Chapter Text
Frank's lips pursed as he stared out of the window of the moving car, silently counting trees in his head. His mom was talking, some spiel about how the new school won't be that bad; it's just school, but Frank was preoccupied with his hands trembling in his lap. Not their normal trembling, the shake that meant nothing he ever held onto was permanent, but the kind that meant he was nervous.
Of course he was nervous; in fact, he was fucking terrified. He hadn't set foot in a school in over 5 years, but there was just something oh-so-important about graduating. He didn't want a diploma; he didn't want to clamber onto the stage and receive it in front of thousands of staring eyes. It's not like he would ever be able to hold down a job anyway.
She seemed to notice that Frank was put off by this, and apologised again for moving, sending him to school, the whole thing. He couldn't blame his mom for making him go back to school; it was probably important. She was most likely worried he'd remain a NEET forever, and socially inept at that too. Frank didn’t blame her, not really. There was only so long he could stay there, in that town, in that house. The memories had soured long ago, a bitter taste washing over his tongue.
"Frank!" His mom said, which made him jump, shoulders flinching and hands twitching in stress. He whipped his head towards her, eyes wide. She smiled a little, “Can you look at me when I’m speaking? It’s hard for me to tell whether you’re paying attention…”
She trailed off as if guilty, and Frank shuffled in his seat, shifting his weight to look over at her. When he looked beyond her easy smile, he could see the fear in her eyes, the pain hidden behind them. She didn't want him to go either, not really. She wanted him home, where they both knew he was safe. But he couldn't live that way forever.
Frank didn't really know why. He would like to live that way forever. Hidden at home in his own confines of safety, knowing every sound, every temperature, every door staying wide open. He could argue for hours if he didn't get exhausted so quickly that nothing was waiting for him in this so-called real world. But he had come to accept that even if he didn't know why, he had to move on, go outside, finish school, get a job. Whatever, all the normal people things.
He could never be normal. Not again. But everyone still wanted him to act like it.
All these years later, and his mom still struggled with his silence, his blank face, but Frank didn’t mind. He knew it was something they both had to adjust to, and that adjustment takes time.
Maybe deep down it hurt. Stung just a little, inside his bones, somewhere that he could easily bury the feeling and never confront it. That no one could ever really adjust to the broken, unfixable way he is now.
“You don’t need to look so worried.” His mom smiled, glancing at him between looking at the road, fingers tapping cautiously on the wheel. “Everything will be fine. We've been to the school; they’re understanding. Have you been practising signs?”
Frank grimaced a little; she knew how adverse he felt towards it. And he knew that no one in this stupid school would speak sign language. In a stupid mocking motion, he lifted a hand, pinching his thumb, index and middle finger together and shaking it, signing a stupid no. His hand shook like no one's business, and he had to hold his right hand up with his left, but his mom still smiled at his blunt sarcasm, and that made it alright with him.
He didn't fully enjoy speaking sign, even though it was his best chance at communicating anything with anybody. Frank doesn't speak. Why can't people accept that not speaking means silence? To leave him alone. If he wanted to communicate so much, surely he would speak again.
Well, he thinks this. In reality, he could meet his soulmate, and even if he opened his mouth, he would never be able to force the broken and hoarse words out again.
They stayed, stuck at the back of his throat, waiting to come up but dying before they could. Graves full of years' worth of conversations he wanted to have rotting inside him.
No one could make him talk, not even himself. They couldn't fix him. All the therapists he had seen, all the doctors he had seen. None of them managed to get the corpses of dialogue pulled from his mouth. They brewed in his mind, left forever unsaid.
He remembered it all so clearly, the confusion he caused, the way he tried so hard and yet no one saw his efforts. If anything, it made him bitter and angry, blocked from the world, from the only people who were supposed to understand him, to fix him.
