Chapter 11: You’re As Sick As Your Secrets

“I’m sorry,” Frank mumbled, his eyes glued to the floor. He couldn’t bear to look at me. I couldn’t bear to look at him either.

I ignored his apology and pursed my lips, reaching out to touch the sodden remains of my beloved sketchbook.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated.

I sighed and delicately lifted the corner of one of the pages that was plastered to the one underneath it. Despite my delicate approach, the corner of the page ripped and I was left with a stamp sized piece of wet paper stuck to my fingers. That was when I gave up. There was going to be no salvage attempt. It was completely ruined. All my work was gone.

“Sorry.”

Frank wrapped his arms around himself, trying to find comfort in the fact that I was angry at him.

And I was angry at him. Did he deserve it? No. Of course he didn’t. But I certainly wasn’t thinking logically at the moment. There was months of irretrievable work lying between those saturated pages. All my artwork was ruined and all my theories had been washed away. All the hours I spent late at night recording how memories work and how the mind reacts to instances of severe boredom had been wasted. My written conversations with Frank and Markman had been erased.

I was shattered. I had been so intent on saving Frank that fateful Christmas afternoon that I hadn’t even thought about the well-being of my sketchbook when I plunged under that shower with Frank. With unreasonable anger I picked up the waterlogged mess and threw it with excessive force into the metal wastepaper basket next to my bed. The weight of the book sent the basket clattering loudly across the floor of my room.

Frank recoiled dramatically away from me. “I’m sorry,” he exclaimed.

“Stop saying that!” I snapped, refusing to turn to look at him.

Frank inhaled sharply as I snapped at him. I felt bad. I’d never raised my voice to him before, I don’t think. He didn’t deserve to be the receiver of my anger. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t make me stand under that shower with him. He didn’t make me open my mouth and attract Them. He didn’t make me do anything.

Then why was I so eager to blame him?

“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly a saint either, Gerard,” Frank said, hurt. Before I could respond, he’d whirled around and stalked from my room.

Frank’s words stabbed me in the heart like a knife and my breath caught sharply in my throat. The dread and shame and guilt sat in my stomach like a lead weight, weighing me down and poisoning me. That was the first time Frank had mentioned the horrendous act I’d committed since I’d confessed it to him in the quiet darkness of the infirmary. He must have thought I was a monster. I knew it. I doubled over, resting my head in my hands and tried to suppress the queasy feeling I felt in my stomach.

I was a murderer.

Every time I thought about that I felt like I was collapsing inside. It was like I was being battered down like a sandcastle caught in the rising tide. I remained hunched over, hiding my face in my hands, replaying the fateful words over and over in my head.

Gerard, let go. He’s hurt. We need an ambulance. Oh my lord, they’ve all been shot.

The words repeated like a broken record.

Gerard, let go. He’s hurt. We need an ambulance. Oh my lord, they’ve all been shot.

Gerard, let go. He’s hurt. We need an ambulance. Oh my lord, they’ve all been shot.

Gerard, let go. He’s hurt. We need an ambulance. Oh my lord, they’ve all been shot.

Gerard, let go. He’s hurt. We need an ambulance. Oh my lord, they’ve all been shot.

Gerard, let go. He’s hurt. We need an ambulance. Oh my lord, they’ve all been shot.

OH MY LORD, THEY’VE ALL BEEN SHOT.

“Gerard?”

I hunched my shoulders protectively, shielding myself and my tear-stained face from Ben.

“Come to lunch.”

I shook my head. I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to eat a meal again. Not with all the guilt weighing me down and poisoning me.

“I’m not asking.” he said sternly.

“I’m not hungry,” I muttered.

“Well, at least come and sit out where I can see you,” Ben ordered and tried to wrench me off the bed.

I flinched away from him. “Fine,” I growled. “I’ll be right out.”

Ben let go of my arm. “Two minutes,” he warned and walked out.

I used the two exact minutes to wash my face. I didn’t want anyone to see I had been crying. Crying was a sign of weakness. I had already shown my weakness to Frank once before and I didn’t want to do it again. Especially not while we were fighting. I was a cold-hearted murderer and I was pretty sure that cold-hearted murderers didn’t cry.

