Chapter Text
Moving isn’t fun, I know that now. I’ve only moved once in my life and it was when I was four , I don’t remember any of it, nor did Mikey. He was only one years old. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what my old house looked like, most of my early years are blurred from my mother leaving, to my dad yelling, us moving, me crying. Ya’ know the good stuff.
But I’m not four anymore and Mikey is definitely not one, we’ve grown up, my dad has grown up, and we’ve learned to get over things.
I sealed the last box in my room looking around at the blank walls. It’s crazy to think I’ll never see this place again, it makes me nauseous just thinking about leaving. I carry the box to the front yard where the moving truck is, all my stuff is already there ready to take all the shit to the next stop.
“Hey” Mikey says, in a monotone voice. He’s laying on the couch watching some random show on TV, he looks so tired. I want to comfort him and tell him everything is going to be okay but I can’t even convince myself that everything is going to be okay.
“Hey,” I say back, just as much enthusiasm as Mikey.
We’re selling most of our furniture, it’s cheaper to send boxes then to send whole ass tables and shit. We’re only keeping the sentimental furniture, like the antiques.
I walk into the kitchen, there’s nothing there.
“I AM SO FUCKING AGGGHH!” I scream, a high pitched annoying type of scream. I’m tired, I'm angry, I'm hungry, I’m scared and I can’t do anything about it! I’ve packed all my shit, cleaned every inch of my empty room, read all the comics in my backpack, drew until my hand felt like it was going to fall off!!
“You sound like a goddamn banshee!” Mikey yells, throwing a pillow across the room and it hits my leg.
“That barely hit me, dumbass” I mumbled, kicking the pillow at my feet. I pull out my phone from my pajama pants and start scrolling on Instagram, making me sit on the couch with my brother. I wonder when dad will be home.
Yesterday afternoon he left me and Mikey home alone while he visited the new house. I'm not really sure why though, probably to finalize something. But what do I know? I've never bought a house before.
We piled into my dad's small car. Mikey sits shotgun while I sit in the back, it’s because he likes to control the radio but I usually have my earbuds on the whole time when we’re in the car. I don’t like making small talk with my dad, he tries to relate with me about school and growing up but we’re just too different. I’m a closeted gay, he’s a divorcee, we grew up different too, only child with both parents.
First day, my dad’s car rolled up into the parking lot of the school.
“I can't go to school, it’s too soon. We just moved here. I haven’t adjusted yet!” I am holding my breath, my stomach churns and I look over at Mikey who is just sitting on his phone, probably waiting for me to stop being so dramatic.
My dad gave me a mad look, but it turned into a smile.
“Dad, I feel sick”
“No, no- you don’t. You’re just nervous. I’m not going to sit here and wait, and I will definitely not be dropping you off at home.” He patted my shoulder. “Go on, the bells are going to ring.”
I huffed and pulled me and my backpack out the door.
“C’mon Mikey, we don’t want to be late,” I said sarcastically, he just sighed and followed me to the door.
“Bye, dad”
“Goodbye, Mikey”
Wow first day how fan-fucking-tastic, don’t you just love high school? With it’s homework and students, and stupid teachers? But at least I have my brother, but he doesn't really like talking in public, he’s just shy or just really wants to stay reserved, I don’t really know. We step onto school grounds.
“I know you don’t want to be here..” Mikey pauses, “But I don’t like it here either so we can just suck it up until it feels normal”
Normal, I just want this to be normal. Being here feels so unnatural. New school, new students, new streets, new house, new life.
“ We need to go to the office,” he nods in agreement. There’s already too many people here.
We arrive in what we believe is the office. There are women behind the counter and I am shuffling papers in the back. We stand there while the front-desk-lady doesn't seem to notice us. I nudged Mikey to get him to say hello but he just pushed me harder and I tripped forward, the noise of my shoes scraping the hard carpet causers berto look up at us.
“Oh, Hello!” She smiles and a sweet smile, “What will you two be needing?”
Think. Think! Think! I stare at her with my mouth slightly open.
“Umm… Me and my brother are new, and we kinda, sorta, don’t have a schedule” I see her nod.
“So what is your name?” She types something on her computer.
“Uh, I’m Gerard Way and this is my brother Mikey” She nodded again, I heard her type in our names and she gets up from her seat to the printer at the back of the room and handed us both a sheet of paper.