He wanted to write the message, but his hand wouldn't obey. His thumb felt like wood. He forced his fingers around the pen, gripping it so hard the plastic creaked, his knuckles turning a stark, bloodless white. He tried to draw an 'A', but his wrist caught on the phantom tug of a rope that hadn't been there for years. The pen skittered across the page, leaving a jagged, ugly line. Across the table, his therapist watched with that familiar, impatient squint—the same look the last three doctors had given him.
"Just try to say it," the man said, his voice dripping with the casual arrogance of someone who had never had to swallow his own screams in the dark. Frank's throat tightened, the muscles locking into a hard, suffocating knot. He opened his mouth, but the only thing that escaped was the dry, hollow wheeze of an empty well.
Nothing came out anymore; he made no noises, none voluntary anyway.
Frank’s mom sighed, a kind of uneasy sigh, while she pulled up outside the school. There were so many people outside, teenagers, bustling to get through the front gates.
It was a nice school; he didn’t fit in here. God knew he didn’t fit in here. All these kids outside looked smart and polished, polite, smiling, charmed to the point where they were borderline shining and twinkling in the sun.
Frank’s clothes fit awkwardly on his body: oversized hoodie that made him look disproportionate, pants clinging to his hips, his shoes beat beyond belief, but he refused to let his mom spend money on new ones, the fingerless gloves and studded bracelets he wore that he was sure were against the dress code at this new school.
How did he even get in here? The school probably jumped when they saw his 504 plan, a shiny new special kid to add to their collective roster—collecting him like a commodity.
He was too different to fit in here; he would stand out like a sore thumb. Everyone filing into the gates was smiling, chatting, knowing what to say, being just everything Frank was not. The 17-year-old skin he wore didn't fit; it hung over his frame like he was a skeleton. He wanted to be thirteen again, knowing that making friends was easy, never worrying about graduating, skipping class whenever he wanted because that's what it was like to be a kid. That's what it was like to be free.
“You’ll be okay, right Frankie?” She hesitated, and as much as Frank wanted to shake his head no and make her turn around and drive him home where he would stay forever.
But instead he smiled a tight-lipped smile and nodded. Every time Frank didn’t speak to his own mom, he could see her heart break a little further, and it ate him up inside. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, that he didn’t mean it like this. He didn’t want to hurt her. It wasn't purposeful.
It wasn't fair; it really wasn't. He tried so hard; it was his own mother, for god's sake. Why would he not be able to talk to his own mother? He tried so hard to explain; they sat him down in therapy with a pencil and paper and told him to write how he felt, his mom watching over his shoulder.
But his mind worked faster than his hand, and his shaking hands couldn’t keep up, and all he was left with was paper with black ugly scribbles on it, and him curled up and crying.
“Okay, Frankie. You text me if you need anything, okay?” She said, in a voice like she was giving him up, letting him go.
Frank nodded again, slowly. He knew he probably wouldn't if it came down to it. He would keep his head down and keep on going.
He opened the car door, pulling himself out of the vehicle's safety with his bag.
“I love you," His mom said, and Frank smiled at her, holding up his hand, pinkie, index and thumb outstretched: I love you.
With one last smile, his mom drove away, and Frank was left to head towards the gate. The place was huge, the school unfathomably large. If his mom hadn’t given him a map, and he hadn’t spent all last night studying it, he would have no clue where his homeroom was.
Looking around at the hallways, busy and vibrating with kids trying to get to class, a strange sort of burning resentment filled his body, starting deep inside and stretching up to his brain. Teenagers all around him fit so well into this foreign place, moulded to the perfect shape of teenage expectations. Laughing, flirting, stressing over popularity or bad grades. Trivial, stupid things Frank wishes were the worst of his worries.
He swallowed hard, fighting the bile that crept up his throat.
Their lives looked too incredibly easy, even from just a short glance at this new population he had to integrate into. Soft even. He hated them instinctively for their innocence, and in a way he hated himself for looking visibly broken next to them.