As I walked into the cafeteria I noticed Frank straightaway. I swear my body has a homing beacon for that boy installed into it. He wasn’t sitting at our table. He was sitting with Ray and Bob, facing away from the direction of my table. I sat down and stared at the way he sat with his shoulders hunched and the way he wrapped his arms securely over his chest. It made my heart ache to see him sitting away from me. I wrapped my own arms over my stomach in the futile hope it would settle my nausea and give me a little bit of comfort.

I sat with my arms wrapped around myself and my chin tucked into my chest for a long time. I forced myself to count in my head to prevent myself from thinking of what I’d done. I’d gotten all the way up to 603 when a shadow fell over the table, distracting me. The man who made the shadow sat down across from me and I could feel his eyes on me. I ignored him. I didn’t know who he was and I didn’t care.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen….

“Maybe you should try eating something,” the stranger said and slid a tray with food on it over to me.

Fuck you. I untangled my arms and pushed the tray away, the smell making me even sicker than I already was. I glanced up to see who this annoying fuckwit actually was. I noted that he was most likely in his early thirties with styled and dyed black hair that I suspected was being held in place with ridiculous amounts of hairspray. He was wearing a white coat which confirmed my suspicions that he was doctor. But he wasn’t any doctor I’d seen before. His arms were folded on the table over a cream-coloured folder.

The moment when I noticed this particular detail was when I became intensely interested in this stranger.

His arms were resting on my file.

“You haven’t eaten anything since last night,” he pointed out and pushed the tray back to me with more force than necessary.

To hear him say that gave me the creeps. He’d obviously been watching me all day. That’s the only way he would know I hadn’t eaten since I’d forced three spoonfuls of soup down my throat last night at Frank’s insistence.

I shot him the filthiest look I could muster and his pointed chin rose sharply and self-consciously in response to my disgust. It made me feel good to know I’d gotten to him. Not like Markman. I could throw looks at Markman all I liked and I rarely ever got a reaction as good as this from her.

He leant forward and extended his hand out to me. “I’m Doctor Leto,” he informed me.

Ahh, he was a doctor. I knew it. But why was he here? Where was Markman? She was supposed to tell me the answers. I ignored Dr. Leto’s extended hand and realised that I hadn’t seen Markman in three whole days. I’d been so intent on wallowing in my guilt that I hadn’t noticed her absence.

“Where’s Doctor Markman?” I verbalised my thoughts to Dr. Leto.

Embarrassed, he withdrew his hand and said, “She’s having a family emergency and is taking some time off.”

LIES!

Someone had gotten to her. Someone knew that she was going to tell me everything. She was going to explain to me what was going on. She had promised. Someone didn’t want me to know something. Was she dead? Had they killed her? Was I next? Was Frank next? Was Frank safe?

I looked over Dr. Leto’s shoulder at Frank, checking to make sure he was alright. I swallowed another wave of nausea as I stared at Frank. I was at a loss. What could I do? There was nobody left to help me. Was this all part of their plan to get me? Oh God.

Dr. Leto turned around to see who I was looking at. “Is that your friend?” he asked. “What’s his name?”

I didn’t answer; my brain had more important things to think about. I needed to get out of here. Could I convince Frank to come with me? Dr. Leto opened my file and began flicking through the pages searching for something. I could hear the rustling of the pages and I glanced down, wondering if I could see what was in my file. I speculated for a brief moment over whether or not I would get to find out what it was that was so terrible in there that Markman wouldn’t let me see. Would today be the day when I finally found out? I shot another nervous glance at Frank’s back. Should I go and talk to him?

“Frank,” Dr. Leto stated. “Your friend’s name is Frank. How come he’s sitting over there? Did you have a fight?”

My attention was diverted from Frank and back to the irritating doctor. I sighed, aggravated, and glared at him. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? Then, my eyes dropped down to the table to rest on my open file.

Now if I’d known what I was about to see when I looked down, I would never have done it. I swear I wouldn’t have. It took me a second to realise what I was that I was looking at. It was a partly obscured twelve by eight inch photograph. It then took me another two point five seconds to realise what the photo was of.

As soon as those two point five seconds passed I freaked out. In intense horror I propelled myself backwards off the bench away from the photo and collapsed onto the floor. I scrambled blindly to my feet, my head filled with incoherent voices and screams. I barely made it out of the cafeteria and around the corner before I was on my knees, throwing up violently. Because I hadn’t eaten anything all day all I was throwing up was water and bile. Every time the image on the photograph flashed through my head, fresh waves of nausea engulfed me until all I could do was dry-retch pathetically. I collapsed onto my back, clutching at my throat and my chest, struggling to breathe. It felt like someone had clamped a thick cloth over my nose and mouth, smothering me. My throat was constricting painfully like I was being physically choked, yet no one was touching me.