“Thank you” I say.
“No problem, just doing my job” She smiles and goes back to her work.
“Too bad, I got fucking math first!” I’ve always hated math and having it as my first subject of the day is making going to this school even more unbearable. I snatched Mikey’s paper.
“What the-” he protests, frowning, flailing his arms trying to grab the paper back from my grip. We keep walking.
“Ooh history...I guess that’s better than math” He laughs and grabs his schedule back, we continue walking and all the hallways are empty, class must’ve already started but the teachers won’t mind us being late, what are they going to do, we're new.
“This is my class,” Mikey says pointing to a door, B20. I nod. “Just meet me after class”
“Alright., bye” He huffs and walking into the class leaving me alone in the hallway, I see my first class up ahead , B36, I stood in front of it for a second mentally preparing myself to be staring at by 20 kids, I find my courage and walk in.
And just as I imagined every fucking kid looks at me walk in like I’m a alien or something.
“Oh, hello you must be the new student, I was just telling the class about your arrival” He chirped cheerfully,” Wow, I don't understand why a math teacher would be so cheerful.
“Please, find a seat” He gestured to a seat in the back right next to the window, wow so cliche.
He walked over to my new desk and held out his hand.
“I’m Mr.Stump and I’ll be your math teacher for the rest of the year.”
I said nothing and shook his hand. And he shook right back. They just look out the window.
Class went by quickly, I really couldn’t participate because I didn’t know what we were learning in the lesson and I’d probably need to be tutored so I could catch up on all the weeks I’ve missed, man, I wonder if Mikey’s class is doing better than this?
The worst part wasn’t being forced to sit there quietly and do nothing for two hours. It was that every two seconds I’d catch someone staring at me, like, ``Have you never seen a new student before? Maybe it’s the way I looked, I mean I do have long black hair, black ripped jeans, a black Smashing Pumpkins shirt over a striped long shirt, and dark circles under my eyes, but there were already a couple students in this class who fit the same description, so who knows?
Next thing I knew class was over and I collected my pacractly empty backpack and headed to my next class.
I looked at my Schedule “Second period, second period,” I muttered to myself when I saw Mikey down the hallway I dashed past the crowd of kids and slammed my hands on Mikey’s shoulders.
“HUH!” He gasped whipping around to see me grinning evilly at him,
“Hey, loser, how's your class?” I giggled, he was still shocked from the attack.
“They were fine I guess?” Well that totally sounded like a question,
“How were yours?” He looked down at his watch, checking the time, only three more minutes to chat.
“Oh, it was so fucking boring, I really hope I’ll have something to do in my next class I swear…” I paused and the bell rang,
“Ok, I’m going now!” I began walking the other direction again looking at my schedule, ‘Literature’?. I went into B25 and sat down at a desk in the back row again.
“Uhmmm.. You’re in my seat” I looked up, it was a boy from my previous class, he was short but not that short, he wore a baggy black jacket on and he had one half of his head shaven, and wow I’m really stupid I should've waited til everyone sat down then found my sea- my thoughts were interrupted,
“Hello? Anyone at home, I said that’s my seat.” He said, giving me a confused look.
“Oh sorry, I didn’t hear you” I sat up and immediately sat down in the seat next to that desk, why’d I say that! Like, I literally looked at him. Why would I say that I’m not deaf? The seat I sat in was thankfully empty, and if anyone was late they'd have to fight me for it, I really didn’t want the embarrassment of having to move seats again.
The teacher was now talking.
“Take out your books to chapter four, please” everyone started to move, grabbing their supplies when I got a tap on my right shoulder.
“Hey take this” The boy whispered, giving me a copy of the book. On the cover there was a pink sticky note, it said ‘hi im frank’, I looked back at him and he just looked at me with an anticipating look on his face, do I write something back? Or maybe I could be a good kid and ignore him. But he’s been the first person to approach me so I guess I could write back.
I take out a pen from my backpack and just write a simple ‘hi im gerard ur cute’ on it. I take note of the book and hand it to him, he looks at it and then back at me and he scribles something else.
I didn’t expect him to react the way he did, the last time I’d call some dude cute they had just yelled “FAG!” and looked uncomfortable. Not Frank though, he just smiled and wrote his number on the note.