As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I had made a fatal error in judgement. Good as my intentions were, my reckless urge to defend Gerard’s honor had only resulted in exposing his throat to the enemy. Blind love led me into his arms, and blind loyalty led me to betray him.
Eyes widening in horror, my gaze flicked to his. “Gerard.”
He just stared, frozen as a statue, un-moving, un-blinking, un-breathing.
“Shit,” Joey said quietly, sharp as a razor, as he clicked on to the truth before the rest of the group. Blowing out a shaky breath, he held his head with both hands. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry,” I strangled out, kicking into action, as I closed the space between us, attempting to touch and cradle his face in my hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so, so sorry, baby.” And I was sorry. For humiliating him. But I wasn’t sorry for speaking out. I couldn’t be. Not when my conscience was assuring me that for the first time in my life, I had done the right thing. Even when it was the scariest thing. “It shouldn’t have come out like that,” I hurried to soothe. “I know, okay? I know it shouldn’t have, and I’m so sorry, baby, but I can’t sit back on this.”
Reaching up, he gently removed my hands from his face and placed them at my sides. And then he took a step away from me. And then another.
“No, no, no, no,” I cried out hoarsely, running to barricade the door to stop him from leaving. In the background, I could hear everyone shouting, but I couldn’t concentrate on a word anyone was saying.
I was too engulfed in the blazing fire of betrayal that burned in Gerard’s eyes. “How?”
It was only one.
But it held the weight of a lifetime of friendship with it.
“I found your letter,” I admitted, feeling the tears from earlier return with a vengeance. “It was when I went up to your room to get the tickets.” I shrugged helplessly as I tried to explain myself to the only person who mattered to me in this moment. “I took it by mistake. It was muddled up with your phone and wallet.”
Betrayal.
It was written all over his face.
Everyone’s attention had shifted to him, but he never took his eyes off mine, as he stared at me with a combination of surprise, horror, and betrayal storming in his gray irises.
A million different emotions waged a war inside of him, with betrayal coming out victorious. Some of our friends were shouting. Others were just staring. Someone was crying. I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t make sense of any of their voices. I was rooted to the floor in utter contempt for my recklessness.
“What are you talking about?” Johnny demanded, losing his cool as he looked around wildly, willing me to put the genie back in the bottle. “What did you say that for, Claire?”
“Johnny, don’t,” Shannon begged.
“You’re such a fucking bitch!”
“Lizzie, stop it.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“What do you think she’s saying, genius?”
“Are you saying it was him?”
“Obviously.”
“Oh my god.”
“No!”
“She’s lying!”
“Everyone just back off.” That was Hugh, who had come to stand beside me. Grateful for his presence in this moment, and the strong arm he had wrapped around my shoulders, I sagged against him, feeling weak and demoralized. “Fuck.”
“Bullshit,” Lizzie screamed, still spitting her pain like venom. “You’re such a fucking liar, Claire!”
“Gerard,” I repeated, voice cracking, as my hand shot to my mouth. What did you do, Claire? Oh my God, what the hell did you do? Ignoring Lizzie’s verbal onslaught, I begged him with my eyes to not hate me. “Please.”
He didn’t respond.
Instead, he continued to stare at me like he was seeing a stranger instead of the person he’d spent his whole life adoring. Instead of seeing me.
“Gerard,” I strangled out. “Please! It’s okay. It’s okay. You have nothing to be ashamed about here, baby. You didn’t do anything wrong!”
“No!” Johnny barked, eyes wide and full of fear. “It’s not him.” He looked to me, willing me to take it back. “It wasn’t him.”
I hung my head in shame.
“Gibs,” Johnny called out, bolting for the door in his bid to chase after his best friend. “Just hold up, will ya?”
But it was too late.
He was already moving for the exit.
“Gerard, wait!”
He didn’t answer me.
He didn’t look back, either.
Instead, he stormed out of the room faster than I’d ever seen him move.
Like we were attached by an invisible cord, I bolted after him. “Gerard, wait!”
Charging through the empty darkened hallways, I raced past a random couple kissing against the lockers, all the while calling his name at the top of my lungs.
We weren’t supposed to be inside the main building, it was off limits after 10pm, and I knew there was a good chance that my screaming would alert a teacher to our breaking and entering, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.
Everything I was, and all I would ever be, was focused solely on the boy up ahead. “Gerard!” I panted when I pushed through the exit door and caught a glimpse of him stalking through the courtyard. “Please wait!”
His jacket had been discarded in the courtyard right along with his bowtie. Stepping over both, I hurled my body forward, adrenalin pumping my legs in this moment. “Please,” I begged, catching ahold of his shirt sleeve when I finally caught up with him. “Don’t leave like this.”
Taking his momentary hesitance as my chance, I threw myself at him. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry for it coming out like that,” I cried, peppering every inch of his neck with desperate kisses, as I clung to his big body. “I love you; I love you, I love you, I love you … ”
“Don’t.” Breathing hard and ragged, Gerard placed his hands on his hips and bowed his head. “Please don’t.”
“I want to help you.” Crying hard and ugly, I fisted his shirt, terrified that he might walk away again. “Please let me help you!”
“Claire, stop,” he choked out, craning his face away when I tried to kiss him. “Please stop, will you?” A huge shudder racked through his big body. “I can’t do this right now.”
