Gallavich AU: The Fault in Our Stars

Chapter Five: Living and it's Purpose

I locked up behind me and saw a beat up old Buick waiting on the verge. Mickey had the driver’s side window down with his arm resting on the door frame. I couldn’t see Mandy but he just let his eyebrows shoot right up.

“You comin’ or you just gonna stand there all day Gallagher?” he asked with a grin.

I sent him one in return and walked over to the car. When I got closer I saw that Mandy was lying across the back seat with headphones in and Mickey leaned across the passenger side to open up the door.

I climbed in beside him and just looked back at Mandy whose lips were moving to the lyrics. Mickey must have seen me giving her a strange look and he chuckled.

“Subdued,” he said.

“I can see that, but for how long?”

“Not long enough,” he said and I took the first opportunity I’ve had in a week to look at him again.

I smiled, he did the same, raising an eyebrow and shaking his head before turning back to the road. He looked up again out of the corner of his eye and bit down on his lip to stop from laughing. That was when I finally looked away.

I didn’t want to be too weird.

“So where exactly are we―” I began.

“Nobody said it was easy…” Mandy sang in the backseat and Mickey laughed.

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“She’s fine, give it ten minutes and she’ll be back to swearing like a fuckin’ maniac,” he said.

I nodded a little. “So where are we going then?”

He grinned. “Somewhere she can let out her frustrations.”

We drove a little further, down to a patch of shrouded land under the L, parking at the side and out of sight. Mickey yelled back to Mandy who rolled her eyes and tossed the iPod against the seat.

Mickey rounded the car and opened up the trunk. He pulled out a handgun and loaded it up with some bullets from the box and I looked over to Mandy who gave me a sarcastic smile. Mickey turned to face me and rolled his eyes.

“Relax,” he said. “If she shoots up a brick wall maybe she won't get the urge to shoot whats-his-face.”

“You really think I was gonna shoot him?” Mandy said, smacking Mickey on the arm.

“I was thinking maybe you’d stab him first,” he grinned, handing her the gun. “Be careful, alright? You might be able to take a bullet or two but between me and him we’re kind of on our last legs as it is.”

I supressed a smile and leaned in a little closer, “leg,” I said.

Mandy was laughing and Mickey just raised an eyebrow and looked at me incredulously. “Hey, between the two of us we got three, alright?”

“Yeah but you…”

“Alright wise-guy, you know how to shoot?” he asked.

“I thought I was the one doing the shooting?” Mandy said, walking over to square up to the wall.

“Hey, be careful with that thing,” Mickey said.

“I know how to shoot,” Ian said. “I just don’t think we should get in the way of her with that thing.”

Mickey laughed and then the both of them flinched as the gun went off. Mandy seemed to like it, lining up and taking another shot.

“Easy up, wait for the train before shootin’ anymore or someone’ll call the cops,” Mickey said.

She rolled her eyes but did as he said, knowing he was right.

“You could always throw some of the old debris around while you wait,” I suggested and she shrugged, doing just that.

“You might want to get out of the smash zone,” Mickey said, grabbing a couple of beers out and walking over to sit by one of the pillars.

He slid down, holding out one of the beers for me as I went and sat beside him. We watched her walk over to some of the wooden scraps under the tracks, pick one up and scream as she tossed it against the wall. She was cursing and swearing at someone named ‘Kyle’ who I assume was her ex-boyfriend.

“She’s got a lot of anger,” I said.

“She just gets screwed over more than she’d like,” Mickey said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a cigarette.

I looked down at the beer in my hand and when I looked back it was sitting behind his ear.

“So… you really watched the movie huh?” I asked.

“Yeah, wish I could get those two hours back,” he said, taking a sip.

“Oh come on, it’s a great story.”

“Kid gets straight A’s and goes to an expensive as private boarding school away from his shitty parents, then thinks there’s what? Something more out there? And when his parents say he can’t fuckin’ do it he offs himself?” he shrugged a little. “What the hell was the point of workin’ so hard?”

“That’s exactly the point though,” I said. “He was never going to be what he wanted, he knew how it felt to be free you know, to feel alive… he couldn’t go back to what he had before,” he raised an eyebrow at me. “It’s about finding something worth dying for, because you can’t bear to live without it.”

He nodded, chewing on his lip as he watched Mandy aim the gun, waiting until the train passed overhead before firing two more shots.

“Can’t be a whole movie about dyin’, that’s just depressing.”

“Hey, you’re the one who said we’re all going to die in the end,” I said.

“Yeah but that’s life, that’s the fucking truth of it,” he said.

“Well… okay, maybe it’s not about finding something worth dying for, maybe it’s about living, I just… I can relate to the first thing more than I can to the whole ‘living life to the fullest’ thing. I can’t do that,” I shrugged a little, looking down at my hands again as I peeled back the label on the beer.

“If you think about it like that you’ll just end up offing yourself somewhere in the future,” he said. “You wanna live? Drink your fuckin’ beer and I’ll load up the pistol again, then we’ll find you something to fuckin’ live for okay?”

I smiled a little and looked up, “You really mean that?” I gave him a goofy smile and he rolled his eyes.