The image on the photograph had burnt itself into my brain and onto my eyelids. Even when I closed my eyes all I could see was the angry red of the pooling blood around the motionless body and the chilling way the fingers were curled in slightly towards the palm. I forced my eyes open, too afraid to stay in the dark. My heart was racing dangerously fast and my whole body felt numb. I felt like I was dying. The image of the dead body on that photograph was all I could see and all I could think about. The fact that I could barely breathe and that I had virtually no feeling in my extremities took a back seat to the fact that Dr. Leto had shown me a picture of one of the innocent people I’d killed.

How many more people had I killed? Why couldn’t I remember?!

I allowed my body and my precious mind to shut down in a desperate bid to cope. All the voices and figures were swarming around me like incorporeal beings. They were yelling and calling my name trying to get me to respond to them but I couldn’t. I wanted to tell them to help me but I’d slipped into a state where I couldn’t function.

I caught snippets of sentences but the two or three words didn’t make any sense on their own. It was like trying to complete a puzzle with only half the pieces.

“Gerard.”

“Fifty milligrams.”

“Shock.”

“Diazepam.”

“Non-responsive.”

“Dilated pupils.”

“Call an ambulance.”

“Call Princeton Presbyterian.”

“VERY IMPORTANT PERSON!”

There had been so much blood on the ground. It was like someone had turned a tap on but then forgotten to turn it off. Blood spurted from the bodies not unlike the way water was projected from a fountain. Blood mixed with saliva dribbling out of the corner of agape mouths onto the slimy floorboards. Blood spraying onto the white walls like red spray paint. There had been so much blood. It had been all over me; all over my clothes. In my hair and in my mouth; trickling down my neck and dripping from my chin.

Was God smiting me down? Was He finally catching up with me? Is that why I felt myself slipping out of my body? Or was it them? Had they caught up with me at last? Had they cut into my brain? Was this what dying felt like? Had they finally gotten my secrets?

“Gerard? Can you hear me?!”

My vision was filled with bright light for a brief second, and then it vanished. Another second later the light was back but again it disappeared. I was so confused. My thoughts were coming back suddenly in a jumbled mess.

“If you can hear me, Gerard, squeeze my hand.”

I couldn’t even feel my own hands, let alone someone else’s.

“If you can hear me, Gerard, I need you to squeeze my hand.”

I can’t fucking do it! Haven’t you gathered that yet? If I could squeeze your fucking hand I would have done it the first time!

“He’s non-responsive.”

My heart was pounding in my chest and I could feel cold air being blown over my mouth. I assumed I was wearing an oxygen mask. That knowledge pleased me. At least I wasn’t going to suffocate anytime soon.

“No he’s not, you pretentious idiot. He’s in shock. Get away from my patient.” Holy fucking hell, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to hear that woman’s voice. Looks like she wasn’t dead after all. “What did you give him?”

The meek voice of Dr. Leto said, “Diazepam.”

“You gave him Valium?! How much Valium?” I could hear the fury in Markman’s voice. Sweet.

Dr. Leto’s first answer was incomprehensible. All he did was mumble. Markman insulted him again and in his defence he said, “He was having a serious panic attack. He needed to be sedated.”

I heard the clip-clop of Markman’s high heels on the floor as she walked around to the other side of my bed. I could only imagine what her face looked like at the moment. “How much?” she asked again.

“Fifty milligrams.”

That amount had no relevance to me but it obviously did to Markman because she went off her nut. “FIFTY MILLIGRAMS!” she screamed. “He could’ve gone into cardiac arrest!”

“But he didn’t!”

“But he could have! What were you thinking? Did you want to be the one to tell his parents?”

There was silence on Dr. Leto’s part after that. “It was an accident,” he said eventually.

“What was? You almost killing the poor kid?!”

“He’s hardly a child, Jillian,” Dr. Leto spat. “You know what he’s done. You saw it yourself.”

I felt like I was listening to a soap opera. A soap opera where I was the main character who everyone would frequently talk about, when he wasn’t around. It was pretty intense. Markman didn’t reply to Dr. Leto’s statement and I imagined her staring at the wall, grinding her teeth angrily.