He pushed his hands inside his pockets, stretching out his hoodie a little. He wanted to disappear, make himself as small as possible so that he sank into the cracks of the floor, gone for good. His hood was up, shielding his vision. He didn't want to know if people were looking at him, which surely they were. He watched his feet as he walked instead, chin tucked low.
He wouldn't survive here; he wouldn't survive the year. It was something he didn't know how to sign to his mom, something that was barely categorised in his brain. Just a sinking feeling, impending doom. He would never make it.
By the time he found his homeroom, circling back on himself a few times, everyone was in the seats they had probably picked out two weeks ago, talking casually, and the only seat left was at the back, next to a wall.
A little bit of the weight he was carrying lifted off of his shoulders. No one behind him; he could see the entire classroom from this angle. There was a row of windows two seats ahead, and a direct diagonal line to the door.
Solemnly, Frank sat down, setting his cross-body bag down gently next to his chair. The boy next to him turned his head, probably to speak, but before a sound came out, the door was thrown open once again, and people shut up.
His homeroom teacher, whom he had met a few days ago when his mom insisted he had been shown the school before he attended - because that was the treatment he got now: he was special and different and therefore treated specially and differently now - walked to the front of the room. A kind-looking woman, tall and young, with long brown hair slicked to the back of her head, and glasses sat on the bridge of her nose.
“Good morning.” She said brightly, with the attitude of someone who says this every day with the same level of enthusiasm, genuinely waking up each day feeling positive about the hours ahead.
Surprisingly, a few people in the room said it back, which made Frank blink in surprise.
“Now,” She continued, and Frank picked at his nails nervously below his desk. “Normally you guys can do as you please during homeroom after I take attendance, but we have a new student joining us, so I thought we could get introduced. Frank, could you come up here?”
Frank’s heart sank through his chair. He could already feel everyone's eyes on him, heads swivelled to look in his direction. His throat was dry, the same kind of feeling he got when trying to choke up words, except this time he wasn’t even trying to speak.
How could he introduce himself when he can’t talk? Had she forgotten that simple fact already, the core defining feature of Frank: he doesn't talk. Silent, mute, dumb. Lips sealed shut permanently. He removed his hood from his head as he walked, his hands jittering so much that he shoved them back into his pockets as fast as he could.
Hesitating, he stood up, chair creaking across the floor in the silent room as he rose and walked down the aisles of desks to the front. Once he was there, things got worse. All attention, all thirty-ish kids in the room staring him down. They waited for what he had to say, but little did they know he would end up drowning up there before uttering a single word.
“This is Frank.” The homeroom teacher smiled brightly, gesturing towards Frank, who was sure his legs were shaking right now. Everyone almost leaned in, waiting for him to say something, anything back. But instead she continued, “Frank doesn't speak-” Before she had even finished her sentence, he felt as though he could feel the whole class lean back again. They had nothing to wait for anymore.
“- but he can still hear, so I hope you guys won’t treat him any differently, and will welcome him as part of the school." The homeroom teacher grinned, talking to the pupils as if they were her friends, in a way that made Frank uncomfortable.
The entire room is filled with a dead silence. The other students stare at their desks, whisper to each other, or look at him like he's a freak, peering as if he may grow a second head right there and then, or ooze slime. The social execution is complete.
“Thank you, Frank.” His homeroom teacher smiles, dismissing him gently, and Frank walked in small, awkward steps towards the desk where his bag waited for him. He sank into the seat, wishing nothing more than to die on the spot, right there, or have the earth swallow him whole.
His eyes stared intently at the fake wood grain in front of him, heart hammering through his ribcage. Beside him, the guy at the desk on his right dropped a comic book onto his desk and leaned over, and said in a loud, casual whisper. "Man, she always does that. Last year she told the whole class Marcus had a kidney issue. She’s got zero boundaries. Ignore her."
