Fighting For The End -Prologue and Chapter One-
Prologue
I pulled my black hair into a tight ponytail and looked at myself in the mirror. My green eyes were dull and my skin was even paler than usual. My eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, clearly showing the pain and confusion and even despair, and the bags under my eyes were dark and noticeable against my white skin. My posture was struck, slumpy, so different from my laid-back and strong side of me.
And the cause of it all was the fact that my best friend, my saviour, and the love of my life was gone. Haven Raine Thomas was gone. He would never be here again.
I broke down in tears again, tearing my eyes away from my reflection in the mirror to spare myself from seeing my broken self. I couldn’t even bear to see myself since...
I collapsed on the floor, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs. I laid my head there and just cried and cried, not feeling anything but pain and loss. I felt so alone...
"Joelle?" whispered a small voice, but I didn’t care about it. I couldn’t even register who it was. All I could think about was the fact that Haven was gone. My Haven, my love.
A warm body held me while I sobbed. I let it just consume me again, yet again, thinking of never seeing Haven’s dark brown eyes or his brown hair falling in his face. I would never be held by him, would never feel his warm lips on mine ever again. He wouldn’t ever caress my skin and tell me that he loved me, never again.
"Oh Joelle...please stop crying. Please, I can’t take this..."
Lindsey Ballato. Better known as Lyn-Z, from MSI. The only other really good friend I had. My other reason in life. The only alive reason I had to not go and just end my pain...
Lindsey sounded so forlorn. I couldn’t help but try to stop crying and reach for her. At my gesture, she let me hug her and we just sat there, on the floor of my bedroom, holding each other.
My cries began to end and I sniffled against her shoulder. And she stayed, patient to the girl almost ten years her junior. The seventeen, almost eighteen-year-old girl named Carmen Joelle Anderson who just lost her meaning in life from cancer.
The twenty-nine-year-old woman who had her birthday only one day ago began whispering in my ear, "Oh Joelle, please don’t. I’m crying, I can’t see you c-cry..." Her voice cracked and I tightened my hold on my best female friend. She was the only thing left alive that I had. Haven was...
I took a deep breath and wiped my eyes, standing up. Lindsey stood up with me and looked at me. Her brownish eyes were swimming with tears, and they were falling onto her red tank-top with dark spots. I could see all of her tattoos and her white skin. She was pale too...
"Are you okay, Joelle?" she asked, and I had a memory where she was fourteen and I was five, and the two of us, with the addition of Haven, only one month younger than me, running around the kitchen table. We were laughing our heads off as our AMAZING babysitter growled at us, her hands in claws, waiting for the perfect moment to ‘finally’ catch us and tickle.
"Yes," I said, almost smiling. Lindsey noticed, because she her eyes grew less pained and the tears began edging off.
"I was thinking... You used to chase us around the house, never seeming to go fast enough to catch us... You never caught us, Lindsey, until we were ready."
"I had to let you think that you were a worthy foe of Lyn-Z." She said her name as she now spelled it. The ‘Z’ was highly pronounced. I felt a stab of something other than sadness and loneliness. It was a higher pain than ever, knowing that our Lindsey, Haven and my Lindsey, left to play the bass and didn’t care of contacting us until Haven was already gone.
Gone. That word echoed in my empty soul. Haven...
She grabbed me by the shoulders and said, "I’m sorry for leaving, Joelle. But I couldn’t...I had to get out. You know that, right? Haven knew that, didn’t he? I don’t want him to...to-you know..."
"We know why you left Lindsey. We understand. And look at you! You’re a bassist! You are famous. You’re happy, married..."
On that word, I thought about Lindsey’s husband. Gerard Way. She was married...
I would never have Haven to marry me.
I choked back a sob, and whispered, "Lindsey, Haven asked me to be his..."
Lindsey’s face fell even more, if that was possible. She pulled me in and let me cry on her shoulder again. My whole body shook, and I was thinking about it would’ve been like to be dressed in white, towards my future as Carmen Joelle Thomas.
I barely noticed the soft voice from behind me. "Lyn...her mother is downstairs, waiting. It’s time to go." The man’s voice was soft and respectful to this moment, but still I pulled away and wiped my eyes.
