Page 31 of The Invisible Roommate

Emory sighed. “I know I talked a big talk yesterday when you busted in with the holy water, but I swear to you on all that is scientifically proven, I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I was just trying to keep a handle on things.”

“I get that,” Gerard said after a beat. “You don’t sound like your throat is closing up.”

“Killing you would solve nothing. It would only bring more attention on me, this house, my work, and then when everyone found out about your real identity, I’d be in even bigger trouble than I already am.” He heaved another sigh, hungry but unwilling to subject Gerard to another VIP show of the miracles of the human digestive system.

“On my walk today, I got to thinking: It’s not like you ripped the X-ray machine off the wall or set the building ablaze or killed a cat. What could they really have charged you with? I doubt they would’ve thrown you in jail if you’d told them what happened with Anderson,” said Gerard.

“People don’t usually listen to me when I talk,” he confessed, then watched the words register on Gerard’s face. The importance of the night before twined between them.

“Still, you could’ve tried,” Gerard said in a gentler tone.

“It would’ve been my word against a doctor’s. Even if they had listened, they wouldn’t have believed me.” He stared at his barely touched plate. “Doesn’t matter. I panicked. People do foolish things when they panic.”

Gerard ate a forkful of stir-fry and nodded. “I really get that.”

“Do you think running away was foolish?” he asked, ready to hear more facts about Gerard that he didn’t learn from reading a journal he’d had no right to even open. He knew he owed the pop star a real apology, but—

“I know it was foolish,” Gerard said, “but it was foolish and necessary. My brothers are probably back in New York at Electric Lady Studios with some hot producer in a writing session starting work on the next album even though the tour just ended, and we haven’t even signed a contract with the label yet.”

“Do you wish you were there?” Emory asked, partially hoping Gerard would realize he needed to leave ASAP.

Gerard shook his head, ate some more, then said, “The thought of being in that room testing out hooks and coming up with guitar licks makes me want to fake my own death.” He must’ve sensed Emory’s shocked expression because he added, “I would never. It’s just … it’s torture when the thing you love the most in the world turns into the thing that gives you the most anxiety.”

“I understand where you’re coming from. My whole invisibility project has been fueled by anxiety,” he said, cataloguing all the different subgenres of anxiety that had spurred him on. Not-good-enough anxiety. Not-smart-enough anxiety. Not-worthy-enough anxiety.

Gerard shoveled the rest of the stir-fry into his mouth and pushed his now-empty plate toward the center of the table, clearly happy to not have been poisoned and appearing satiated. “I’m sorry I called you a self-absorbed asshole.”

“I was being a self-absorbed asshole,” Emory said in a shocking show of deprecation. It felt good to take ownership like that and admit that he wasn’t perfect instead of letting himself believe other people were the problem all the time.

“Still, I could’ve been nicer. I know you’re scared,” he said. This wasn’t the first time Gerard had said that to Emory, so his fear must’ve been palpable because Gerard certainly wasn’t reading the fear on his face. “I’m scared, too. One post, and a helicopter is going to land on the island’s airstrip and take me away before I figure anything out.”

“What is there to figure out?” Emory asked, leaning in.

“Whether I can come out and unmask and still be this public commodity, or if I need to step away from fame for my own sanity.” The way his head bowed suggested that this had been on his mind for the last several years. That not being himself had left him without a true identity. Maybe he hated the posters and album covers because they represented someone Gerard wasn’t on the inside.

“Even if you left the band, is fame something that you can reverse?” Emory asked.

Gerard noticeably bristled. “Is invisibility?”

Emory bore a secret, pained smirk. “Touché.”

Changing the subject, Gerard asked, “What do you look like?” He tilted his head and squinted his eyes as if he were trying to make out the image in an incomplete paint-by-numbers.

Emory fumbled a bit. “Like this but with … features?”

“Can I see a picture of you? I’d at least like to know who I’m living with and talking to,” he said.

“I don’t think I have one.” Emory had always been camera shy. Any photographic evidence of his existence was likely him unwittingly skulking in the background of someone else’s captured, treasured memory.

“Driver’s license?” Gerard asked.

“I don’t drive.”

“Student ID?”

“Chucked it when I left the university.”

“Yearbook photo?”