Frank's eyes whipped to him, taking him in for the first time. Large curly hair, a smirk on his face as if this was just another one of his favourite prison wardens' antics. He swallowed hard, giving a small jerky nod.
"Welcome to hell," The guy next to him grinned, and Frank felt his lips pull up slightly, almost compelled to smile himself. "Anyway, I'm Ray. You're lucky you missed the first week, honestly. The cafeteria line is a war zone, and the AC in the English blocks smells like wet dog." He seemed a little scrappy, like Frank. Cool clothes, shoelaces untied, an awkward toothy smile.
“You don’t speak? Not at all?” He continued, looking over Frank, his black hair tucked over his forehead, wide eyes, chipping black nail polish, and shitty vans.
Frank shook his head. He really didn’t speak, not at all, man.
“Cool.” Ray smiled back, and for some reason it felt like he actually meant it, rather than just saying it dismissively. “You like Misfits?" He pointed at Frank's faded hoodie.
For the first time in a while, Frank smiled, a genuine smile where his lips pulled his cheeks upward, and he nodded.
Ray caught this as he caught this as he passed the bag, and smiled too. “Fuck yeah.” He nodded, as if to understand Frank in meaning ‘I fucking love them’.
And weirdly Frank felt so seen, more than he had in ages. It caught him off guard to meet someone who didn’t try and force him to speak, or didn’t understand his nods and facial expressions and smiles.
“Hey, you got your schedule too? Show me,” Ray half demanded, making a grabbing motion, and Frank diligently pulled it out of his pocket and passed it over to Ray, who unfolded it and studied the contents intensely. “We have first period English together next!” He smiled before passing it back. A lot of smiling in this conversation, but to Frank it felt so real. “I know, English first period on a Monday sucks actual ass, but sometimes it’s not so bad. Hey, at least I’ll have someone there; you could sit next to me.” Ray pauses. “If you want.” He adds.
Frank nods as meaningfully as he can, wanting nothing more. It was a long fucking time since he had met someone willing just to speak and fill the silence that Frank left. Most people waited, as if suddenly he would burst into speech, as they had cured him. Removed the block from his throat and let him free, fixed his vocal cords and granted him the power of easy, painless speech.
People would stare and shuffle awkwardly, even after Frank had made the necessary head movement and facial gesture to signal the end of the conversation. No one quite latched onto his silence; they all knew him before. They remembered the way he chatted, the way he would never shut the fuck up, like a fool. Setting a standard.
Frank went to nod again, or some strange facial expression that tried to show how desperately he wanted Ray to keep talking to him, but the ringing bell and clatter of people standing up and trying to push their way out of the room startled him, and he looked around.
The bell was loud, louder than he had remembered, an overwhelming drilling as if someone were screaming into his ear. He fought to keep his hands off of his ears.
Ray rose to his feet too, and grabbed his backpack from under his desk. “C’mon.” He gestured towards Frank, who followed, trailing behind Ray as they walked out into the bustling halls, while he began speaking about the English teacher they were about to deal with. Frank studied the back of his head intently, not wishing to look anywhere else.
As Ray dragged him up some stairs, Frank stumbled with his feet, gripping the handrail with surprisingly steady hands, white-knuckled, looking down at his shoes. He wasn't too surprised; they told him it would never really leave, but he hadn't tripped in a while.
Ray turned to look at him. "You okay?"
Frank nodded, tight-lipped, and Ray paused before grabbing Frank’s arm and pulling him down further, twisting buildings and rooms. At this current point in time, Ray could probably walk him into fire, and he would go willingly.
Ray pulled Frank into a classroom finally, and half pushed him into a seat while saying, “Here, sit next to me in the back.” Barely giving him a choice, but Frank would sit there regardless, because he had taken a shine to Ray already.
He seemed, in the short space they knew each other, to treat him like an actual human. To the others back home, he was a freak.
