Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Princess
"Don't get happy for something given for free, because everything comes with a price, even freedom and you will have to pay for it."
Popularity is considered by a lot of teenagers in high school to be a blessing. Popularity is an open door to many opportunities in high school - one to friends, one to victories, one to gifts, one to admiration, praise, respect.
Some people are worth more than others. Some will help you to get away from mistakes and slip ups. You could blame it on someone else who was worth less than you, ruining a life in the process, but why would you care? They weren't as good as you, weren't worth as much as you, didn't have as much as you. Insignificant. Unimportant. Trash to be used and thrown away.
Popularity means that you are better than others, because you have more talent, more money, better looks, and everyone wants to be like you. Everyone wants to have what you have, no matter the price, it was either be you, be with you or have you. It was still something they could never afford. Popularity means that you are known by everyone, with your name on everyone's lips. Popularity means that you must be careful with what you say and do or repercussions will come for you and you will lose everything you ever had, everything that was handed to you on that golden platter.
Popularity means that you are surrounded by copies of yourself, clones, and they will praise and praise and praise what you are and what you do just to be kept by your side, spitting out venom when something you do is not to their taste, looking at you with fake smiles, throats filled and bubbling and spilling over the edge with passive-aggressive words to shape and reform you to their liking again. Popularity means that you must please them, always pleasing others, whether you like it or not, because it's always better to keep them than to wake up one morning and find they've turned their back on you. Because it's better to pretend to be someone (something) else than to be who you are and be thrown away.
And they said that high school years were meant to be the best years of your life.
Gerard felt so impossibly weary, like all his life had been drained out of him. He felt dead inside. He had to keep pretending he was happy with this, he had to keep smiling and keeping up the pretence, but all he was was miserable. He hated the people that just pretended to like him even though they both knew they loathed him, but the feeling was mutual. It was poisonous and toxic and all sorts of messed up but Gerard needed them to stop him from feeling alone, so he supposed it was a win-win situation.
But Gerard was losing more than he was winning anything. He was losing himself, little pieces of his soul that broke off the more time he spent with his popular friends and expecting parents, no matter how fucking hard he tried every single day to stay on top of everyone. He hated it. He barely saw his brother at school any more, his so-called 'friends' keeping him away, saying that he wasn't 'cool' or 'worth their time'. They didn't like how nerdy he was, or the way he dressed. Oh, if they only knew how alike Mikey and Gerard were, they would leave him alone. Unfortunately, Gerard could never afford to let such a thing loose. He was trapped in it his web of lies, and he just wanted to be free.
But if he broke free, then everything would be against him, him against the world, him against all the mistakes he made, against all the things he said.
Everything, and everyone, would be against him, and Gerard didn’t know if he was ready for that.
One of the good things that did come from popularity was the confidence boost; he learned how to appreciate himself. He learned how to feel good about how he looks. Jet black hair (sometimes messy and unkempt but perfect at the same time) that framed his stubble-free ivory skin, his nose that turned up ever so slightly at the end (it wasn't a pixie nose, Gerard would insist loudly, it wasn't), his long lashes and eyes that people would swear changed with every flash of hazel, some days outlined in eyeliner, other days with eyeshadow. The natural arch of his eyebrows. His infectious grin that promised mischief. The way his clothes fit just the way he wanted them to. All of these things weren't lost on Gerard. Nor were his talents, if he was being perfectly honest. He knew that he was a more than decent artist and singer. He knew all of these things. He was happy with who he was. It was who he had become that was the problem.
In his lifetime, all that Gerard had ever wanted was to be himself, not the person or object he was supposed to be. All he wanted was to talk about what he actually liked, not what they thought he liked, or what he was meant to like. He wanted to dress the way he wanted, in the clothes he wanted, not how they liked. All Gerard wanted was to be himself. He hated himself for pretending, for being so desperate to please others that he changed and lied about who he really was. He was a fraud.
The one person he could still truly trust was his brother, Mikey. Gerard had been taking care of him since he was little because their parents were at each others' throats the whole time, fighting when they should have been raising their children. Mikey was the one constant in his life that Gerard could rely on. Yet even that seemed to be changing, as even his brother was starting to turn his back on him, and Gerard was feeling more and more drained of any remnant of good in his life. All his happiness was useless materialism and expensive gifts masked as apologies, things to bury himself in and forget that he was still alive.
Now that he thought about it, Gerard had never had an easy childhood. Or life. For as long as he can remember, his parents never really got along well. He still wonders why they got married in first place, or even why they thought having children would be a good idea when they could barely stand each other. It seems to him that he was only ever an excuse to get back at each other in the pettiest ways - he was both an excuse for divorce and an excuse to keep it together. They sometimes blamed him, but they always made it up to him by buying him expensive presents he didn't want or need. It was a constant competition of who cared for him more, even though when they actually didn't,they just tried to drain each other's money and he was the excuse. Then a few years later, Mikey Way entered the world and, just like Gerard, became another excuse they cared little about. So Gerard took care of him, and raised him as their parents should have. Eventually, Mikey became his only best friend and the only one he could talk to, but Gerard felt like he was becoming one of those people,and maybe Mikey saw that in Gerard too. He was scared, scared for Gerard and what he was doing with himself.
Gerard should have known that drinking and smoking his problems away could only last for so long before someone noticed.
That was why his father was driving him to New Jersey's High School on a Saturday morning for detention. Maybe his problem was the reason he was here, facing what he thought someone like him would never get. Maybe it was true, maybe he had a problem, maybe today meant change, but would Gerard admit it? Probably not. Because that's what popularity does to a person - it fucks them up. Maybe, if he wasn't popular he wouldn't have gone to that party (it was two years ago now, he can't forget it), and maybe he wouldn't have had those stupid stupid drinks and that goddamn pot, and then he wouldn't have had the inexplicable urge to do it all again. He might not have discovered after his third hit how easily alcohol and drugs drive away his thoughts and pain, and he might not have tried to find solace in the bottom of a bottle or in a stranger's lent pipe. In all likeliness, he would never have drank again.
Maybe today, as his father drove him to New Jersey's High School on a Saturday morning, as he thought of what he had done and why he was here today, something would change. Only maybe, because Gerard can't imagine himself breaking free of what he has come to be today. It seems too close to a dream for Gerard to hope too much. But maybe, as the car stopped next to New Jersey's High school on a Saturday morning, he would change.
He let a heavy sigh escape his lips as he stared at the building.
"I can't believe someone like me is actually here," Gerard said absently. "I can't believe you couldn't get me out of this." He shook his head, turning away from the grim brick building outside the car.
"It's not like what I did was so terrible, I'm not the only one, I'm not defective or anything,” biting back the shy right? threatening to come out.
"I promise I'll make it up to you, son," his father smiled at him, "and what you did is completely normal, so don't worry, you are not defective, and it could have happened to anyone." The only response he got back from his son was another heavy sigh.
"I guess you're right. I'm not perfect," but I'm supposed to be, "but now I have to pay the price, right?"
"Exactly! I'm proud of you son, have a nice day!" With that, he drove off as soon as Gerard got out of the car. He stared up at the building again.
But I have to be perfect. Today is nothing. I can brush it off later.
Because it was true - popularity meant perfection, but it was also a price Gerard could never fully pay.