A Way Back Home | Adopted by Gerard Way (Book Two)

Could Be Better (57)

A/N: hi

Gerard's POV

I'm Afraid

It's 7PM and I haven't left my room
I'm afraid
There's nothing for me to find if I leave my bed to be unmade
It's 10PM and I ate for the first time today
I drank green tea
I drank black coffee because green tea wasn't strong enough
It's 1AM and I'm shaking and I feel sick
My eyes won't close
Time goes too fast when my eyes are closed, when I'm asleep
It's 4AM and I feel alone
It's too quiet
I miss it when it was loud in my head because giving in is easier than fighting
It's 7AM and I have a future
I'm afraid
I won't be able to fill it with something more than pills and diet soda

E.M.W

• • •

I pace back and forth in Eve's room— Mikey's room, for now. I can tell he's starting to get annoyed with me, but it's late at night, Lindsey's gone to bed, and I need someone to vent to. He just happens to be a listening ear at my disposal.

"I don't understand why she hasn't answered, it's been three days." I flail my hands when I talk. The movement doesn't relieve my anxiety despite the numerous websites I've clicked off of saying that exercise is some miracle cure for thoughts that roll like sped-up end credits in my head all day, or hands that won't stay still even after a third cigarette.

Mikey, stretched out on Eve's bed that I'm refusing to call his, doesn't seem nearly as worried. "I'm telling you, Gee, there's probably a good reason for it."

"I've gone over every fucking reason it could be a hundred times already and I don't feel any better!"

"Well, yelling at me isn't gonna make her reply any quicker, is it? I told you, she probably broke her phone, or lost it. If something was really wrong, she'd use someone else's."

"She wouldn't though, that's the thing," I say, sitting on the bed. I run my hands through my hair. "She's too stubborn to ask anyone for help, and she for sure wouldn't ask Laura to use her phone."

I know her too well. Like, I know how when she plays with her hands, something is on her mind, and when she doesn't want to tell me something, she avoids looking into my eyes, and how she doesn't really like green tea. The only reason why she still ever drinks it is it became a habit.

"Well, then Laura probably took her phone away," Mikey suggests.

I shake my head. "No, Eve said that she'll only do that if her grades drop, and she's been doing really well in school lately."

"How do you know?" he asks inquisitively, sitting up from where he was previously lying down against the backboard.

"'Cause that's what she told me."

"Gee," he says carefully, "you don't think she might be—"

"She's not lying," I say firmly. "I know we've had issues with that before, but she promised she wasn't gonna lie to me anymore, and I believe her."

Mikey puts his hands up, "Okay, okay. If you believe her, so do I."

He doesn't sound so sure to me, but I give him the benefit of the doubt.

He's been living here for over three weeks now. At first, I really thought it'd just be a few nights. Then he started bringing things over from his apartment, putting them all over Eve's room, calling the space his own even though, in my mind it'll never be anyone else's but her's. If we hadn't turned the guest bedroom into a nursery, he'd be sleeping in there.