They all knew what he had gone through; they watched him with scared eyes, trailing him down halls, streets, sidewalks, wherever. Their eyes burned into the back of Frank’s skull. He was treated differently by his peers, sneered at by some, avoided entirely by others. They all knew what happened to him.
The adults in his life took condescending views, glaring at him like he was trouble. Kids these days, they said with their condescending eyes, as if that has to do with anything. Eventually, therapists looked at him like that too, when they realised they weren’t fixing him, and in fact Frank was getting worse, slipping further into silence.
At first it was all “How will you cope in the real world?” and “You have to snap out of it at some point.” and the occasional “This is pathetic, grow up.” Those kinds of things at the beginning of it, when Frank stopped talking in class, stopped speaking to his peers, didn’t answer to his name anymore.
Sometimes he got that from some of the frustrated therapists, at the very end before they wrote him off to someone who dealt with “more severe cases”.
This kept going, over and over like a sickening cycle, until Frank’s mom cried in a session about how he stopped speaking to her too, stopped saying anything at all, and they called it progressive mutism and told him he would have to learn to live like this.
People gave up on him. Looked at him like he was an alien to this planet, like he didn’t belong, a silent figure among a race of volumes.
But Ray, so far, treated him like he was a person, just a silent one. A teenager, classmate, friend, who communicated through gestures and expressions instead of words, who was no different to them.
And this sparked a warm feeling in his chest that grew the more and more Ray jabbered on to him throughout the lesson, and even more so when he started writing little notes to continue their conversation after getting berated by their English teacher.
Frank had scribbled back, hands trembling as normal, pencil nearly snapping as he tried to write even two blocky words. He wanted to write faster, but his thumb and index finger kept going numb, forcing him to grip the pen like a child holding a crayon. Ray didn't even say anything about the handwriting or awkward grip; he just nodded and wrote back, and that solidified it for Frank: Ray was a friend, a pretty fucking good one at that.
He didn’t care; Ray was a close friend, and he kept thinking about the way he treated him in the rest of his subjects until lunch.
The teachers didn’t pick on him, and the students didn’t talk to him, so he was left alone to daydream giddily about the prospect of actually having friends.
By the time the lunch bell rang, he was officially excited to see him again and let him talk his ear off. Ray was in this class too, even though they sat at opposite ends of the room; every time Frank glanced at him, Ray was looking at him with childishly excited eyes.
When the bell rang for lunch, Frank couldn't say with any certainty he was any more used to it. He wanted to press his palms over his ears and squeeze them so hard his hands didn't shake anymore. He was one of the last to file out of the class, watching everyone first as if he had to learn like a creature.
By the time he got to the doorway, he had hesitated a few steps away. The people outside it were like stepping into a beeswarm, loud and chaotic with buzzing and stingers.
Ray came up by his side, glancing between him and the doorway before saying. "Hey, the cafeteria is brutal today. A bunch of us sit out by the old bike racks behind the gym. It’s quiet. You want to come?"
Frank nodded, a small relief brushing over him as he followed Ray like jews followed Moses through the Red Sea; everyone seemed to part around him. It was as if being different were a contagious disease, but Frank didn't notice much; he was just grateful when they stepped outside by the bike racks on the other side of the school. It was quiet, far from everyone else in that awful building.
Two kids were already leaning up against them, talking in hushed voices. Ray waved at them, and they waved back together.
"Hey Bob!” Ray’s voice rang out suddenly, and he stopped, pulling Frank's arm to be beside him as Frank was confronted with another guy, with blonde hair and a neutral face. “This is Frank,” Ray said like he was showing off a hamster. “He doesn't speak.”
Frank gave an awkward wave, the crowd of teens around them shifting and sorting their way outside them as if they were now in some weird kid bubble.
“Like at all?” Bob said, and Ray shook his head.
“Like at all,” Ray confirmed.
