Page 28 of The Invisible Roommate

Emory was the first person he’d met in a while who had not been born into money and then tried to spin ordinary money into gold when money proved not to be enough. On top of that, not once did thoughts of We the Wells break in as Emory was speaking, which was a major win.

“Please. I can’t be that interesting compared to the life of a pop star,” Emory said. “More than one of my classmates in college had a poster of you and your brothers in their dorm rooms.”

Gerard masked his embarrassment. “Of course they did. I never wanted to be on posters. I hate photo shoots. I hate big crowds. All I want to do is take walks and write songs and disappear,” he said in an unexpected display of vulnerability. “Sorry; is that insensitive, given your … condition?”

Emory laughed, and this time there was nothing sinister in it. The sound made Gerard’s toes tingle. All the fear from the previous night had been forgotten. “No more insensitive than me reading your journal. When you walked in the door that first day, I swore I recognized you. It was driving me wild. I couldn’t remember the band name from those posters or any of the song lyrics. I opened the journal, and once I started reading, I couldn’t stop.”

Gerard registered remorse in Emory’s words, but Emory made no verbal apology, which struck him as odd. “I suppose I should try to be less riveting,” Gerard joked.

“Me, too,” Emory said. Could this really be the same person with the ire in his voice and danger in his stance when Gerard caught him making tea?

“Did you read all of the journal?” Gerard’s stomach roiled from the question.

“I did,” Emory said.

“So you know that I’m…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

“Gay?” Emory asked as if the word were as buoyant as a beach ball.

“And?” Gerard’s throat went desert dry.

“Autistic.”

Bingo. Gerard shivered. The only person on God’s green earth that knew these two things about him was his therapist, someone so bound by legality and ethics that none of it would ever leak to the press if his therapist wanted to keep his license and make his whopping $375-a-session fee.

Gerard was not ashamed. He was who he was. God made no mistakes. That’s what the church had imprinted on him when he was young, and he took that with him when he left instead of the branded passive hate that seemed to permeate many sermons.

The trouble was that the music industry could be a lot like the church sometimes. While it claimed to welcome diversity, as soon as someone declared an identity outside center, everyone’s faces went pale and eyes went dead behind their manufactured smiles.

The Hollywood machine did not know how to chew up gay and autistic and regurgitate it into marketing and record-breaking streaming numbers and spectacular ticket sales. These traits did not fit neatly into spreadsheets nor quarterly earnings calls. We the Wells were six years into their career, and if any of the stuff his dad had spouted backstage at Madison Square Garden was true, if they won a Nomey, they were guaranteed at least six more years of sky-high success, even if their next album was garbage. Adding new variables to the formula would be like knowing you aced a test and then erasing some of your right answers before you turned it in to be graded.

If he came out as gay and neurodivergent, he’d jeopardize not only his work, but the work of his brothers. Gavin wanted to grow a family. Garret wanted to branch into solo music and acting. He did not want to be the reason they tanked. He loved them as brothers, even if he’d never exactly loved them as bandmates.

On top of that, he did not want to be the reason their publicists and producers and assistants and tour crew and stylists all had to find other gigs. As their manager, his father made sure everyone was well taken care of. Everyone except his overworked kids, that was.

While Gerard knew in his head that he was old enough to make his own decisions regardless of the fallout or his father’s wishes, his heart felt frozen at twenty, the age he’d been when We the Wells took shape. Fame had a way of making life move fast but maturity move slow. At twenty-six, with so much owed to his father and the fans, Gerard never knew how much of his life was actually his to direct, if he was allowed to be himself. Would people still love him if he tried?

Emboldened by how honest Emory had been with him, he said, “You’d never know it from our Wikipedia page, but my brothers and I never planned to be a band. For years, we were all striking out on our own. Gavin wanted to compose film scores but couldn’t find an in. Garret was constantly auditioning for pilots for teen drama shows filming in New York and getting nowhere. I had a publishing deal for a bit, but nobody ever wanted to record my songs despite getting close a few times with big names. Eventually, one year, my mom was going through old family videos around the holidays, and she found one of us playing pretend as kids. I’d hauled all the pots and pans out of the kitchen cabinets and was banging on them with spatulas like they were the drum set I wanted for Christmas. Gavin was playing the air guitar on a broom, and Garret was singing some song we’d made up together into a whisk. We called ourselves ‘The Wells.’ It was the most ridiculous thing, and then Garret said something even more ridiculous: ‘Why don’t we do that?’

“All three of us were so tired of rejection at that point, so close to quitting the entertainment industry altogether, that we were desperate for something new. I think that’s the only reason Gavin and I said yes,” he relayed, soaking in the ice-cold bath of memories. The chill cut him to the bone. “When we got that first record deal, we baked in the hiatus. Three albums and then reevaluate. We promised.”

“Promises are wasted air.” Emory’s tone was as jagged as a serrated knife.

“That may be true, but I think we can both agree neither of us is in a position to leave here,” Gerard said.

“Yes. I guess we both need to be invisible for a while,” Emory said, contemplation cast over his words.

“In a less literal way for me, at least. I’ve been known to faint at the sight of blood,” Gerard said, followed by a small laugh.

“I’m not in the market for test subjects at this juncture anyhow,” said Emory. “I have not deduced the dosing and duration of the serum in a human being.”

“So you are stuck like that?” Gerard asked, trying not to sound as pleased as he was.

“I am temporarily fixed in this state,” Emory said, which almost made Gerard roll his eyes. “When I tested the serum on Marvel Jr., I was able to calculate the half-life of the drug and the blood substitute. But I was not thinking about metabolic rates and organ function when I decided to inject myself. Allometric scaling is a predictor, but it’s not necessarily consistent across species.”

“I’m going to pretend I understood most of what you said,” Gerard joked. “For me, I just want to know what it’s like to not have eyes on me for a while and to explore my own interests and desires outside the band and the business. I never got my own young adulthood.”

“Me neither, really,” Emory said.