“Fuck off,” he said.

We watched Mandy a little more, eventually she calmed down and grabbed a beer for herself, coming to sit down with us.

“I swear to god, if I have to date one more asshole…” she said.

“No one’s forcin’ you,” Mickey said.

“I just… why the fuck would you tell a person you always wanted to be with them if you were going to fuck someone else?” she took a long swig of her beer and I thought about that for a moment.

“Sometimes people don’t realise the promises they’re making when they make them, it’s only after that they know they never really intended to keep them, or that they even mattered at all,” I said.

They both stared over at me and I looked from one sibling to the other.

“He says shit like that,” Mickey said, taking a swig.

“I’ve noticed,” Mandy said.

We stayed out later than I had intended. I was meant to get home before it started to get dark but I’d never really done this before, and I didn’t want to be that sick kid that called it quits because his oxygen was running low or something stupid like that. Once the sun had gone down Mandy said they had better get back or their dad would go out of his mind, not with worry, but because there would be no dinner if she didn’t go home and get it done.

“I get the part about the asshole parents,” Mickey said as we were driving back, Mandy with the headphones in again. “From the movie,” he clarified.

“Yeah, that part was relatable, just… kind of in the opposite way. I mean my dad has never once told me that I needed to get a good education and do something like be a doctor,” I said, the thought of that was bordering on ridiculous.

Mickey snorted with laughter, “Yeah, mine would tell me how much of an idiot I was just for thinking about shit like that. Jesus Christ, I don’t think anyone from my family has even made it through high school without dropping out or getting knocked up.”

“You never finished school?”

He shook his head, “Nah, no time for that shit man, if I went back now I’d still be a fucking freshman,” he said. “You’d be what, a junior?”

“Actually I got my GED, thought about taking a class in something at the community college but… money’s a little tight, what with medical bills and stuff.”

“They really punch you in the guts with that huh,” he said. “Why would you finish school early? Shit, there has got to be some better stuff on TV.”

“Hey, if I finish it now then I don’t have to do any of it for the next two years… here’s hoping I last that long.”

“You know for someone who has a whole lot of spiritual bullshit comin’ out of him you sure are gloomy about everything.”

“It’s the nature of the thing I guess,” I shrugged.

After a few moments of silence – and me gazing gloomily out the window – he cleared his throat again.

“So what you doing later?” he asked.

“Well I have an entire evening of not-fucking-much planned, but I’m thinking I might throw in some quiet suffering and maybe even some self-pity.”

He laughed, “You’re a fuckin’ dork, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, our eyes locked for a moment and we may have even shared a smile before he turned back to the road.

I couldn’t wipe mine off my face as I walked back up the porch steps of my house and through the front door. Fiona was calling my name the moment she heard it click.

“Ian? Ian is that you? Are you home?” she came walking in from the kitchen and pulled me into an unexpected hug.

“I left you a note…” I said.

“You know I worry when you’re out on your own,” she said, letting me go and we walked back into the kitchen.

“I wasn’t on my own mom,” she glared at me and I just smiled. “I was out with Mickey… and Mandy, both of them.”

“Wait, Mickey and Mandy Milkovich?” she asked.

I shrugged, “Maybe, I mean I think so, why?”

“I knew that kid looked familiar, I just haven’t seen him in years,” she said.

“Who, Mickey?”

“Yeah, he was I think in Lip’s class at school one year,” she said. “I don’t like you hanging around with those two.”

“Are you serious? Why not?” I asked.

“Who are these kids?” Jimmy asked from the table where he was feeding Liam.

“Bad news,” Fiona said.

“They are not bad news,” I said.

“Well their father is a piece of shit, in and out of prison all the fucking time, and the rest of the family are a bunch of criminals.”

“You realise our father is a piece of shit,” I said.

“Not in the same way. Look, they’ll just end up causing you trouble, and you’re not exactly healthy Ian.”

“I don’t feel like I’m not healthy when I’m with Mickey, he gets the whole cancer thing,” I said. “And Mandy’s great, she’s fun and friendly… I haven’t actually had friends since before I got diagnosed, you realise that right?” She looked at me with a sigh.

“I’m not saying you can’t see them, just… be careful, okay? You never know what kind of shit they’ll drag you into.”

It was hard to be mad at her, I wanted to be, but I know that she was just trying to protect me. It was the same thing that she always did, and I could never be mad at her for that.

She just doesn’t understand what it feels like to spend time with someone like Mickey, someone who knows what it feels like to be dying, to have life cut short and to know that the inevitable is coming, you just don’t know when. Sure, he’s in remission, but he’s stood in my shoes before.

And I don’t feel sick when I’m with him, he makes me forget that I’m that kid who permanently breathes through a fucking tube and has trouble getting up stairs, he can relate.

It also kind of helps that he’s pretty easy on the eyes, and it’s been forever since someone I found attractive has taken an interest in me, even if it is just platonic.

I mean, I could be wrong, it seems like there could be a spark there, but I’m not naïve enough to think that something is definitely there. I’m going to have to read the signs a lot more closely.

I’m also going to have to find a way to keep from texting him for the next twenty-four hours.

I think I need professional help.