Chapter 13

“I’m not going to squeeze the stupid ball”
“C’mon, one more time” My mum gave me the ball with a smile in her face. She was so smiley. I felt sick seeing her so happy. Why was she so happy? Because her son was alive? I’d rather be dead that be like this, without being able of playing the guitar again. I couldn’t think I could live with that sound again in my life; I had fallen in love with my guitar since I was 13 or so. And now she didn’t see the tragedy. For her it was enough being alive, for me it wasn’t.
“I said no” I felt back onto the chair and crossed my arms against my chest.
“You’re acting like a child Frank Anthony Iero” She called me my entire name, she did that a lot when I was a teenager. “Take it” She handed me the ball. I took it resigned and tried to squeeze. Immediately I felt a strong pain in my arm and my hand started shaking.
“FUCK” I let the ball fall and tried to hold on through pain, it stared to pass.
“I hate this shit!” I grabbed the ball and throw it to the other side of the therapy room.
“Relax” my mother said a little scared.
“Don’t tell me to relax”
“I’m just trying to help you honey” she said in a kind voice.
“YES!! Everybody is trying to help, but you know what? You’re not helping at all” She remained silence.
“Because you’re not me”
“I’m trying to understand”.
“Stop being nice, you don’t understand. I don’t want your fucking pity” I emphasized the word fucking.
“I don’t…. “ She tried to explain herself. I couldn’t stand her anymore, I wanted to be alone.
“Out” I said in the coldest tone.
“What?” She couldn’t believe what I had just said.
“I said out. I want to be alone”
“Frankie honey..” She was talking to me like a baby.
“Stop treating me like a child…”
She became serious. “Stop acting like one.”
“I want to be alone. Get out.”
“I’m your mother and…”
“OUT” I throw a magazine at her that was on the table. “OUT,” I was yelling like crazy. “I said out!!!”
She froze there.”Fine” I saw tears in her eyes but she remained in one piece. She turned and left.
“Fine!!” I sat back on the chair again.
“Frank” It was the calm voice of Jamie.
Stupid Jamie with stupid new French boyfriend Fabrice. I hated him; I hated Jamie, so fucking perfect, so fucking happy, I hate their happiness, I hated everybody’s happiness.
“What are you doing?” He sat on the chair my mum was minutes ago.
“Don’t you have to be fucking with your new toy?”
“That was rude” He was very serious. “How can you yell like that to your mother?”
“What do you know about mothers?” I put a mocking face. “Yours hates you.”
I knew that was a sensitive spot. He remained cold. “I wish I could have a mother like yours, who cares for her son so much”
“Yeah, sorry but she is my mum and it’s not your business; my problems with her are mine alone”
“Oh my god!” He looked at the ceiling. “Until when, are you going to keep blaming the world?”
“You don’t understand” I crossed my arm and looked the other way.
“Listen to yourself for a second. You sound like a teenager.” I didn’t reply.
“Oh nobody understands me, Oh he left me, OH I wan to die” He made this whining voice. I stood up.
“Leave”
“He stood up as well and pushed me back in the chair. I was so surprised by this that I didn’t move.
“Listen to me. Nobody forced you to drink. NOBODY. Nobody forced you to grab those keys and drive. Okay?” I was perplexed with his way of talking and the tone of his voice.
“We all begged for you to stay, I beg for months for you to stop doing that to your self”
“He…”
“Leave Gerard out off this! Can you take him out of one single subject or aspect of your life? Not everything is about Gerard or is Gerard’s fault” He was mad now, really mad. I tried to say something but he didn’t let me. “You didn’t want to get over it. Okay”
He looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath. ”He was a bastard. But you’re supposed to get mad at him, not mad at yourself. You did everything in your power to destroy yourself. What? That was your way of punished him? Are you mental?” He was losing his control. He noticed that and took deep breaths again.
“Everyone here are trying to make you feel better”
I started to cry silently.
“You don’t smile anymore” His voice was sad now. “Or giggle. You have lost that brightness in your eyes and that light around you that make people happy when they were close to you”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to be happy again” I say between sobs.
“Sugar…” He calmed down.
“I can’t play anymore!!!” I punch the table with my hand
“You don’t know that!” He was hard again. “You’re not helping when you refuse to receive help”
I knew he was right, but it was easy to be mad at the world that confronted me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, almost in a whisper. Suddenly he was back to being the Jamie I knew. He held me and caressed my head. I cried in his shoulder like a baby.
After several minutes I said, “I have to talk to my mom”
He called her and we talked. I told her everything about Gerard, I begged for her forgiveness. We cried together and she held me like when I was a kid afraid of spiders, okay I’m still afraid of spiders.
It felt good to let everything out. I felt new.
I was ready to try to take my life in my hands again. And walk the world alone, proud and with no fear.