“Can he hear?” Bob said, looking once again over Frank and at Ray. Frank pulled a tight-looking face and nodded, frowning. In response, Bob smiled a bit, an odd little satisfied smirk.
“He’s cool though. He likes cool music, plus look at him.”
Frank shuffled awkwardly at this.
“Nice to meet you.” Bob finally said after looking Frank up and down, a half smile on his face, but it met his eyes all the same and took some pressure off of his chest.
They all shifted together, leaning against the bike racks as if it was the most casual thing in the world to all of them, and Frank was grateful, actually, to be a part of something.
Ray said happily, “How was your first day?”
Frank shrugged, forcing the Velcro strap of his messenger bag open with his fist and digging in his bag for an aluminium foil-wrapped sandwich he could satisfy his aching stomach with. No one commented on the way his hands shook, and the fact he kept one eye on his hand the whole time to ensure he didn't drop it.
Bob laughed sharply. “It won’t get much better.” Ray reached over and hit him lightly on the shoulder.
“Oh yeah,” Ray piped up again. “This is Mikey.” Ray gestured towards the other person sitting with them, slightly smaller than them, hiding underneath straightened hair, glasses and a beanie. “He’s a year younger than us,” Ray explained, and Frank nodded in understanding.
“Mikey, we finally found someone who speaks less than you do!” Bob teased him, and Mikey batted his hand away from where it poked him in the chest.
They all sat in a comfortable silence for a handful of seconds, the light autumn breeze flooding over all of their shoulders.
“Where are you from?” Bob asked, nudging towards Frank, and Frank could only hesitate a second before staring wide-eyed at him, unable to respond.
Frank reached in his bag, pulling out his notebook and pencil he knew he was going to need, and stiffly wrote in blocky letters NEW JERSEY.
Bob peered over to read it and nod, and Ray stuck his head in Frank's face to read it too.
“Long way from here.” He commented, and Frank nodded quietly. It was a long way. But he didn’t miss it; he couldn’t miss that place now.
“Yeah, speaking of, anyone got Chemistry notes I can use? There’s a test tomorrow I haven’t revised for.” Ray said sheepishly, clearly not linking anything to the conversation at hand.
Mikey shook his head disapprovingly, and Bob sighed. “No, and if I gave you them, you know you wouldn't use them anyway.”
Ray smiled in agreement, and Frank began to get lost in the bliss of it all. It was really nice to have people around him who would just talk. He was used to now being some kind of silent observer in conversations, but he could tell when people wanted him to listen and when people found him creepy. These people didn’t mind him watching everyone else speak, slightly dazed out in his own fantasies about what it would be like to have friends.
“Boo!” A voice yells to his left, and he jumps; in fact, everyone jumps, but Frank lets out a small noise he couldn’t help, his throat buzzing with the noise. A little low-pitched, rough yelp that made Ray spin his head towards him.
“Shit, you can make noise!” He beams, and Bob reaches over to hit him.
“No shit, it’s not like he hasn’t got vocal cords.” He mumbles before they look over at who interrupted them.
A guy who looked a little like Mikey, long black hair over his face and nearly reaching his shoulders, a pale face with a shit-eating grin on it. He was crouched down next to Mikey, hands on his shoulders, and Mikey shivered and pulled his fingers away.
“What, Gerard?” He said, not at all warmly.
In fact, the whole group seemed quiet and a little pissed off as they watched him.
“Aw, can’t say hi anymore?” He teased lightly, grinning. “Who’s this?” He looked over at Frank, who met his eyes for only a second before looking away, swallowing hard.
“That’s Frank,” Mikey mumbled, brushing Gerard off of his shoulders again.
“Hey man.” Gerard smiled at him. Frank looked over again, studying his face for only a second before giving him a polite nod. He couldn’t tell yet if the group liked him or not, but he would at least be courteous. “Rude much?”
Oh. He forgot his silence was taken as rudeness half of the time. His stomach flipped in disappointment as Gerard frowned at him, and he clenched his fingers in his palm tight.