“I didn’t mean to show him the photo,” Dr. Leto said begrudgingly.

Markman laughed scathingly. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

“I didn’t!” Dr. Leto insisted.

Fuck, I wish I could see what’s going on. Only being able to hear was driving me crazy. Was a fist fight on the cards? I did feel quite honoured about how Markman was sticking up for me. She seemed to be reluctant to let Dr. Leto call me a cold-hearted murderer, even though that was so obviously what I was.

Dr. Leto shuffled some papers as he spoke, “You know what this means now, right?”

“Enlighten me?”

“The way he reacted…pretty indicative of his guilt, don’t you think?”

I swear Markman just imploded, but she kept her voice measured. “It means nothing.”

“They’ll make him stand trial.”

“Gerard Way is no longer fit to stand trial for any crime; you made sure of that yourself, Doctor.”

Dr. Leto swore.

I kept my eyes shut as he stormed from the room and pretended to be asleep but I should’ve known better than to try to fool Markman.

“I leave you alone for three days and you freak out on me, Gerard?”

Holy shit, did she know I’d heard everything? Did she know I was awake? Is there anything that woman doesn’t know? I swear there are things she knows about me that even I don’t know about me. Well, for instance, she knew what I had done, even when I didn’t. Did she know about me and Frank? Would she separate us if she knew? Would she accuse me of taking advantage of him? Did she know that I liked Frank? That I liked him much more than a friend? Did she know that I was in like with him? That I was teetering on the edge of falling in love with him?

Did Frank know that? Did Frank know that I liked him so much it hurt me physically to be angry with him or for him to be angry with me? Would I get a chance to tell him? Or would I stand trial like Dr. Leto predicted and be sent straight to Greenwood? Would I spend the rest of my life in a mental asylum for the criminally insane being treated like a monster for what I’d done?

“Heart rate and BP’s going up.” An unfamiliar female voice reached my ears. A nurse?

A moment later my frantic train of thought was abruptly cut off as the owner of the female voice sent me into darkness.

***

Coming out of sedation is one of the most annoying things in the world. I’d been sedated quite a few times in the past few months and I hated it. I hated the way my head was all cloudy and full of nonsense. I hated how bright the lights seemed to be to my eyes. I hated how lethargic I felt for hours afterwards. I hated that I would go to sleep in one place but wake up in another.

I was surprised to find that I was still in the hospital. Princeton Presbyterian to be exact. I’d been here before. I was in the exact same room that I’d been in that time when they sliced my head open and that arse of a plastic surgeon was brought in to fix it. I was surprised because I’d half-expected to be waking up to find myself in a cell, awaiting my judgement day.

I glanced across and was quite stunned to see Markman sitting by the wall. She was dozing with her head resting on the palm of her hand in one of those uncomfortable plastic hospital chairs. Had she been there all along? I felt rather touched. Maybe she wasn’t the devil in disguise after all.

I coughed pointedly to see if she was awake and it seemed she was, because she opened her eyes immediately.

“Oh, Gerard.” She seemed to be overcome with emotion for a moment. That surprised me even more. I could’ve sworn she hated me. She swept her brown hair back into a messy bun as she made her way over to my bedside.

I stared up at her, waiting for her to say something first.

She brandished her finger at me. “Never do that to me again!” she exclaimed.

I smiled meekly at her and she rolled her eyes. I was glad that things were going to be normal between us. But would things stay normal?

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. I wasn’t apologising for scaring her and she knew that because she shook her head at me. “I don’t want to go.”

“You really think I’m going to let you go that easy? I need someone to keep me on my toes for a long time to come yet, Gerard. But, now do you understand why I wouldn’t let you see your file? There is method to my madness, you know.”

She had been protecting me all along. I’d given her such a hard time about it too. What a fucking gyp. Markman reached into a bag under my bed and pulled out a pair of my jeans and a hoodie.

“Why don’t you get changed and I’ll take you home?”

I nodded, unable to believe it. Didn’t she remember what I had done? Why was she acting like I wasn’t a cold-hearted murderer? Just as Markman got to the door she turned and looked at me. “You’d tell me if you remember anything about that day, wouldn’t you?”

With wide eyes I nodded automatically. I was still surprised they were allowing me to go back home to really understand what she was saying.