My hair was falling out of the ponytail, and Lindsey went behind me and pulled it out, picking the brush that I had used earlier to brush it straight. I did not look behind me, but I heard footsteps coming to us and Lindsey give a sigh. Gerard Way was probably holding her, like Haven would never do again.
My mother had been telling me to just block him out, but I didn’t want to. I was dressed in black again, for the showing and funeral we were going to. She didn’t want me to go to that, but I had to. Even if it hurt, I had to go. It was my last chance to ask him to wake up and stop playing this game with me. Tell him to wake me from this nightmare, because he was the only one who could.
"Come on Joelle. Your mother is waiting for you." Lindsey sniffled and let go of my shiny, straight, naturally jet-black hair.
I turned and for the first time saw the thirty-one-year-old singer. He was in black as well, with a black tie and his black hair hanging in his hazel eyes. He was pale, but not teary. And why should he be? He didn’t know us. Probably didn’t even know Lindsey. He really shouldn’t be here.
"And neither should you," I thought aloud. Lindsey’s eyes filled with tears, for she knew what I meant with my words even after not seeing me for ten years. Gerard Way was at her side now.
"You could have come back! You could have! WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST SEE US?! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN THERE! YOU LEFT US IN HELL! HE’S DEAD! WE DON’T KNOW YOU ANYMORE, LINDSEY!! You just left."
I fell into tears, my knees weak and I felt like I was falling. And I was. The only thing that saved me from hitting the ground was the fact that Gerard had grabbed my arms and held me upright.
I heard rushed footsteps as I sobbed. Gerard was holding me away from him, but I could feel his soft grip betraying the fact that he wanted to give me a hug. I barely knew this guy, but I knew he was okay. He was perfect for Lindsey.
And speaking of Lindsey, she was sobbing behind me, but not touching me.
"Joelle!" sobbed my mother, and I was taken away from the famous singer to her arms. I wanted to shy away from her, but didn’t. I couldn’t. Not in front of Lindsey and her husband.
I just wanted to die.
I stood there in a daze. His face was perfect. God, how I wish that he would end this game. Why wouldn’t he wake up? He was just letting me suffer. He was being horrible to me. Why was Haven doing this to me?
"Haven?" I repeated, and there were sobs behind me.
"Please wake up, Haven. Stop making people cry. You’re being mean. Just wake up and give me a hug. I need you to give me a hug Haven. Please." I said this in a monotone. I had been saying the same thing for half an hour since being at the funeral home and seeing my love in a coffin.
And I knew now that it wasn’t a game anymore. Haven Thomas was really dead of a terminal brain tumour. He really is dead.
I turned and began quickly walking away, out of that room, past Mrs. Thomas and her husband, past my horrible mother, past the famous apparition of Gerard Way and Lyn-Z. I shoved past the family and friends that had come to see him off and offer their condolences to myself and Haven’s family. Everyone watched me, including my long lost friend who abandoned us when Haven and I were only seven and in desperate need of her.
I exited the room and heard some condoling words coming from friends and family. Everyone knew that I had been there and I was the only one who really knew and loved Haven, and I couldn’t take it. I had to get out of here. I had to get free. I couldn’t live anymore. I didn’t deserve to live without Haven.
I threw the doors open and gulped the fresh air, almost breaking in tears again. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I whipped around to find Lindsey. She was crying again, her eyes pleading with me to stay with her. Her husband was staring at me, an emotion in his eyes that I never seen before.
I turned and ran.
I heard Gerard’s soft, melodious voice speak to Lindsey, and I could hear her agree in the midst of her sobs. I didn’t know what he said, but I could hear, "Thank you, Gee. Thank you for doing this and coming here with me."
Her voice was gone as I ran, and I felt so alone.
I was home. Haven Thomas’s home. I stumbled in the unlocked house and gasped for air; three miles I had ran, feeling that I was coming to an end with every single step I took. I knew that I had made up my mind. And I was almost happy about it.
I was in his bathroom. I could smell the soft scent of him still lingering. The aftershave and the smell of his cinnamon shampoo. Despite being determined terminal, he still walked around and shaved himself. He still held me and sang me to sleep, his voice still strong. He still connected his lips with mine, tasting of his medication and his cinnamon toothpaste. He was still warm back then, and I wanted him back more than anything.