“Leave him alone, man. He’s new. He doesn't talk.” Ray said, quieter, and a small, tense silence settled over the group.
Then Gerard burst out in a dry sort of laugh, which made Frank stare at him. “What, did you guys find a mime to join your little club? Use your words, man.”
Frank wanted to scream; in that moment he really fucking did; he wanted to yell at him all kinds of profanities, but nothing came out. Predictably, he stayed silent.
He stared at Gerard through his eyebrows. He wanted to burn his face off with just a look, a cold, burning resentment filling his lungs. resentment. His throat locked tightly, swallowing hard.
In his lap, instead, he pinched his thumb and pointer finger together, the other fingers splayed out: asshole. His hands shook, jerking slightly, and it was noticed quickly.
"Why are you shaking? What, are you on drugs?" Gerard grinned, but it was met by a cold silence from everyone, and Frank shoved his hands back in his pocket.
Everyone was silent, shuffling, and Gerard seemed to notice, hitting Mikey on the back, saying, “Well, Mom wanted to speak to you after school, so now you know.” And then walked off.
A small quiet passed over everyone as they exchanged small glances, and when Mikey finally caught Frank’s eye, he sighed, “That’s Gerard, my brother…” He mumbled. “He’s a bit,” there was another pause. “Weird.”
Frank frowned. Normally, weird meant good in the world Frank came from. Someone weird meant they didn’t fit in with the people who hated Frank, and was automatically welcomed by the group of outcasts, no matter what brand of outcast they were.
Frank liked weird; he welcomed weird with a warm glow, as they were the ones who would let him sit in silence with them while still being part of the conversation.
The group clearly noticed Frank's confusion on his face, and Ray piped up. “Not that kind of weird.”
“He doesn't seem to like us very much,” Bob said, picking idly at the grass below him.
Frank understood all too well. Not being able to understand this kind of dislike that was often played off as a joke, a smile and a laugh you weren’t quite in on, but you laughed all the same because what else did you left to do in that situation? Where you didn’t realise until too late that they were laughing at you, and you were in fact the but of everyone’s joke.
An uneasy sensation where someone couldn't just outright say they didn’t like you and instead wove it into conversation.
Frank was subject to that even before he went silent, and afterwards even more so, where people would come up to him and say something ridiculous along the lines of “Well, say something unless you’re gay” and would then sit there laughing while Frank stared at them with wide eyes.
Mikey looked up at Frank, suddenly catching his eye, and looked at him with an earnest expression, “Don’t let him bother you.” The words rattled in his bones, and Frank nodded in understanding.
“C’mon, let’s go to the science block; it’s like a basement down there. He’d probably be too scared to come bother us down there.” Ray said, and Frank laughed silently.
They were all just getting ready to pick up their stuff and leave when, from somewhere within the large building, a sharp trill rang out, loud enough that the boys on the hill would just about hear it, and they all reluctantly shuffled to their feet with their belongings, sad to go even if the mood was mildly spoiled.
The time must have gotten away from them, and Ray promised that if they had any free periods they’d hang out down there instead.
“What do ya have next?” Ray asked, and Frank produced his timetable again.
The taller boy inspected it as they ambled down the hill. “Oh, art. It’s quiet, you’ll like it.”
Frank smiled in return. His face felt worn out from the day; all he was doing was nodding and smiling or shaking his head. No one engaged with him enough for him to actually react.
Ray was right, though; art class was quiet, and in fact no one at all even attempted a conversation with Frank. He kept his head down the whole time, daydreaming of home.
His mom was working so he’d have to walk, and in a way he was grateful for the serenity of the sidewalk, the trees whistling in the wind, the cars driving by occasionally, his footsteps the only constant and reliable sound throughout his walk home. A gentle tap on the concrete every second, head tucked down and staring at his shoes the whole way through.
