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“If we wait it may be too late, we’ll make everybody cry, we wouldn’t even have to try. If we stay, we may overstay our allotted time and it just wouldn’t feel right. But I’ll always speak the truth and I’ll always bleed for you.”
“I’m telling you Gee, you gotta watch that shit. It’s so good. I mean, it’s really bad which makes it so good.” Frank said this as he switched the light of the bedroom’s bathroom off and walked in his underwear back to bed, where Gerard was still lying down slightly. He was covered by a sheet over the waist and laughing at Frank’s description of a TV show on Bravo that sounded ridiculously bad, because Frank really loved bad TV shows.
Frank jumped back in bed and laid next to Gerard on his back, resting his head on one of the older man’s shoulder, looking at the ceiling. They didn’t say anything for a few minutes and enjoyed the silence and the company. They both knew that moments like that one were rare where they both felt so at peace and complete, but at the same time they were so used to complications that they were sure they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if everything was like that all the time.
Frank turned to his side and watched Gerard. He had both his hands intertwined on his chest and was looking at nothing in particular in front of him. He looked rested even though they spent most of the night before having sex. His hair was now bright orange and short. It was messy and some of it was falling over his forehead. Frank concentrated on that for a moment and thought that fantasy colors looked beautiful on him. Any color, even the teal roots Gerard had hated so much way back when. Bright colors always made him look younger, Frank thought. He sighed so heavily, loudly and stupidly, it even surprised himself and it caught Gerard’s attention. He looked at Frank who was covering his mouth with his whole palm and hiding a smile behind it. He was failing, though, because Gerard could totally tell.
“What is it?” Gerard wanted to know, almost laughing. “Did you just teenage-sigh at me?”
“I did not!” Frank complained and lied, then rolled on his back again completely flushed, escaping Gerard amused gaze.
It was moments like this one that always reminded them that their relationship wasn’t just passion or lust. It wasn’t about the incredible sex they knew they weren’t going to get anywhere else; always different, always new, always so passionate it left at least one of them bruised or bleeding in the best of cases. There was so much love there too, in Frank’s sigh or Gerard’s lovey-dovey eyes whenever Frank was spilling soy ¬¬milk through his nose from laughing too hard. Those fleeting seconds where both of them were just overwhelmed at how much they loved the goofball in front of them. Those moments that had always been there.
Now it was Gerard’s turn to lay on his side and watch Frank try to hide his smile from him. He wanted to tease him a little bit more but just settled with staring.
“Stop it,” Frank warned him.
“What, you can stare at me, but I can’t?” Gerard wanted to know.
“It makes me feel naked.”
“You are naked, Frank.”
“A different kind of naked.”
Gerard knew exactly what Frank meant and didn’t ask anything. He leaned over to Frank and kissed him so softly that Frank felt his heart actually sink down inside his chest like he was being thrown down from somewhere up high into nothingness. He felt the kiss all over his body like some kind of power was taking over him. Like he was possessed by Gerard and his body wasn’t his own to control anymore. He just laid there and took in everything Gerard was giving him. He wasn’t moving and he was barely breathing. If you told Frank that he was going to die right after Gerard stopped kissing him, it was fine by him for that to be that the very last thing he felt.
Eventually Gerard stopped kissing him but didn’t move away. He stayed where he was with his face above Frank’s
“Can we stay like this forever?” Frank asked.
“We actually can’t,” Gerard dropped. Frank was hoping Gerard would say something cheesy and lie to him instead of that, and he felt the guilt sinking hard in his gut. He thought about Bandit being in his house with his own children right now and his face changed colors. Gerard noticed this and pushed away a string of hair from over Frank’s worried frown.
“I have a meeting at DC in New York in a couple of hours,” he added.
“Oh… so we have a couple of hours then?” Even though Frank had a strike from reality, he chose not to waste time on thinking how much of a fuck up he was. He always had been, why start worrying now? He rolled Gerard over to his back and sat on top of him over his hips with his legs on the side of Gerard’s body and his hands resting on Gerard’s bare chest.
“You do love your morning quickies,” Gerard said playfully.
Frank leaned over Gerard’s face and close to his ear he said, “Who said anything about quick?” His voice was deep and strong, something that had always amused Gerard, how Frank’s voice changed whenever he was turned on. Then Frank moved slowly on Gerard’s hips just once which was enough for Gerard to whimper and push his head back, eyes closed. Frank used that movement to kiss Gerard’s neck as he entangled his fingers in Gerard’s bright orange hair.
When Frank moved back to be sitting up and positioned himself better on top of Gerard, his gaze caught a glance of something peeking out of the slightly opened drawer of the night stand. It was a piece of paper and it looked familiar to him. Gerard opened his eyes and saw Frank looking away from him and followed his eyes, then closed his own and knew that there wasn’t a way back from what was about to happen. He tried to sit up as he watched Frank reach out for the paper.
“Frank…”
“What is… that?” Frank didn’t want to hear the answer to that question because he knew it already. He didn’t wait for Gerard to respond either, but he read the paper anyway once he had it in his hand. It was a plane ticket with that day’s date. “It says you leave today.”