I wanted to push. I wanted to knock down his walls and storm his heart and secrets like he had done mine all those years ago, but the look in his eyes told me that he was seconds away from losing his temper with me. “Gerard, I want to help you if you just—”
“I don’t want your help!” Reaching up, he pried my hands from his shirt and backed away from me. “I don’t want anyone’s fucking help, okay?”
“Gerard, please.” My heart cracked clean open when I watched the first tear land on his cheek. “I’m here for you. Please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” His entire body trembled when he held a hand up to warn me off. “Because I’m fine, Claire! Do you hear me? I’m okay, dammit. I am always okay, Claire!”
His response only caused the both of us to cry harder. “You were raped.”
“No.” He shook his head, futilely denying what we both knew was the truth. “No!”
“Gerard, he’s a predator,” I tried to reason. “I can’t sit back on this.” Shaking my head, I felt my tears trickle down my cheeks. “I won’t. Because what about the other children he comes in contact with?”
“That wasn’t your secret to tell, Claire,” he choked out, body shaking violently. “It was mine.”
“It was your secret?”
“It was my fault!”
“That monster abused you, and that’s not your fault!” I pushed, unwilling to back up or give up on him. “It’s not your fault!”
“Don’t look at me like that,” he warned then, using the back of his hand to roughly wipe at his eyes. “Don’t fucking look at me like I’m not the same person you’ve been looking at for sixteen years!”
“I’m not, Gerard,” I sobbed, desperate to console him. “I know who you are.” My feet were moving straight for him again. “I do, baby. I know.”
“Stop fucking looking at me like I’m broken, Claire,” he snapped, backing up further when I tried to get close. “Stop looking at me, dammit!”
Oh God.
He was beyond broken and I couldn’t break through the wall he had erected. Break through the lies he had invented to hide the truth. Like ivy on a house hiding the walls beneath, hiding the true colors and the cracks in the cement. He had cracks in him that I couldn’t repair because he refused to acknowledge they were there in the first place.
“Gerard,” I tried again, hearing my voice crack under the weight of my torrent of emotions, “please come back inside with me.”
He shook his head slowly and continued to back up. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not hurting me by telling your truth, Gerard.”
“I am,” he strangled out, chest heaving. “It’s hurting you now, Claire.” Sniffling, he choked out a pained cry and ran his hand through his hair. “Fuck!” Losing his cool, he looked up at the night sky and roared the word “Fuck” at the top of his lungs. “You fucking push, Claire. You push and you push!” He threw his hands up helplessly. “And I don’t have anything left to give.”
“I have enough to give,” I promised, reclaiming the space he put between our bodies. “I have enough for both of us.”
“You hurt me,” he strangled out, chest heaving. “You broke me, Claire.”
Pain.
It devoured me whole.
“That was never my intention,” I whisper-sobbed, clutching my chest, as his words ricocheted through me like buckshot. “I am so sorry for hurting you, and for it coming out like this.” Sniffling, I sucked in a sharp breath, before adding, “But I’m not sorry for speaking up for you, Gerard.”
My words were of no comfort to my boyfriend in this moment, because instead of taking the hand I had outstretched to him, he shook his head and stepped further away from me. And then he said the words that ripped my soul to ribbons. “I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah, I do.” Tears trickled down his cheeks as he cried. “I’m not your boyfriend, Claire Biggs, and I’m not your friend.”
“Gerard!”
Familiar voices filled the air then, and I could hear Johnny calling out Gerard’s name in a frantic tone of voice.
“No, Gerard,” I started to say, but he had already taken off running. “Wait!” I cried, clutching my head in my hands. “Oh my God.”
“Gibs!” When Johnny came thundering around the corner, he veered straight for me. “Claire? Where is he?” His breathing was hard and ragged as he looked around the empty courtyard. “Where’s Gibs?”
“Claire,” Shannon called out a moment later, as she came running towards me with the skirt of her beautiful white gown hitched up to her knees. “Oh, my God, Claire!”
“I messed up, Shan,” I cried out hoarsely. “I messed everything up.”
“It’s okay.” With sympathetic eyes, she quickly moved for me, not stopping until I was wrapped up in her arms. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Shh. Shh. It’s okay.”
“Talk to me,” Johnny begged, watching on helplessly. “Please fucking talk to me, girls.”
Keeping one arm wrapped around me, Shannon reached into her bra and retrieved the letter. Holding it up, she looked to me for permission. Slumping against her, I nodded weakly. “Claire found this in Gibsie’s room tonight.” Sniffling, she handed her boyfriend the note and then used her hand to wipe a tear from her cheek.
Wordlessly, Johnny unfolded the note and then, because it was too dark outside to read it, he reached into his pocket for his phone. Unlocking the screen, he held it over the letter, as his eyes tracked every awful word.
His breath hitched and he dropped his phone, but instead of taking his eyes off the page, he slowly sank to the ground and felt around for it with a trembling hand. “Fuck … ” His voice cracked and I watched as this huge boy, with limitless popularity and pull, broke down in front of us. “Fuck!” Head bowed, he clutched at his hair and continued to stare at the letter. “Fuck, Gibs.” A pained cry escaped him. “Not you, lad.” His big shoulders racked with shudders. “Not fucking you, Gibs!”
“Johnny,” Shannon sobbed, shuffling us closer to him so that she could place a hand on his head. “I know, baby.” Almost instinctively, his hand shot out to clutch her leg. “I know.”