His shaver. Oh how it gleamed. I knew that I was going to do it with his razor. I was going to join him wherever he was, and it was going to be with his razor in his bathroom. I would die on his bed, listening to his iPod blare from his iHome, singing along until I fell asleep and went to the love of my life. Anything to feel his warm hand again and look deeply in his brown eyes.
I dismembered the razors from the Gillette in moments. I knew how it was done. Years of practice taught me.
Taking one of the blades in my fingertips, I pressed it to my flesh, cutting the skin from my wrist to the crook of my elbow with so much pressure that I almost screamed in joy. The blood began flowing...spraying...and I knew that there was nothing left that anyone could do for me. I took the vermillion covered blade in my stinging, useless hand and applied the same pressure to the opposite wrist. The blood went and joined its identical liquid that had developed a pool around my feet and stained my clothes.
I walked to Haven’s bedroom, trailing my footprints on the stark white carpet. The blood flowed and I was high, reveling in the fact that I would soon be away from this life and joining Haven. We would never leave each other again after this.
I used my now useless hands to fumble with his iPod, which was already connected to his iPod stereo. I pressed play on the iHome and climbed into his soft, dark blue sheets, making them a deep purple as the blood soaked and stained them. I was more tired than I’d ever felt in my life, but still I sung to Lead Sails (And A Paper Anchor) by Atreyu.
The song changed. I smiled sleepily at the Shuffled song. How fitting. In so many ways but one...
I heard the door fly open and I saw Gerard Way fly in, his eyes round. Lindsey followed as I sung weakly to My Chemical Romance’s The End.
"SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE!" shrieked Lindsey, while Gerard mouthed ‘The End’ in horror. It was his band’s song. The End indeed.
Lindsey was screaming, calling the paramedics on her cell phone. She was telling them that I was dying, that there was blood everywhere, it was everywhere she looked...
Gerard’s hazel eyes took in my weak smile as I just mouthed the words just like when he mouthed the title of his song. His voice was belting:
Another contusion, my funeral jag
Here's my resignation, I'll serve it in drag
You've got front row seats to the penitence ball
When I grow up I want to be nothing at all!
Suddenly he let out a low yell. He ran up to the bed, and threw the covers off of me. His eyes filled with pain and moisture and his teeth were bared in determination as he tore his black overcoat off and laid it over the cuts that were killing me. He applied pressure, and I screamed, although my weakness made it a small little exhale of breath.
NO! I wanted to scream at the singer. LET ME DIE! I WANT TO BE WITH HAVEN! PLEASE!
I couldn’t even mouth the words as his voice screamed:
C'mon C'mon C'mon I said
(Save me!) Get me the hell out of here
(Save me!) Too young to die and my dear
(You can't!) If you can hear me just walk away and
(Take me!)
He held the black button-up shirt to my gashing wounds and laid fully against me, whispering that he wouldn’t let me die, that he was going to save me.
I passed out as the song changed to Almost Easy, by Avenged Sevenfold.
Fighting for the End
By AlexandraxJean
Chapter One
-
Marching along
Like a good soldier does
I’m setting sail
With anchors
Holding me down
Pack up my bags
Stow them away
I’m bidding farewell
To all that is safe.
-Lead Sails (And A Paper Anchor) by Atreyu
I stared at a wall, ignoring the whispering of Lindsey and my mother. This fevered whispering between Lindsey, Mrs. Thomas, and Mother had been going on for almost a month.
Lyn-Z had taken a month off touring to stay with me. It seemed she or Mrs. Thomas was always there when I tried to kill myself any way that I could possibly manage it.
But her time was coming to an end. She had one month to figure out what to do with me. My mother, as lovely as she was, wanted to put me in a Psych Ward. Lindsey dismissed this immediately every time she brought it up, for she thought that being forced to think that I was crazy and thrown in a home would destroy me. Mrs. Thomas agreed, knowing what my mother was like and that I wasn’t crazy. Just lost without Haven.
Mother had been trying to throw me in one for years, but I wouldn’t even permit it. I always took off, and Mother never did anything about it anyway. She just let it go, not willing to sabotage her perfect reputation in the community by having a ‘crazy’ daughter.
I just needed to be alone, so I could finally accomplish killing myself and join Haven. I wanted Mrs. Thomas to get her way on this one.
