. I totally agree.”
He stared at me for a second, then frowned suspiciously. “You don’t agree.”
Woah. What the hell kind of a hypocrite would I be if I thought that gays shouldn’t have rights? “What? No. Of course I agree. What made you think that?”
“You look awkward. Embarrassed. Kind of l-like you’re not speaking what’s r-really on your mind.”
Holy crap, this kid was clever. Shy as hell, but fucking ingenious.
“What did I say that made you… Oh,” he murmured in a sudden moment of clarity.
“What?”
“Oh. You’re…”
“What?” I asked, my voice coming out about three octaves higher than I meant it to.
“Uh, you know. Gay.”
I chewed on my lip awkwardly, embarrassed.
Gerard stared at me. “Wait. You’re not?”
I shrugged shyly. “I might be… well, no. I kind of am.”
“Well. I’m totally okay with it.”
I smiled and nodded, trying to keep my crushing feeling of forever-alone-ness inside. No one would ever want to date a gay white who believes blacks’ rights. At least I’m one of a kind.
I sighed. “I think I’m the only non-racist gay white in the history of the world. Nobody will ever like me.”
“Hey, don’t say that,” Gerard said, looking quite sad. “I’m sure you’ll find someone. You’re such a good person, Frank.”
“But no one else is. The rest of the world are bad people. Sometimes, I think. And… I really hate what this world has become. We’ve come so far in technology, in how much we know about the world, but in this society a white can’t seem to talk to black in public without one of them getting arrested or killed.”
Gerard sighed. “I know. It’s an awful world. But we have to focus on the good things–“
“There are no good things.”
“Little things. Just split seconds of happiness. Little things that matter in the moment.” He turned to his brother, who was curled up in his bed, clutching an old tattered teddy bear and snoring softly. As ill as Mikey looked, he still seemed happy and at peace while he was asleep. “We have to live in the moment, Frank,” Gerard said. “Because there’s never going to be one like this again.”
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I stayed and talked to Gerard for hours, though it only felt like a few minutes. Time flies when you’re not stuck in a shitty school full of racist homophobes, I guess.
When three o’clock arrived, I reluctantly left – only after promising Gerard that I’d come back to see him tomorrow night. I left the incastum with a twisting feeling in my stomach. This felt like a crush. Fuck.
I was happy, really. Happy that I’d found a friend. But I just felt so bad for the horrible life Gerard had been forced to live. How he would have to watch his little brother, who he loved so much, get sicker and sicker until eventually, he faded away. There was a lot going on in my heart, and my nerves were going crazy.
Seeing my mom now and going to school tomorrow was going to be shitty compared to spending the day talking to someone who was just as intelligent and open to ideas as I was.
And as well as that, I was still just a little bit terrified that someone would know that I spent my day hanging around with a black, even though all the inky marks were gone and it would be impossible for someone to have seen me since everyone I knew would have been at school.
But my heart was still beating twice as hard as usual the whole walk home, and I could still hear Gerard’s soft laugh echoing in my head. My mind was working double time, racing with thoughts like a runaway freight train. And I had a hunch that I would be feeling like this until I saw Gerard again.
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Disgusting (Frerard)
Fanfiction"There's a reason we are white and pure, and they are black and dirty. There's a reason they stain our skin. That we are shamed if others see those stains. They're bad people, Frank. They're disgusting."