The after effects of the sedation meant I slept the entire way back to Bluestone and then for the rest of the afternoon in the infirmary. Man, I’d spent a lot of time in this place lately. As I lay in the darkness I thought about when all this had started. It all coincided with the arrival of Frank. Their attempts to steal my secrets, the dreams about Michael, the foreign memories that I didn’t remember making, all started when I opened myself up to Frank.

It was all his fault.

But I didn’t care.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Fuck, I’m turning into a fucking sissy.

It wasn’t until an hour after they called bedtime that Frank came sneaking in to see me. I was expecting him to be all timid and meek after the fight we’d had before I’d had my panic attack. But he surprised me again. Fuck, I was getting sick of surprises.

“We have our first fight and you have a breakdown on me,” he joked, smoothing my bed sheets. I noticed that he had his skeleton gloves back on.

I think that this was his version of a peace offering. Whatever it was I knew it meant he had forgiven me.

“Any room up there for me?” he asked.

In response I shuffled over and straightaway he climbed up next to me and lay down. I breathed him in, not realised how much I’d missed him until I had him back. I rolled over onto my side to stare at him and he mimicked me so we were facing each other. He propped himself up slightly on his elbow and smiled.

I knew this wasn’t a good idea. I was afraid. I was scared of how I might hurt Frank. I’d killed those people. I’d killed my brother. I didn’t know what triggered me to do it, and I didn’t want to find out.

“Oh, hey, Gerard? I found this,” Frank said and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. It was all creased like it had been scrunched into a ball but then smoothed out. “It was scrunched up in your wastepaper basket. I was cleaning up your room,” he added.

I didn’t know what the paper was but I knew it wasn’t anything of great importance. It was most likely a sketch I’d messed up or a theory I’d gotten wrong. Frank offered me the paper and I read it in the faint glow of one of the monitors. It was my theory on how memories work. I’d been mulling over this the very first time I saw Frank in the TV room.

“Is it true?” Frank asked hopefully. “Can you really lose a memory?”

“Yeah. Sort of,” I breathed and handed the paper back.

Frank inhaled sharply. “Really?” he said disbelievingly. “How? Show me how?”

“It’s not that simple. It’s easier to just replace the memory.”

Frank scanned back over the paper. “It doesn’t say anything about replacing on here,” he accused, waving the paper in my face. “Tell me how it works.”

I just wanted to lay there with Frank; I didn’t want to waste time discussing irrelevant theories for Frank’s amusement.

“Please.”

I sighed. “Well, let’s use the instance of learning to ride a bike, okay? Let’s imagine that you’re riding the bike around the street and you fall off and hurt yourself. From that moment you can do one of two things. You can get back on or you can put the bike back in the garage and never ride it again. If you choose to put the bike back in the garage the only memory you’re going to have of that bike is the bad memory of you falling off. Or you can get back on and stay on, and if you do that the memory you’re going to favour is the good one of you getting back on and staying on. So technically you’ve replaced the bad memory of falling off with the good one of staying on. Does that make sense?”

It was quite difficult to try to explain these things to people who didn’t have a brain like mine. Frank nodded enthusiastically, hanging onto my every word.

“Does it work for all things?” he asked.

“Pretty much,” I replied. Most people unconsciously replaced memories all the time. It was something you could do without any pre-meditation. Not like the act of losing memories. That required a lot of pre-meditation. I began listing some common reasons why people replaced memories. “Lots of people do it with scary movies, animal bites, first dates….”

“First kisses?” Frank blurted out.

“Yeah... wait, what?” I said moving my eyes from the ceiling to his face.

Even in the darkness of the room I could see the pure excitement in his eyes. It was literally oozing out of his pores. What was he up to? I thought back to when I’d first saw him. I had noted that day that his lips had touched another person’s, but I’d forgotten until now. It made sense now.

“Will you help me?” he asked.

“No,” I responded, embarrassed and reluctant. I wasn’t going to be the one to take advantage of Frank. No way. Not in a million years.

“But you said….”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I moved away from Frank as he moved closer to me. Was I detecting desperation now?

“I want to replace that memory, Gerard. You don’t know what it’s like to have them lingering on your lips and on your body.”

“You’re using me,” I pointed out near-frantically, making up excuses.

“That’s a lie, and you know it,” he whispered. He slipped his gloves off and let one hand slide up the side of my face.