She wanted me to stay with her. I would be eighteen in less than a month, and I was close to being of age, so it was almost legal. I would have her caring home and a loving environment to live in.
Mother rejected this, because her reputation. Moving off...how dare anyone propose to humiliate her?
Lindsey herself liked the thought of me living with Mrs. Thomas. The would-be mother-in-law had stopped me from killing myself twice of the six times I’d tried it, and Mrs. Thomas had always been there with Lindsey when she had caught me.
But no. It would never happen. Mother had custody of me, sole custody considering my father was dead, and she had the say in the matter.
Didn’t they understand that I wanted to die? Why wouldn’t they just let me die? I wanted it more than anything besides wanting to see Haven again, and he was the reason I was trying to die in the first place. Just one more glimpse of his warm, loving face, one more touch of compassion or a act of pleasurable love and I would be happy. I yearned for it. He was my everything. I needed him.
Then Lindsey gasped, and I watched her from the corner of my eyes as I recognised that she had just had a revelation.
"She can tour with me!" she exclaimed, and with those five words, I was crushed to the present. For the second time, my mother’s refusal was music to my ears.
"She will NOT be going with you and getting her head filled with nonsense about your crazy opinions! She will NOT be GOING!" my mother screamed at her, and I almost cried with joy.
Thank you Mother, thank you Mother, thank you Mother! I kept repeating in my head. I didn’t dare say it aloud, considering that I just didn’t talk to the people who wanted me alive, and that meant everyone. Also, if Mother heard that, she might just send me with her because she was spiteful and wanted to cause me pain...
"It’s a good idea, Christine. Please let Lindsey take her!" said Mrs. Thomas, and for the first time in my whole life, I hated her.
I had some comfort, though; I knew that my mother would never let me go to anyone, especially Lindsey Ballato, that sided with her. She would send me to fucking the President of the United States if they would bash Lindsey, the Thomas’, and everyone else like them. And that was the truth.
Apparently Lindsey knew this too. Her face went thoughtful, and I knew she was thinking of a plan.
She jumped up, excused herself, and left the room, looking at me one last time before closing the door behind her.
I waited as Mrs. Thomas and my mother stared after her, the former puzzled but clearly expecting a clever plan that would work. My mother, on the other hand, just knew that there was nothing in their right minds that would make her change her mind. My heart was almost happy, a very empty and cold happiness that I hated and wished Haven could take away.
We stood there as Mother and Mrs. Thomas conversed, the latter looking at me every couple of seconds, sitting there in that silence that everyone except Christine Anderson hated.
"Christine, please consider it. It will certainly do your daughter some good, to get out of the house and away from the memories of...of..." She couldn’t finish. She turned her head to hide the tears that had formed in her brown eyes at the thought of her son. Her eyes were precisely the same shade as Haven’s, which made what was left of my heart hurt for her.
"I will not, Laura," my mother said, not noticing and certainly not caring about her tearful opposition sitting in the plush red chair beside her, crying in a tissue. "I will not have Carmen Joelle Anderson’s mind manipulated by that little musician bitch! She nearly lost me everything I had! She-"
Her voice cut off when Lindsey came back in, clearly crying. I was automatically suspicious, considering her eyes were filled with mischievous fire. I knew that something, and that something was going to be very successful, was brewing in Lindsey’s brain.
I knew that look, and what was left of my heart fell to the core of the Earth, and hard.
"What’s wrong dear?!" exclaimed Mrs. Thomas, clearly not seeing the same emotion in her eyes. My mother, not one of the smartest when it came with emotion, looked smug and happy at Lindsey’s ‘sadness’.
"I-It’s G-Ger-Gerard." She stopped to sob. She was really good at this, I could remember this from when she was a babysitter. She was some actress. She should stop playing bass and start shooting movies in Hollywood.
Mrs. Thomas hopped up and wrapped her plump arms around the twenty-nine-year-old girl. "What happened, dearest Lindsey?"
"H-He hate-hates me, Laura! H-He’s been telling everyone that I’m a-a..." She sobbed louder, and my mother grinned. I was the only one who knew that she was lying.
"He told everyone that I’m a bitch, a whore!" She looked up, her eyes red and her face wet with tears. "He said that I was a liar and that he agreed with what..." She glared at my mother, and Christine Anderson’s eyes went wide. Her smile went into a grin that made me want to squirm.
