I Didn't Mean to Fall in Love (But I Did)

Gerard is Ruining Frank's Life

Patrick's been watching Frank skeptically for about a week. He just doesn't buy it. He knows Frank too well. Frank doesn't strike him as the kind of guy who'd have sex with someone to prove a point. He might kiss a guy or hold someone's hand, but sex is taking it a bit too far. That's verging on psychotic.

"So that thing with Aaron last week..."

"Uh what about it?" Frank asks, looking petrified. He's terrified that someone is going to find out he kind of lied, and he'll be thrown into the situation where he'll have to tell Gerard why he couldn't go through with it. The last thing Frank wants is to have to tell his best friend in the world that he's been in love with him for five years. That's a hard confession to even hypothesize let alone have to actually say it.

"Are you sure that's what actually happened?" Patrick asks. Frank looks around the room to make sure no one is there, but he doesn't know why he makes the double check. He's in Patrick's apartment for god's sake, and Pete isn't home. He's being too paranoid, and even Frank can see that.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, listen, I'm not going to tell anyone what you tell me. I don't think you slept with Aaron, because I don't think you're over Gerard enough to do that," Patrick says, "and if you tell me that you didn't sleep with him, then it'll stay in confidence, but I want to know why you lied."

"I... I didn't lie," Frank replies, "I just didn't tell the whole truth."

"You're stealing lines from generic TV scripts, Frank. Either you slept with Aaron or you didn't, and that's a matter of fact."

"Alright fine. I didn't. I couldn't. I thought of Gerard, and I imagined kissing Gerard when I was kissing Aaron and I couldn't do that to Aaron. I'd be using him, and besides, I'm not at that place yet. I'm not emotionally ready to give up my feelings for Gerard. I still think I might be on my way there, because I do really like Aaron, but I don't think that's going to happen. At least not yet. I think it's going to be a while before I'm ready to really walk away from those feelings, so yeah, I lied. I lied because I didn't want you two to give me that knowing look, alright? I'm sick of being the pity case. Every time you or Pete bring up my feelings for Gerard, you look at me like I'm this little kid, and I'm sick of it," Frank confesses.

"You could've said that. I mean, in private, not with Gerard there. You could have said that though," Patrick replies. He hadn't realized he'd been giving Frank any sympathetic faces like that, but now that he looks back on it, it doesn't surprise him in the slightest. He never knew it bothered Frank though.

"What would you have said?" Frank asks, "Do you have any idea, any fucking idea, how painful it is to know that everyone around you pities you? It is literally the worst feeling I've ever felt, and I can't do anything about it, because I fucking deserve it. I'm literally so hopeless and everyone sees that, but I can't do a goddamn thing about it. You all make jokes, and like to laugh it off, because, hey isn't it just the funniest thing in the world that Frank has a crush on his roommate, it's just a real riot, right? But I fucking crawl into my bed every night and I have to remember that everyone thinks I'm just this funny little zoo animal. It's funny to think about me as nothing more than this hormonal idiot who's in love with someone who doesn't even like him back. I'm this laughing stock! It hurts so much, because I understand that it's funny on the outside, but in the inside, being me, being so in love with Gerard that it physically hurts... that's not funny. That is literally like being burned alive every motherfucking day of my life, and I have to pretend that it doesn't hurt me more than anything in the world. I have to sit there and laugh along with you, or Pete, or Mikey, or my coworkers saying something like 'isn't it funny how Frank has this undying love for someone who doesn't love him back,' and I have to laugh because if I don't then I'll lose my mind."