I shouldn’t do it. It was the wrong thing to do, right? I didn’t even know what to do. I’d never kissed anyone before. Frank let his hand slip off my face when I didn’t respond or react. He rolled away from me so he was on his back staring up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

I pushed myself up onto my elbow so I was looking down at Frank. He gazed back at me, his eyes wide in anticipation. I let my right hand settle gently on the side of Frank’s face, and stroked his cheek so lightly he could’ve mistaken it for a breath of air. I let my hand slip down his face until I was cupping the back of his head, just under his ear. I dragged my thumb over the corner of his lips and he shivered.

Afraid I’d done the wrong thing, I drew back. I lost my nerve and lay back down, avoiding Frank’s eye contact.

“I trust you.”

It took a while for those words to sink in. I hated that Frank trusted me so wholeheartedly. I was so afraid I was going to hurt him.

“What’s the matter?” he asked eventually, not spitefully but worriedly.

“You know what I did,” I reminded him.

Frank made a noise in his throat that sounded like disapproval. “It was an accident,” he told me firmly.

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you.”

“You could be wrong.”

“So could you.”

I smiled in the darkness. If only Frank knew how unlikely it was for me to be wrong.

Frank continued, “I’m not scared of you, you know. If you were capable of hurting me, I think you would’ve done it already.”

I think that was meant to be comforting but it gave me the chills. I hadn’t hurt him, yet. There was no guarantee I still wouldn’t do it. “I can’t,” I said eventually.

“Okay,” Frank said dejectedly. “I think I’ll go to bed.” Without a further word he walked out.

He didn’t even look back at me.

He did, however, sit with me at breakfast the next morning acting like nothing had happened the night before. I wasn’t going to bring it up, even though I had lain awake until three o’clock in the morning, mulling over it and thinking of how it could’ve gone differently. As we ate, Frank told me everything that had happened in the forty eight hours I’d been gone. There had been one exciting occurrence. Trust something exciting to happen when I’m not there.

In addition to traumatising me, Dr. Leto had also insulted Bert which resulted in Bert trying to attack Dr. Leto with a plastic spork. Bert had been able to inflict a surprising amount of scratches on Dr. Leto’s smooth high-cheeked face and neck before the orderlies managed to pull him off. I made a mental note to commend Bert as soon as he got let out of solitary. I may even reconsider his ban on sitting at my table.

Ray and Adam came over to welcome me back. I didn’t know why they both persisted in being nice to me; maybe it was a symptom of their craziness?

“That lady won’t stop looking at you,” Frank said suddenly, pointing out a strange pale woman who was standing at the visitor entrance. We all turned to look at her and I stared back at her for a while, trying to unnerve her but she held my gaze with ease. She seemed quite familiar, actually.

“I know who she is,” Adam said darkly.

“Who?” Frank, Ray and I all asked eagerly in unison.

“She’s from the Government. She’s one of the people trying to cover up my abduction.”

Frank and I both sat back, disappointed. “Oh, right,” I said. Ray seemed enthralled by the story though.

Adam lowered his voice so we all had to lean back in to hear him. “I’ve never told anyone this but I have a tracking chip in the back of my neck,” he disclosed. He glanced around nervously before continuing. “The aliens put it there so they can find me again. The Government has a top secret taskforce that deals with the paranormal and she’s part of it. They’ve been watching me for months.”

“Wow.” Ray’s eyes were wide in astonishment. He seemed to be the only one who believed Adam. Frank and I certainly didn’t. For starters, there is no such thing as aliens. I know that. I know things, remember?

“They’re also the ones behind the Y2K cover-up, you know?” Adam explained.

Hearing Adam mention the Y2K reminded me that today was New Year’s Eve. I’d completely forgotten with all that had been going on since Christmas. Tomorrow was going to be a whole new year. A whole new start.

The group therapy session was unusually early this morning, straight after breakfast. I didn’t like changes to the routine. I liked my routine. I liked knowing exactly when things were going to happen. I was getting sick of surprises. Ray, Frank and Adam all walked into the room in front of me but I stopped before going in. I was getting a bad feeling about this already. Especially since Adam had pinned that pale-faced lady as a Government agent. The strange thing was that I believed him. He was right and he didn’t even know it.

I saw Markman walking towards the room so I intercepted her. “I need to talk to you,” I told her urgently.

