Living Life The Good Way

As Gerard woke up slowly, he blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes to work again. He was in a dark room and the smell of coffee lingered in the air. It was warm, almost too warm, and Gerard could feel his skin; flushed and clammy. He rubbed the backs of his palms against his closed eyes, sitting up as he did so, yawning. It was late Friday afternoon and the shop was starting to fill up with university students. Their voices still held the innocence their bodies portrayed.

Gerard Way stared into his dark cup of coffee. There were no longer rolls of steam pouring over the rim; the liquid was cold to the touch, and looked unappetising.

From his corner in the dimly lit room, Gerard could see him. He was still there as he had been when Gerard had walked in earlier in the morning. His long, brown hair was messy and un-brushed, resting against his shoulders. He spoke animatedly, his wrists, decorated with bangles of all colours, moving through the air as he described something with over-enthusiasm. He was handsome, no doubt about it. He had that ‘rock star’ look that so many had tried to achieve but failed miserably.

Gerard shut his eyes and blinked back the choked sob threatening to make itself known. A weakness known was one thing, a weakness shown was something different altogether, and Gerard refused to allow the public know how much he hurt. It was his pain and his alone; no others should be subjected to it.

Under his fingers he felt the familiar feel of glossy magazine paper. A mass of colours presented themselves to him from the page of the magazine. One small article caught his eye, as it had when he first looked at the magazine, earlier that morning, leafing slowly through the pages, wondering what surprises they would present. A small red box filled with white writing. Gerard saw his own image encased in a small half of a broken heart: a pang pierced his own. The magazine had been slow to pick up on the news, making its final appearance all the more distressing. The other half of the broken heart bore a smiling Bert.

Little reminders such as this were the hardest thing, Gerard found. When they had met, the two bands were inseparable. Bert and Gerard were inseparable. It was as if Gerard had finally found that someone who would accept him for who he was, not who he pretended to be. The rest of the band had their girlfriends, or fiancées in some cases, and Gerard had been left alone. Bert had come along and picked Gerard out from his misery, made his life enjoyable once again…

It still pained him endlessly to think about Bert’s parting words; how they were so loving, so trusting… so innocent. In some ways Gerard was glad that Bert had left him with pleasant words as his final memory. But it didn’t change that he had taken the break up hard. Harder than he had imagined he ever would.

Back in the coffee house, Gerard took a deep breath and picked up the magazine, rolling it into a tube. He stepped away from the table, leaving the cold coffee cup sat alone atop the dark wood table. Its contents, it’s meaning, cold and lifeless. As he exited the coffee house, Gerard dropped the magazine holding another reminder of the person he no longer had, the relationship he could no longer relish in, into the shiny ceramic bin located by the front doors. For a few moments in the dark coffee house, Gerard had that relationship again, he had his life again, he was perfect and so was everything around him. Bert was his again. For only a few moments in his sleep, Gerard had had the world.