A Lesson to be Learned - Chapter 5
After the final bell rings at the end of my Biology class, I shuffle to my locker, letting my feet drag on the ground more than normal. All day I would remember that I had detention later - presumably with Mr. Iero - and a feeling of dread would solidify in my stomach. The only thing keeping me sane at this point is the probability of me not being the only one in detention. As long as someone else is in there with me and Mr. Iero, there won’t be an issue. I won’t have the urge to pin him to the blackboard and make out with him.
As I near my locker, Ray materializes next to me and I jump slightly at the sound of his voice, having forgotten that I was still in a hallway, surrounded by students rushing to get off school grounds.
“Hey, want to come over and have a Star Wars marathon? I got my mom to get the director’s cut.” He’s smiling widely and bouncing with excitement, which is causing his hair to bounce in a way that’s almost comical.
“Ugh, I wish I could, Ray,” I groan, the dread of detention rushing back into my stomach at full force. “I have detention right now for skipping yesterday.”
“Oh, okay,” Ray’s face falls and I instantly forget about freaking out over detention and feel bad. I hate bailing on Ray. Like I’ve said before, I talk to a few people, but for the most part Ray and I are the only two from our little “group”, I guess you would call it, that actually hang out. “Maybe tomorrow, then?”
“Sure, Ray,” I give him a soft smile and his expression perks up, suddenly hopeful.
“Yeah? Great!” He gives me a smile and waves before disappearing into the rapidly dispersing crowd of kids.
I sigh heavily and turn towards my locker, spinning the combination lock and yanking the old metal door open. I toss in my thick Biology textbook and pull out my tattered notebook and a pencil. Should be sufficient enough for an hour worth of detention, right? I slam my locker door shut, and turn to wander down towards the detention center, purposefully dragging my feet behind me as to put off as much time as I can.
I finally arrive at the room and exhale a deep breath before pushing open the heavy door and let myself slip inside. I glance around and not even Mr. Iero, or even another administrator is present. I immediately feel a sense of panic well up in my stomach. Great, Gerard, just great. You probably went to the wrong room and now you’re going to get in even more trouble because they’ll think you’re skiving off on detention.
“Hey, Gerard!” Mr. Iero’s cheerful voice breaks into the middle of my inner panic and I physically jump, knocking into a nearby desk. “Whoa, careful, now!” He reaches out and fixes a grip on my arm to keep me from falling onto my ass. I’m staring like an idiot at him with my mouth open, but he smiles.
“Guess it’ll just be you and me today in detention,” he muses, glancing over the detention attendance sheet he’s holding in his free hand. He seems to realize he still has a vice-like grip on my arm because he looks at his hand before quickly releasing it. “Oh, sorry about that. You can sit down if you wish. Or stand. I’m not picky.” He flashes another smile and I have to resist the urge to melt into a puddle at his feet. This is going to end badly, I can already tell.
I finally manage to gain some of my brain power back and motivate myself to amble over to a desk near what would be Mr. Iero’s own. I drop my notebook onto the desktop and slide down into the seat, staring awkwardly at Mr. Iero as he makes his way to the desk in front of me. He jumps up onto the desk, letting his short legs swing off the side like a five year old would.
“So, how’d you get caught?”
I’m taken aback by his question at first and stare at him like a fish out of water for a few moments, my mouth flopping open with no sound coming out.
“Uh, m-my brother, Mikey, h-he didn’t know why I went home and so Mr. Bryar c-caught me and told him t-that I had detention,” I stumble over my words and feel my cheeks flare up in embarrassment. Why the fuck can’t I talk coherently around this guy?
Mr. Iero gives me an understanding nod and sympathetic frown before glancing around the classroom, giving me a few seconds to somewhat compose myself.
“This room really gives off a depressing vibe,” Mr. Iero murmurs, inspecting the room from his perch on the desk.
“It’s a detention room in a Catholic high school,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “It’s not supposed to be cheerful.”
Mr. Iero turns back to me and smirks, “Point taken.”
We sit there in silence for a few minutes, the buzzing from the florescent lighting above us a constant white noise. I watch as he surveys the dreary room with an amused smirk on his lips. My mind flits back to yesterday when I was in my room imagining those perfect lips stretched around my dick and I have to physically shake the thought from my head and adjust how I’m sitting in my seat just to be sure that nothing overly embarrassing can occur.
“I got an idea!” Mr. Iero suddenly cries out, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his iPhone. “Let’s play some music. What kind of music do you like?”
“Uh,” my mind draws a blank and I can’t even process the question properly. Music? What’s music? “Uh, well, I like a lot of stuff.” Wow, way to sound retarded, Gerard.
“Hah, well what kind of ‘stuff’?” Mr. Iero is smirking again, his head cocked to the side as he waits for me to elaborate. Fuck, he is so adorable.
“Uh, well, I really like The Misfits?” My voice cracks and goes up at the end as if it’s in a question and my face flares up again. I should write a book on how not to act around attractive people.
“Ah, I love them,” he smiles and scrolls to something on his phone before grabbing a pair of speakers for a computer from the desk next to him and plugging them in. He presses play and I recognize the song that comes on: Children in Heat. “This is probably my favorite song by them.”
“Me, too,” I mutter, realizing how fitting the song is right now. I definitely feel like I’m in heat. All I want to do is get up and fuck Mr. Iero into the desk right now, but no. I shake the thought from my head, covering up the motion by flipping my hair out of my eyes.
“What other bands do you like?” Mr. Iero leans forward, his hands gripping the edge of the desk as his eyes wash over me, giving me the feeling of being x-rayed.