"That horrible, horrible man!" exclaimed Mrs. Thomas.
"He said that he heard about what I did to this family and that he hopes I rot! He’s filing for divorce, Laura!" She began to wail in her hands again, and Mrs. Thomas soothed her.
"Serves you right! I bet that man could keep her safer than keeping her locked in a padded vault for the rest of her life. In fact, I rather like this Gerard Way! I didn’t think that he was so good and understanding of what I mean!" My mother laughed at Lindsey, and I felt satisfaction. I was still suspicious, but this Gerard Way was my hero if it was true. Lindsey had succeeded in leaving me with my mother without any warning when I was at the innocent and tender age of only seven, and keeping me away from Haven a little bit longer. Whatever caused her pain made me happier than I could ever dream. This was my sweet revenge.
Lindsey rushed out of the room, sobbing in her hands.
My mother watched as Mrs. Thomas rushed after her crying form, and then turned to me.
"Am I impressed with this Gerard Way! She doesn’t deserve such a good man! And the nerve of her trying to take you away! I cannot believe her! I’d more likely send you to Mr. Way himself! Too bad he won’t take you! Everyone would be jealous of me, marrying you to a rich, rich man! An artist, too, no doubt."
I knew where this was headed. And I knew what Lindsey wanted.
I was torn between talking to my mother for the first time in seven years, a thing I swore that I would never do again, and just letting Lindsey’s plan work.
Both were unbearable choices. There was no way that Lindsey could get Gerard Way up here to get me and take me on tour with him, instead of her. And I wouldn’t let it happen, because if it hadn’t been for Gerard Way applying his black dress jacket to my wounds and putting pressure on them, I would be dead right now, with my darling Haven. Gerard Way kept me from Haven, and I hated him for doing it.
I chose to not speak. There was that chance that Lindsey’s plan wouldn’t work, and if it did, I would make sure it never took place.
Besides, he couldn’t take me.
He would lose.
I was wrong. Gerard Arthur Way showed up the next day. He was there for a legitimate reason: to get his ring back, give her the divorce papers, and scream about how Christine Anderson was right about Lindsey Ballato.
I watched from my chair, the chair that I never left except to sleep or shower. I didn’t eat, unless Lindsey forced me too, and by the look of Way’s face when he saw me, I looked rough.
Lindsey cried, taking the divorce papers and throwing the ring back, before leaving with Mrs. Thomas, who had been acting funny since yesterday. I had a feeling that Lindsey had filled her in on the plan, because every time she looked at me, her eyes said I’m sorry, but this is best for you.
I hated her for keeping me away from Haven.
Way accepted my mother’s invitation to stay a little while and have a cup of coffee. She was staring at him like he was a god, and it was starting to get on my nerves.
While I sat in my chair in the living room with a cup of tea Way had gotten me. It was going cold because I didn’t touch it.
He kept looking at me with pity in his eyes. I didn’t need his sympathy, but he had made Lindsey cry and hurt, so I did like him. But only a little.
"So, Mr. Way. I’m so glad that you finally understand what the...girl is capable of. She twisted your mind, my friend, the same way she did it to my...darling daughter."
I saw a flash of anger in his hazel eyes. In fact, his eyes were green today. They weren’t as vibrant green as mine, of course, but they were still that murky green that hazel eyes seem to have sometimes.
My mother, busy putting a sugar cube in her coffee, didn’t notice his anger, and he quickly hid it, throwing another glance at me. I was staring at the wall behind their heads, but I saw everything that my mother did, along with him, as if I was staring at them.
"Yes, I do," he said, his voice a little bit shaky but otherwise sure and determined. He snuck another glance at me and I again ignored him.
I suddenly got an idea. I could get up and leave. I could kill myself now. Lindsey wasn’t here. Mrs. Thomas wasn’t either, and Way was occupied.
I stood up, and Way automatically asked if he could be excused. I sat immediately down as my mother nodded, giving him an appreciatively large grin saved only for her favourite people.
He stood up and gave me a look that said I know what you’re going to do so don’t even think about it.
Surprised, I let my eyes widen for the first time in almost a month. He gave me a small, apologetic smile, showing small, gleaming teeth, and then he was gone.