He felt disgustingly ungrateful for the day. He left with friends, not just one but three friends who liked him and his awkward silent company. But he didn’t want to go back the next day, or the day after that, or any other day. He wanted to stay at home, in peace, with no interactions.
No eyes patiently waiting for him to get cured and spout into monologue, no empty searching gazes that tried to find deeper meaning in his face, no one to try and put him in situations where he was pressured to speak out loud. Calm silence and the tranquillity of his own company.
He had spent months like that after it happened, at home, alone. He had to keep the doors open then; if they closed, so did the walls around him, no matter what room he was in. No matter what room, the doors remained open, an escape route possible, or it would all set in again. He could be sobbing into his palms, clawing at his wrists, borderline screaming when his mom found him.
He was better now; he could handle a closed door, but he still could not handle a lock. He couldn’t even lock the door to the bathrooms when he had to piss, and actually had been holding it in all day. Even if there were urinals, he didn’t want to use them.
So when he opened the door to his house, the first thing he did was go upstairs and relieve himself, the door left wide open. He knew he was home alone; his mom wouldn't get home for another few hours.
After this, he had to go around the house, nudging the shut doors to check. The first thing he did when they had moved here was check which doors locked, and it was only the bathrooms and the front and back doors, but still.
But he had to. It was a compulsion; he had to make sure that they stayed accessible, and that he could walk in and about his own house freely. He could leave them closed now; the doors didn’t have to be wide open anymore, but checking for locks was something he still felt compelled to do.
None of the therapists could get him to stop. When he went in for sessions, it often took him half an hour to calm down, simply because the door had to be closed due to privacy reasons.
He was better. He held that over his own head; he used to be worse. He used to be so much worse. Directly after it, he refused to be indoors at all, and stayed in the garden or on the sidewalk for hours at a time. He fell asleep out there, and his poor mother had to carry her teenage son into the house and put him in his bed.
He could sleep in his bed now. He could relax in a house, as long as none of the doors was locked.
When he was finally satisfied that the doors in the house would remain unlocked, he settled in his room, changing out of his school clothes into something more comfortable. His skin had been aching for that all day.
He slipped his shaking hand into the loop he had tied into his hoodie, shrugging it off. His fingers were too numb to hold the zipper, so all his clothes had to be modified. He couldn't even wear normal jeans; his jeans were elastic at the waist, which he shrugged off as well. He removed his gloves too, and bracelets, and slipped into his pyjamas instead, loose-fitting with little need for fine motor skills.
He had a comic book or two stashed next to his bed, and he leant over to pick one up. His hands trembled, and when he picked one up - a random one; he didn't care - it slipped from his numb fingers and fell onto the bed.
Frank glanced down at his hands in frustration, and the tight, circular scars on his wrists shined back at him, as if sadistic. They wrapped all the way around his wrist, ugly and slightly raised, an odd tinge of red after all these years. They had told him they wouldn't go away; the pain they caused would remain unfortunately permanent, forever gripping him, forever a reminder.
His fingers tingled, a phantom kind of feeling, spreading up from his wrist to the tips. He sighed, giving in and lying down on his bed, able to half-pick up the comic book then and rest it against his pillow. He idly flicked through it while waiting for his mom, but all he wanted was to tell her about his day.
He couldn't focus.
He wanted to be the type of kid who yelled to his mom when she walked through the door, who barrelled downstairs yapping his head off about genuinely anything as long as she would listen. To be the type of kid who told his mom about his day, who smiled at her and answered questions at length. Who could be normal, make noise and be engaged in conversation with another human being.
A lone tear fell down his cheek.
How much he longed to be normal. To be a teenager just like anyone else was. To talk to his friends, voice how he felt, not feel haunted every single day, be just like everyone else was.
Frank was tired, borderline exhausted. His day had been so long, and he lay his head down on his pillow, hoping the sound of his mom walking through the door would wake him up.