FicWad

I dash into school ten minutes late on Friday morning. My alarm clock hadn’t gone off and I’d slept in like crazy. I’m lucky to only be ten minutes late, but now I’m hungry, because I skipped breakfast, and I’m going to have to buy food from the cafeteria for lunch because I didn’t have time to make one. And also I’ve got detention.

Detention at my school is honestly just stupid. They don’t even assign a teacher to be in the room. You can’t usually get away with skipping detention altogether, because they check on you at the start of the time and they come to dismiss you, but you can basically do whatever the fuck you want with the time.

So I figure, whatever. I can just sleep or something,

I figure that, up until I walk into the detention room. And see Mikey and Ray sitting there.

“Hey Frank,” Ray says, looking a bit pissed off. Well, he would be, seeing as I’ve missed every band practice this week and we have a gig coming up. I feel a little guilty when I remember that, but it’s not like I haven’t been practicing. Still... I shift uneasily.

“Hi,” I mumble.

“Look,” Ray says, a little less angry sounding this time. “I know something’s up. I’m not entirely sure what. But if it’s keeping you away from band practice... we’re your friends, man. You need us. We need you. We sound like shit without you, and frankly, band practices aren’t as much fun when you’re not there. Lunch isn’t either. Just... do you need help dealing with... whatever problem you’re having? I can help. We can help.”

I look at him, a little stunned by his spontaneous proclamation of support. “Thank you,” I say. I kind of want to run over and give him a big hug, but I don’t. Ray doesn’t really go for that sort of stuff most of the time.

Mikey clears his throat. “Uh.. Frank,” he says. “I think I should let you know that-”

The door bursts open.

“Am I late?” Gerard asks, slightly out of breath as he dashes into the room.

“-Gerard has detention, too,” Mikey finishes lamely.

Yeah, I can see that, thank you very much, Mikey.

Gerard sees me and stops in his tracks, narrowing his eyes. “Oh hey, it’s the disappearing act,” he says sarcastically. “Long time, no see.”

“Yeah,” I say uncomfortably, running a hand through my hair.

There is a split second of silence and then-

“What the fuck Frank?” he shouts. “What the fuck? Four fucking days. Four fucking days and you... you took different routes in the hallways, you... skipped band practice! You skipped lunch! You fucking put your stuff in Mikey’s locker! What the fuck?!”

I shrug, looking away.

“Gerard,” Mikey says warningly.

Gerard ignores him.

“Four. Fucking. Days,” he says, almost disbelievingly. “Over a fucking bullshit rumour?! Are you fucking kidding me?”

A fucking bullshit rumour, I think. For some reason, I can feel myself getting angry. Which is weird. Because, you know, it’s great that he believes that. Right? God damn it, brain, just let him keep believing that.

“Gerard!” Mikey says again, sharply this time. Like he’s willing him to stop talking. Like he can stop this happening.

“Fuck off, Mikey!” he yells. “God, just... Frank, it’s not like I believed them. I know it’s bullshit. What they’re saying is completely ridiculous. And I can’t believe you thought I’d care. Why would I give a fuck? Besides, like I said, it’s ridiculous.”

I should be agreeing to this. But his words are like a slap to the face. Bullshit. Completely ridiculous. Why would I give a fuck? Like I said...

I will my brain to stop with the angry repetition of Gerard’s words and think of something useful for me to say to make this whole thing just go away. It does not oblige.

Sometimes I think my brain and I aren’t related to each other, but then I realize that doesn’t make any sense.

“I mean... right?” Gerard says, seeming disconcerted by the long silence.

“Frank?” Mikey says, stepping towards me. “Frank, I think you should-”

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. My head is pounding.

“Should what?” Gerard asks.

Mikey ducks his head, looks me in the eye and says quietly, “I think you should tell him.”

“Tell me what?” He moves closer to us, narrowing his eyes.

Mikey is silent.

Gerard forces a laugh. “You’re not saying it’s true are you?” he says like that’s the dumbest thing he’s heard all day.

Oh, great going Mikey. Just fucking great.

“Frank, I’m serious, you should-”

I can’t take it anymore.

“FINE,” I shout, throwing my hands up in frustration. “Fine! Hey Gerard! Guess what? Those rumours aren’t fucking made up.”

His eyes widen. “What are you saying?” he asks slowly.

“Oh, come on. You know exactly what I’m saying.”

He stares at me blankly.

“Fine. I fucking love you. That’s what I’m saying.”

His jaw drops. “What?” he asks weakly.

I turn to Mikey. “There. I ruined everything. Happy?”

I storm out, brushing past a stunned-looking Ray. As I slam the door behind me, I can clearly hear Gerard yell, “Mikey! You knew about this?!” I grimace and keep walking.

I walk right out of the building and intend to keep going, even though I’ve left all my stuff in the detention room. But before I can get even halfway across the courtyard, someone grabs my arm and says “Hey! Midget!”

Normally at that point, I would have frozen. Now, however, I turn and say roughly, “What the fuck do you want, Zach?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Ooh, someone’s touchy.”

I roll my eyes. He looks a bit shocked, probably because I’m not cowering at his feet yet.

He makes one more attempt. “Is the poor midget heartbroken because the fatass doesn’t love him?”

I punch him in the face. He yelps, which I find highly satisfactory.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” I say, and he actually listens. He runs for it.

I stand there for a second, vaguely amazed and very relieved. Then I go over to the nearest bench and flop down, suddenly feeling drained. I’ve gone from being incredibly angry to feeling like I might cry. I bury my face in my hands and wonder if it’ll be possible for me to find new friends or if I’m going to have to go through the remaining two years of high school without any.

I can hear footsteps across the courtyard. I think nothing of them until they stop in front of me. I figure it’s probably Mikey coming to talk to me, so I sigh and look up.

“Hi,” Gerard says tentatively. “I brought your stuff.” He sets my backpack down at my feet.

I’m tempted to re-bury my face, but that would not make the situation any better and it would look really stupid, so I settle for ignoring him.

“Mikey said I should come talk to you,” he says, sounding nervous. “He said I should tell you the truth.”

“Oh, great,” I say sarcastically.

He fidgets around a bit. “He said that if I told you the truth we could maybe work this out.”

“Newsflash, Gerard,” I say. “There’s nothing to work out here, despite what your brother says, okay? Speaking of which, are you doing anything right now independently of what Mikey’s told you to do?”

“Um...”

“Okay, I’m going to take that as a no then.” Annoyed, I go back to ignoring him.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see him rummaging through his backpack. He pulls something out and says, “He didn’t tell me to give you this.”

He holds it out towards me. I resolutely ignore him, despite the fact that I desperately want to know what it is.

He stands there like that for a minute before huffing impatiently. “Fine,” he says. “Whatever.” He tosses whatever it is onto the bench beside me, turns, and walks away.
When I’m sure that he’s gone, I look left, look right, and grab for what turns out to be the black sketchbook.
My immediate reaction is what the fuck? Half of me is still annoyed and wondering how a sketchbook is supposed to “fix” anything. The other half is incessantly curious, because after all, I’ve been begging and pleading to see this for like a month and a half.

I’m dying to look at it either way, but I have a feeling that I shouldn’t look at it here, mostly because, y’know, I just punched Zach in the face, so there’s a relatively strong likelihood that he’ll gather a posse and come back to get revenge. So I grab my backpack, sling it over my shoulder and start walking as fast as I can. Before too long I break into a run.

A/N: I should stop updating so fast. Whatever. Anyways, once again the chapter ends with him running! Just noticed that. Sorry.
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