Suddenly, I knew that he was going to succeed. That they both were going to succeed. I almost let out a little moan right then and there.
I tried to figure out a way to weasel out of it, but saw no way out. They had me caught. There was no divorce happening or rumours going around. They were lying to Mother, and she would never know until I was eighteen and not able to be run by Christine Anderson again.
So how did I make this situation work in my favour? By going with Gerard Way, I was going to be in Lindsey’s power. So to make this work, I had to make her suffer for one month until even they couldn’t keep me around them anymore. One more month of pain, knowing that I wouldn’t see Haven again, to make her suffer. I had to make her suffer, because somehow, she was the root of this problem. She was the reason I was miserable when she left. She abandoned Haven and me in the time we needed her to survive, and if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have survived at all. She somehow helped kill Haven, my love. She was the reason I was still alive. She brought Gerard Way here, who saved me from a welcomed death. She intercepted all of my suicide attempts after that. She manipulated Way into keeping me safe while she did her own thing and to come here in the first place. Gerard Way didn’t deserve being manipulated by her. He deserved to be free of Lindsey Ann Ballato.
So I knew what I wanted to do. What I had to do. I had to help Way get from Lindsey’s clutches.
I had to destroy their relationship. An eye for an eye, a relationship for a relationship.
It was war.
Way walked in. His eyes automatically looked at me, and he looked shocked at the sudden change in my expression.
"Mother," I said, my voice hoarse from not speaking and only screaming.
She jumped, and looked at Way before looking at me.
"Yes, dear?"
"I want to go with Gerard, Mother. I want him to keep me safe. I want him to protect me against that...thing I used to call my friend."
Gerard Way’s mouth fell open. My mother’s lips went into a tight line, and her manicured brow raised. She had a look on her face that told me exactly what she was thinking, for my mother could be read like a children’s book.
She was already thinking about sending me away with him. For two or three reasons; one being that Lindsey couldn’t find me if I suddenly left (which was ridiculous, considering the fact that Gerard Way was about ready to start another US tour and I would be in every magazine, newspaper, and Internet article from here to ten-buck-two, but that was how my mother thought), that he really would keep me away from Lindsey (which, again, was crap, but I wasn’t going to tell her any differently), and possibly because she liked the thought of her only child to get with an international superstar with lots of money that she could weasel out of me later.
I was gone already, and she didn’t even know it yet.
My eyes went to Gerard Way, and my lips went into a grin that would have frightened the Grim Reaper.
Mother, taking a sip of her tea and her dull mind going a kilometer a minute, did not see this look.
It was off my face when she looked back up, but I had my point across. I was going to ruin them, and he knew it. I could tell by the widened eyes, the slack jaw, and his raised eyebrows. I could see it in his freshly whiter skin due to the colour draining from his face and his lack of breathing, and I could tell because he...
Wait. What? I didn’t know anything about him. And I wasn’t staring. God no.
I tore my eyes away from him and looked back to my mother.
She looked at Way, who wiped his shocked expression off his face in a hurry.
"Actually, I was thinking about asking you that very question, Ms. Anderson. I feel as if I could keep her safe, and away from...certain individuals."
He looked revolted at himself at those last two words that came of his mouth, but Mother didn’t notice. Naturally. She wouldn’t notice if she went blind, it seemed like sometimes.
Her ice blue eyes suddenly changed, and she said, "My dear daughter, you leave tonight. Go pack now, my dearest."
I stood up and Way stood up too. "I’ll help her, if you don’t mind. I want to leave before Lyn-Z finds out. I don’t want her to know."
My mother nodded vigorously and beckoned him away. I forced a smile and walked out of the room, Way following me closely behind.
I slowly walked upstairs to my room and began packing a small duffel bag that belonged to Haven. I had borrowed it when he had went to the hospital and never gave it back. I didn’t think that he would mind...
Way stood in the doorway and watched me until saying, "What’re you doing, Joelle?"
It was the first time he had spoken to me without blood pouring out of my arms. I realised for the first time that he had the same voice that he sang with.
"Packing," I said simply.
It was silent again. I packed clothes that belonged to Haven, and some things that I deemed necessary, like Haven’s watch and pictures of him. Only Haven’s things that Mrs. Thomas had given me of his.