“Not now.” She brushed me off and tried to keep walking.

“It’s important.”

“Not now,” she replied but couldn’t go anywhere because I had planted myself in front of her.

I sighed, aggravated. “She’s come to take me away, hasn’t she? She knows I killed those people.”

Markman paled and grabbed my arm, dragging me around the corner. “Be quiet,” she hissed. Yes, she hissed like she was afraid someone was listening. She was becoming as fearful and as paranoid as me.

“You told me I wouldn’t have to go,” I stammered. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. I really didn’t. I was trying to save him. Please don’t let them take me away.” I was on the verge of begging.

“Be quiet, be quiet!” she said, dragging me further and further away from the room. “I can’t talk about this now, Gerard.”

“Why not?!”

“ SHHHHHH! ” she half-screamed, half-whispered.

“Please don’t let them take me away,” I begged, grabbing her arm. I wouldn’t go. They couldn’t make me go.

Markman was shaking. “We can’t talk about this now, Gerard.”

“What’s Gerard not allowed to talk about?” A male voice interrupted our hushed argument. We both went deathly silent and stared at the three people who had accosted us in the hallway. Both Markman and I let go of where we had been clutching each other and I swallowed painfully. My brain whirred as it struggled to think up an excuse. The older, greying man was accompanied by the pale-faced woman from before and another middle-aged man. They were all dressed like they were going to court, in perfectly pressed suits and immaculate hair. Maybe they were going to take me straight in to stand trial for murdering all those people.

“What can’t you talk about, Gerard?” Older Man asked me again.

A moment later I had a brain wave. This is why I love my brain. I folded my arms over my chest crossly and pretended to be annoyed. I didn’t dare to look at Markman.

“Well,” I sighed. “I wanted to stay up tonight and watch the New Year’s fireworks on the television but I’m not allowed. And she won’t even give me a proper reason. I mean, it’s only midnight. I’ve stayed up until midnight before. It’s stupid. And I keep asking why not but she keeps telling me to stop talking about it and live with her decision.”

I knew instantly that they all bought my lie. I was very good at reading people, especially those who were useless at hiding their reactions.

“Were you off to anywhere important?” The older man asked me.

“Ummm….no. Yes,” I changed my mind hastily. “Group session. Very important.”

“I’m sure Dr. Markman can excuse you for one session.”

Markman didn’t argue. She didn’t even look at me as she walked briskly away.

My stomach dropped through the floor as the older man took a hold of my arm and led me away in the opposite direction from the therapy room. He led me into the cafeteria which was now empty. We sat down at a table in the middle. I didn’t like sitting here. It wasn’t my usual table. I only like to sit at my usual table. The two men sat on one side while the woman sat next to me. I glanced around and was worried to see half a dozen more men in dark suits standing against the walls looking very serious.

“Now, Gerard, do you know why we are here?” The older man asked.

“You don’t have to answer that, Gerard,” the woman interjected immediately and scowled at the man.

Why wasn’t I allowed to answer that? I was baffled. I looked to the woman, blinking blankly at her. “Who are you?” I asked softly.

She looked like she had been slapped in the face. “I’m your lawyer, Gerard,” she replied indignantly.

“Oh.” I had a lawyer? Jeez, so she was here to save me.

“Gerard, you don’t remember me?”

“No. Sorry,” I added, a little uncomfortable.

“Sure you do. I’m Lindsey, remember?” She was getting a little bit restless and anxious now and she kept glancing at the two men.

I swallowed and shook my head.

“Your dad hired me….?” She exchanged a glance with the middle-aged man.

I shook my head again.

The middle aged man sat forward now. “Gerard, do you know who I am?” he asked.

I frowned before I could help it. “Umm, no. Sorry.” I had come into this meeting with the intention of playing dumb but it seemed that I didn’t need to pretend.

“This is pointless,” the older man interjected angrily and I recoiled back from the table.

The middle-aged man became rather upset that I hadn’t recognised him. He got rather emotional and I felt quite embarrassed. “Have we met?” I asked hesitantly. “Because maybe if you tell me where we met I might have more luck remembering you. You see, sometimes my brain gets a bit overloaded. It’s been really busy lately...?”