“I like The Smashing Pumpkins… And Iron Maiden… The Smiths and The Cure…” I hesitate for a second before finally adding, “Oh and I have a thing for David Bowie.”
Mr. Iero cracks another wide smile at that and chuckles, “Same, just don’t tell anyone. Guilty pleasure.” He winks and I’m suddenly glad I’m sitting down because I’m sure if I had been standing, I would have collapsed to the floor right then and there.
The song ends and he switches over to some song I’ve never heard before, by a band I can’t even recognize, which is saying something because I have a special talent for identifying bands. Whoever they are though, they’re good.
“Ever heard this before?” Mr. Iero asks, but I can tell from his smirk that he already knows the answer. I shake my head a little and he laughs. “Yeah, I would have been surprised if you had.”
“Who is it?” I ask, unable to resist possibly discovering a new band.
“Oh, no one important,” Mr. Iero smirks, looking at the clock at the wall. “Eh, I say you’ve been here long enough. What do you say we cut this detention session short, huh?”
I glance at the clock and notice I’ve only been here for about fifteen minutes. I swear I could kiss this man right now, but instead I just smile and nod enthusiastically, “Yeah, that’d be perfect.”
Mr. Iero waits for me to grab my notebook off my desk and follows me out the door, shutting and locking it behind us. We walk down the hall together and I can’t help but notice he’s not as short as I had originally thought; only about five inches shorter than me. I also notice he walks like a small child at times, swinging his arms and almost skipping along. But then switches back to adult mode, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking with what I can only describe as perfect posture.
We walk all the way to the entrance to the school but stop as soon as the front doors swing shut behind us. It’s still pouring just as heavily as it was this morning. Well this walk home is going to be lovely.
“Well,” I mutter, looking down at my notebook trying to decide if it’ll suffice as an umbrella. “I guess this walk home will be interesting. Sure hope those swimming lessons as a child are still stuck in my memory somewhere.”
Mr. Iero barks out a laugh but then turns serious, “Do you want a ride home, Gerard? It’d be no trouble. Plus you’ll have less chance of drowning.” His lips turn up at the corners into a smile and I feel my heart flutter a bit.
“Uh, well, I mean if it’s not a problem or out of your way or anything, sure,” I scratch the back of my head and look out to the parking lot awkwardly.
“Alright, well we should probably run, so we have less time in the rain, okay?” I nod and take a deep breath, waiting to run out into the icy downpour. I’m not much of an athlete and foresee this ending badly. Like me sprawled out on the pavement in the pouring rain, kind of bad. “Okay, go!”
Mr. Iero and I both sprint out into the rain which is coming down so hard it almost feels like I’m being impaled by hail. I have no idea where I’m going so I let Mr. Iero take the lead, weaving us in and out of various cars in the lot. Of course, his car is in the very back of the lot. We reach the old black Saturn and I wait in the frozen rain, shivering as he fumbles to unlock the door. He wrenches the door open, flinging himself across the seat to unlock the passenger side for me.
“Sorry,” he sighs, shaking out the rain from his hair as I slide into the seat and slam the door shut behind me. “The automatic lock broke and I haven’t had time to get it fixed yet.”
“I-it’s o-okay,” I stammer out, my teeth chattering to the point I can hardly form the words correctly. He jams his key into the ignition and turns it, letting the engine roar to life. Mr. Iero presses a series of buttons and cranks on the heater, warm air immediately blowing out of the vents.
We sit there for a few moments, soaking up the warmth from the heater, before Mr. Iero finally puts the car into drive and pulls us out of the parking lot.
“Alright, you’re gonna have to give me directions, because obviously I don’t know where you live,” Mr. Iero gives me a quick glance to the side and offers me another smile.
“Uh… Right… Um, take a left up here. I live down on Division Street, just past the 7/11 on the left.”
Mr. Iero flips on his blinker, taking the turn I told him and I watch as he sneaks a look at the clock on the dashboard.
“Hm…” he muses. “What would you say about going to see that band we were listening to back in the room? There’s a show in about 15 minutes, and I have plans to be there.” He smiles to himself a little and it confuses me but I shrug anyway.
“Uh, sure, I guess. I don’t really have any plans.”
“Great!” He turns the car down a side road, speeding towards downtown Belleville. We drive for a few minutes and I’m about to ask where we’re even heading when he pulls up to the curb outside a small bar that I’ve never heard of.
Mr. Iero gets out of the car and I rush to follow him. He stops at his trunk and I wander back to it, curiosity getting the best of me. He flips it open and pulls out a black guitar case, slamming the trunk and turning back towards me.
“Let’s go!” He nearly shouts, wide smile back in place. He walks past me into the bar and I shuffle awkwardly behind him.
The bar is dimly lit but looks fairly clean from what I can tell. There’s a small stage set up on the opposite side from the door and I can see several musicians setting up their equipment over there.
“Sit where ever you like, Gerard. And order whatever you want to drink, it’s on me,” he waves me away towards the tables with a tattooed hand and I watch as he lugs the guitar case to the stage. I let out a sigh and turn towards the table, picking one at random and sitting down.
A waitress makes her way over to the table as soon as I sit and takes my simple order of a Diet Coke before rushing away as the few lights from the bar dim even more and the stage lights up.
To my surprise, Mr. Iero walks up to the main microphone, the guitar from the case slung over his shoulders.
“What’s up, everyone? We’re Pencey Prep and this song’s called Don Quixote.”
Chapter 6