“I… yeah, we do.”
“But you didn’t… you didn’t say anything,” the tone in Frank’s voice was of pure disbelief.
“Frank, you knew I was gonna go back eventually.” Gerard was trying to remain calm because he was a second away from unleashing Frank’s fury but it only made it worse.
“Don’t patronize me Gerard I’m not fucking stupid,” Frank’s tone changed drastically to an angry one. “You didn’t say anything about leaving tonight. We’ve spent together the last, what? 20 hours or so and you didn’t mention this was your last night here? What the fuck Gee?” Gerard didn’t respond and his silence was more than loud enough for Frank to understand. “You were going to leave? Without telling me. You were going to leave without letting me know beforehand.” He said as a statement.
“I didn’t wanna make it harder than it already is. This…” Gerard gestured with his hand between them, “I didn’t think… I didn’t know we would get so carried away and I knew it was going to be harder to leave now more than ever before. I was going to call you and hear you spit curses at me over the phone, so I didn’t have to see you stay and you didn’t have to watch me leave.”
“I…” Frank opened his mouth to refute every word Gerard was saying. He was furious and he knew already he wasn’t going to mean half of the things he was going to say, and Gerard knew this too so he interrupted him.
“Please don’t. Don’t let me be right, Frank. Don’t let me regret these past few days. Don’t you think I don’t already know what you’re going to say? What you’re feeling? I know. I knew I was wrong when I decided not to tell you I was leaving and I know it’s wrong that you never get to decide anything. It’s always me who chooses for both of us and I know you hate that. I can’t do anything right by you, I never could. I can’t give you what you want. I can’t do things right. You are perfect, Frank, to me at least you are. And I’m far from it and that’s why I always knew… I always knew we could never be.”
“Gerard, no. Don’t start. This is bullshit,” Frank turned his angry tone to tiredness, having heard this speech a million time over. “I don’t know who you think I am and I don’t know who you think I think you are. Do you think I don’t know who I fell in love with? I don’t know what you think I was expecting from you but it wasn’t perfection. I didn’t want us to be the perfect happy couple; I just wanted us to be us. I wasn’t going to ask of you anything extraordinary. I wasn’t going to be with you expecting you to change because I don’t want you to change; I never thought you had to change, let alone change to be with me or for me. But the truth is simple; you just don’t want to be with me.”
“The truth is far from simple, Frank.”
Frank looked away. He knew this was an argument no one was going to win, and he was tired of losing it. He had been losing it for too long now. As he looked away he took a deep breath and became aware of his surroundings again. The apartment suddenly became so real and the knowledge that it wasn’t his house or Gerard’s real house or even a hotel, that it was just this hideaway Gerard had on the east coast that turned into their hideaway made it all feel a little dirty. He braced himself and finally got off of Gerard’s lap, which he wasn’t even aware he was still on. He sat down on the bed contemplating his next move. He had to change and leave. He had to go back home and have Jamia pick up the pieces that he always returned in whenever he saw Gerard.
Gerard hated seeing Frank like this because of him, but he knew there was nothing he could do to make it easier for any of them. He too had heard Frank’s words before, and still he felt Frank deserved better than him. In fact, he always thought he deserved exactly what he had. A big happy family he was never going to give him and even though Frank told him in the past he was okay with just him, Gerard knew it wasn’t fair. Part of him knew Frank was right when he said he just wanted them to be them and that he wasn’t going to ask of him nothing more than to be with him, but Gerard wanted more for Frank because he really did love him too much, and wanted him to have the world he wasn’t able to give him.
It was Gerard who finally stood up from the bed and started to move around the room to get dressed. Frank followed him with his eyes wishing he was strong enough to stand up himself and do the same. To just leave him here, but he was frozen and couldn’t move because he felt that if he did, he was going to break into a million pieces.
“This is it… isn’t it? You’re never going to see me again,” Frank let the words out without even knowing it. Gerard turned to him, finishing putting a t-shirt on and then sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t want to. I never want you out of my life. You are one of my best friends and so important to me and you’ve seen me through my worst and you were always there on the other side, and I really don’t want you out of my life. You are my family,” As Gerard said this Frank could feel his eyes fill up with tears and his throat tighten inside of him. “But if it’s what you need, I would understand and it would break my heart but I would step away. I won’t bother you.”
“I don’t want that either,” Frank managed to say instead of everything he was feeling, which was too much to put into words at the moment.
“That’s good. We are okay then. Yeah?” Gerard asked. Frank wasn’t looking directly at him so he pulled Frank’s chin up to make him do so and Frank nodded. “I do love you, you know?” Frank nodded once again and Gerard left one last soft kiss on his lips, then stood up. “You can stay here as long as you need. Mikey is picking up Bandit from your house, and I really do have to be in New York in a few hours so I should get going.”
“Gee…” Frank said before Gerard was out the door. “Call me… when you get home. And just call me whenever. Don’t think. Don’t wonder if you should, just call me.” Gerard nodded and opened the door, but Frank added before he was out. “I love you too.”