He didn’t answer my question. He just stared at me with a real poignant look. I bit my lip. “You do look a little bit familiar,” I offered, trying to cheer him up. Gosh, it wasn’t the end of the world that I didn’t remember him. I wasn’t anyone important. I cocked my head to the side, racking my brains. “Were you on TV? Are you an actor, or something?”

Lindsey set her hand on my arm, preventing from saying any more. As I shut up the older man said, “I think we’re done here.”

He stood up and everyone followed his example. I glanced uneasily around at all the men who lined the room. “Are they Spooks?” I whispered to Lindsey.

“What?!” she exclaimed. I was getting the feeling that she didn’t like me. She was obviously a very high-paid, high-class lawyer who didn’t have time for people like me.

“Spooks. Like CIA?”

“No,” she said disapprovingly.

I didn’t let it go. I ran through all the different organisations in my head. FBI? CIA? Secret Service? MI6? Fuck, I had no idea. As suddenly as they arrived, the two men and the woman, Lindsey, left. They left me with a million questions racing through my head.

What a bizarre half an hour. I had a lot to tell Frank.

Unfortunately I didn’t have chance to be alone with Frank for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until after they called lights out and Frank snuck into my room that I was able to tell him my news.

“Spooks?” Frank said in awe. “Are you sure? That’s pretty cool.” He laughed and shook his head.

I shrugged. “I thought they had come to arrest me,” I confessed.

“Why would they do that? It was an accident, remember?”

“You don’t accidentally shoot several people, Frank,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him.

Frank didn’t continue the argument. Instead he stood up on my bed, glancing at his watch. Using my pillows to give him extra height he rested his chin on the window sill and gazed out the window.

I stood next to him and stared out into the night. Less than a minute later Frank made an “ohhh,” sound as he spotted the first of the fireworks in the distance. We were so far away that to us they looked like tiny sparks. But Frank didn’t seem to care. He just watched the show with a little smile on his face.

It didn’t last as long as I hoped it would. It made me really wish that we were allowed to stay up to watch the amazing display that was broadcast on the television. Less than five minutes after it started, Frank and I were lying back on bed next to each other again. We lay in comfortable silence for a long time and I even began to fall asleep.

“I didn’t mean to put you in such an awkward position last night,” Frank said suddenly. “Thank you for not taking advantage of me. I honestly thought it would work. I’m sorry for being stupid.” He went silent before whispering to himself as an afterthought, “So stupid.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” I told him and rolled over onto my side to look at him. He did the same and it was like we were back in the infirmary again. Except this time there were no silly expectations or pressure.

I leant in ever so slightly and Frank repeated what he’d told me last night. “I trust you.”

I half-sat up so I could lean over Frank better. He was definitely more relaxed than he was last night and I was too. Even though I still had no idea what I was doing I was calm. I cupped my hand under his ear again and Frank reached up to run his fingers down my jaw bone lightly. As I got lower and lower the butterflies in my stomach became more active until they were almost unbearable. When my lips were about three inches above Frank’s I hesitated again. Frank took a deep breath and shut his eyes, tilting his chin up. Not wanting to disappoint him I covered the last three inches until my lips were pressed up against Frank’s.

He had the softest lips I could imagine. Even softer than those models in the commercials with the plush botoxed lips. My head seemed to implode as the sensors in my lips registered what they were doing. My thoughts seemed to slow down to nothing except for a mantra of ‘FRANK’. I lifted off for a split-second before pressing my lips down a little harder onto Frank’s and opening my mouth.

I lurched over that mental edge that I had been teetering on for several weeks and plunged into the unknown abyss below. But it’s okay, Frank was my parachute. I don’t know why I was worried. This was a piece of cake and I think I am actually quite good at it.

Frank opened his own mouth and pushed his wet lips up against mine, his nose digging into my cheek. Our lips, lubricated with each other’s saliva, slid over each other as the kiss progressed from being innocent to verging on being rather intense and passionate. I was thinking that maybe I should stop. I didn’t think it was ideal for this to go past innocent just yet. I felt Frank pull away before he even knew he was doing it. Worried again that I had done something wrong I lifted my lips off Frank’s and sat back. Frank’s eyes remained shut and he was breathing quite heavily, his cheeks flushed. Then, an adorable coy smile spread across his moist lips and he raised his fingers to touch them, a real sense of wonder attached to his actions.

Frank opened his eyes and gave me such a pure smile my stomach did a somersault.

“Did it work?” I enquired nervously.

“It worked.”