Dead Like Me

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anyone. Seriously. Don't sue, I ain't got nothin.
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What do you think he would do if I told him? I mean, we've been friends, best friends even, for going on 7 years now......It seems like I can't remember a time before his long, dark hair, and hunched form was in my room spilling his deepest and darkest secrets, sneaking a cigarette out the window and sharing a bottle of vodka he swiped from his mother's liquor cabinet with me. And let's be honest, who really tells someone absolutely everything about themselves? No one. Well, at least I didn't tell him everything. I just can't.

Like, I don't think I'd ever tasted alcohol before I met him. I mean, I'd sniffed a few beers, and one time me and my best friend snuck some cinnamon flavoured liquor at her house. I remember how it burned my mouth, like mouthwash. I spit it out into the bathroom sink. I think I was eight at the time. I don't want him to know about how....lame I was.

Okay, I'll level with you. I daresay I was a bit of a.....keener. You know. A goody-two-shoes. A point-dexter. A narc. I wasn't rebellious. I wasn't the kind of person to do things that I knew were wrong simply because I was told not to. I was pretty much the exact opposite of rebellious. I only did things because I wanted to. Although, I guess that's not entirely true. I mostly did things because I thought it was what my parents wanted me to do.

God, I was so worried about getting into trouble. I never landed in the principal's office, except once, when my teacher and few of us students were playing a joke on the assistant vice principal. Our teacher sent us to the office, like five of us, for "bad behaviour". You should have seen the secretary's face; I thought she was going to choke to death on her coffee.

So I was a goody-goody. I can't really help my naive, childish ways....I was raised with a certain moral fiber.....a certain belief, if you will, that there is a distinct difference between right and wrong. And the wrong lead to a place that I didn't want to go. A place that I was afraid of.

Until I met him.

I never wanted to be bad a day in my life, until the day he walked over to me sitting in the grass in the school yard. I'd never even seen him before. I was hanging out with my usual gang, my best friends, Kat and Ryan. We'd known each other forever. And by the time we'd hit senior year, things hadn't changed much. Kat and Ryan were still dating. I think I kinda always knew they would. Ever since they started hanging out alone together in ninth grade, it just seemed like a natural progression. I guess I was sad at first. I mean, they left me alone a lot for the first while when they started sneaking off to make out. It passed, even though I, on the other hand, was alone, like I had always been. Not because I had to be. But I just didn't.....I was just....not ready for a relationship in my life. School was real important to me. I couldn't really push that aside for anything....or anyone.

Until he came walking up to the three of us one day on lunch break. I don't think that I ever really lived or drew breath until that day. He stopped, four feet in front of me, all black jeans and black leather jacket and black hair. Fuck, he wore a lot of black. Still does. It just suits him. It always has. I think that it would signify some sort of apocolyptical event if he wore another colour. It compliments his mood, his pale skin, his brooding eyes, his smoky grin.

He pulled out a cigarette and asked if I had a light. Not Kat, not Ryan. Me. He specifically asked me. I couldn't tell you if he was looking into my eyes or at least trying to, because I couldn't meet his gaze for the life of me. God, I don't think I had ever even considered smoking before in my entire life, and all I could think about at that moment was how badly I wished that I did. I shook my head slowly, my eyes never leaving the small, white cylinder balanced between his perfectly shaped lips.

He smirked a little, the corner of the right side of his mouth twitching up just slightly higher than the left.

"Didn't think so."

He pulled a lighter out of his own pocket and light his cigarette, and without another word, he turned and walked away from me.

That was the first of many times Gerard would ask me something I couldn't answer.