"Packing his stuff won’t help you, you know," he mentioned, and I so dearly wanted to throw something at him.
"It helps me remember that I’ll see him soon. I deserve to suffer."
"Why?" he asked, his voice a little shaken.
"I could have saved him."
"Joelle, he had cancer. You couldn’t help him."
"Yes I could’ve. I could’ve taken it away."
"May I come in, Joelle?"
I considered telling him to shove something, but didn’t. I nodded instead.
I heard him enter, but he did not shut the door like I expected him to. He also didn’t come in and sit by me, or on my bed, or at my computer. He stood up my the open door.
"Cancer like that...it can’t be healed. Surely you know that?"
I fought back the tears. "It can. I love him, and love is supposed to heal everything."
"Not everything."
There was silence as I held Haven’s cinnamon shampoo to pack. It was stalled above the bag, forgotten, as I tried not to cry. Regardless, a tear escaped from one green eye, and I couldn’t quite conceal it from the thirty-one-year-old.
"I’m sorry Joelle," he apologised, and I finally laid the shampoo in the bag. I stood up and walked to the doorway, on my way to go to the bathroom and get the only things that belonged to me that I would take.
The bathroom was directly across from my room. I gathered my toothbrush and other things that I needed. Deodorant, toothpaste, hairbrush...shaver. The light gleamed off the blades and I stared, hypnotised for a moment. But only for a moment. I knew that I couldn’t try now. Way was staring at me, and I could never kill myself in the time that it took him to kick down the door. Gerard Way might be lean, but so was I, and I knew how to knock down a door and defend myself.
With all of my things in my hands, I walked back into my room. I put them in a little carrying case, which also went into my bag. I grabbed Haven’s iPod, some of our favourite books, and the art pad and charcoal sticks that he had given me for my sixteenth birthday. I then packed the jewelry that he had given me over the years. The only jewelry he himself owned was currently on me, and that was his school ring that was on my ring finger and the thick woven fabric that served as a necklace.
I packed some money and I was done. I left my laptop on the desk and the cell phone on the charger. It didn’t pertain to me anymore. I was through with that stuff.
I went to pick up my bag but Way got there first. He pulled it up with ease; the bag wasn’t very heavy, considering the books were in the little bookbag I had over my shoulder. He stood out of the way, and I passed him, looking straight ahead of me as if he didn’t exist.
I heard him sigh and follow me. We walked in silence to where my mother was waiting, an apprehensive smile on her face. She was beginning to have doubts.
Way saw this and automatically went to her, giving her a peck on the cheek and a slight, "Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Your reputation will be highly appreciated for letting me keep your daughter safe."
He sounded like a robot. Haven had always joked about how carefree and silly Gerard Way was, in concert and out. Now he sounded like a crazy sixteenth-century man assuring a woman that he was a good contribution to an estate by marrying the daughter. It was sort of creepy.
But regardless, Mother absorbed it and her doubts were gone.
"Oh yes, dear, but please do hurry before that...girl comes back, Mr. Way."
"Yes ma’am."
He gestured with his free hand to lead me out to his white Lincoln Navigator he had rented at the airport.
Mother waved and called goodbye to Way, and only him, as he put my bag in the back and went around to open my door for me.
I climbed in, not bothering to put on my seat belt. What was the point when I had a death wish.
I felt like Mother was an anchor, holding me back from safety, from the safety of dying. I was setting sail on a journey that ensured lying and ruining lives before ending mine.
But it will be worth it, I thought as Gerard Way got into the driver’s seat and started the Navigator up. It’ll be worth it indeed.
Title: Fighting for the End (Prologue and Chapter One)
Author: AlexandraxJean
Pairing: Gerard/female, Frank/female (Gerard/Lyn-Z hinted)
Rating: R to be safe
POV: First, female
Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't sue. That would suck. Really bad.
Summary: Gerard Way and Lyn-Z take a young woman out of her home to take away her pain of losing a loved one. None of them expect what happens to the three of them, especially Gerard's relationship with the the girl Joelle.
[A/N: Well, here's my first fanfic. I hope it's not too bad, but I tried really hard on it. Don't be too mean... *looks around nervously* Anyway, I hope you liked it, and feel free to comment or point out any mistakes!]