Pictures Chapter 1

“Gee Way! Have you seen my socks?” Ray Toro hopped on one foot into the lounge area of the bus, trying not to crash into the couch and send his fellow band mate flying.

“Check the microwave. Why are you hopping?”

The bushy haired guitarist switched feet and opened said microwave. “Aha!” He triumphantly pulled a pair of semi-white socks out of the machine. Gerard wrinkled his nose at the sudden stench that wafted over, vowing never to use the microwave again. “I lost a bet with Bob,” Ray informed him, giving a reason behind his odd method of movement.

Gerard didn’t ask any questions. “Ah.”

As he guitarist hopped out of the room, Gerard went back to what he’d been doing, which happened to be drawing. He drew the way most people kept a diary, recording events in his life in picture form. At the moment, he was depicting a memory, on that, for some reason, he could not forget no matter how hard he tried.

It was 1999, and Frank and Mikey were living together in one half of a small duplex in western New Jersey: Gerard had never been so jealous of his brother before in his life. What he would give to be in his place…

He spent practically every waking moment he wasn’t working at their house, fawning over Frank, who, from the moment he’d fist set eyes on him, had captured his heart. They were eighteen and nineteen at the time, and boys will be boys. They tended to wrestle over trivial things such as the remote or a bottle of coke, and the artist had never enjoyed a fight so much. In fact, a few times his “enjoyment” showed exactly where he wished it wouldn’t, but each time he’d been lucky enough to get out of the situation before Frank could notice.

One day, though, his hopes were crushed in a way he never expected. He had known that Frank was bisexual, but he had no idea that he was dating anyone, let alone…



One day, he had skipped over to the two boys’ house to visit, and let himself in as he usually did. Only this time, he couldn’t find either of them. He checked the kitchen, but the only thing there was the garbage monster that lived under the sink. In the living room, the couch was sticky with signs that someone had recently had a peanut butter sandwich, but no sign of either Frank or Mikey.

Figuring that they were still asleep, he headed for Mikey's bedroom. Yanking the door open uncerimoniously, he glanced up at the scene that was unfolding before his very eyes.

"F-Frank? M-M-Mikey?"

He stood there, his fragile heart on the floor, shattered to a million peices.

Gerard scowled down at the drawing in his lap. It was of a small, run down duplex in eastern New Jersey. On the front step sat a lone figure, he the hopeless and heartbroken. A single tear dotted the page, right above the figure, and Gerard closed his sketchpad, broken.