[b]Chapter 14 – Franks POV[/b]

I swear I will never walk to school with Josh again. I think Pete felt the same way this morning too when we had to pull Josh off of a junior jock who saw it fit to throw a shot put ball at him. The poor kid was lucky to escape with a black eye.
But I guess Josh was like that.
The only problem was he was so interested in beating the crap out of the kid and staying put while doing so, I actually had to use strength a kid my size shouldn’t have. With my efforts combined with Petes, we got him off only to be late to school. Great.
When we got to the doors, Pete and I headed upstairs and Josh ran down the hall to his class. I envied him for him class. Emma was there. I’d see her in music thankfully, not that I’d be able to talk to her.
“-Earth to Frank, the doors back here,” Pete said.
“Huh? Oh, right,” I mumbled.
We walked in and instantly got stared at by pretty much everyone except the teacher. He was too busy reading a porn magazine instead of writing notes on the board. We sat down at the back, hoping like hell no-one would ask us why we were gone. I got out a comic to read while Pete texted Bob. Before we knew it, the bell rang and everyone cleared out pretty quick.
~
Music was wonderful, well, for me at least, I sat there and played guitar and stared at Emma for most of it. Other parts of the lesson I had to stop myself from wanting to tell Ashley everything. She messed up all the lyrics and looked squashed; Josh attempted and a few times succeeded in making her smile. But the smile faded pretty quickly. I hope Mikey felt horrible for leaving everyone hanging on a thread like this. I knew it was hard but he could call someone. I’d be there soon; I’d have to tell him about it.
As soon as the bell went off, I bolted out of the class and out of the school, headed for Way Manor.
I felt my phone vibrate. I slid it open to be greeted with a text from Gerard; [i]“Hurry up”[/i].
I jogged the rest of the way and up their drive. I was about to hit the doorbell when Mikey burst through and hugged me.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
“You make it sound like I just paid your bail payment.”
“You have. There is NOTHING to do here. I can only read all my comics so many times,” he replied.
“You could text people…” I suggested.
“Jail master took my phone and computer away.”
“Jail master?”
“Gerard. He won’t let me talk to anybody, even via phone call! It’s ridiculous!”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Thank you,” Mikey said.
“Meet you up in your room; I’ll talk to him now.”
“Cool, he’s in the den with Lindsey. Be careful though, I don’t know what they’re doing in there. And I really don’t want or need to.”
“Thanks for the heads up, I’ll be sure to knock,” I said before heading off towards the den. I heard Lindsey giggling and Gerard breathing slightly heavy. I knocked on the door lightly and Gerard answered it with a raised eyebrow.
“What?”
“Can I talk to you for a sec?”
He looked back at Lindsey who winked at him, “Sure.” He walked out into the hall and closed the door.
We both heard Lindsey try sneak up to listen in. I hit my fist against the door and she walked off, “So, what’s up?”
“The guys at school are wondering what’s up. They want to know something soon and at least a text from him. They’re hanging on by a thread.”
“I can’t help it. He can’t talk to anyone yet.”
“He can and you know it. What’s a phone call or a text going to do? They need something.”
Gerard sighed, a sigh that showed he knew I was right. He reached into him pocket and pulled out Mikeys phone, “Give him his phone when you go up there.”
“Thanks. You don’t know how much easier this is going to make it for me.”
“I… I don’t what to do...” Gerard admitted.
“For starters, letting him talk to people would help. He has to keep up an appearance.”
“You’re right. Taking his phone was stupid. I was trying to protect him and I don’t know how.”
“He’ll be okay enough soon. And I’m sure he won’t sneak out again, he knows it’ll be bad,” I replied.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Lindsey wrenched open the door and pulled Gerard back inside the room. I heard a thud come from the other side of the wall and Gerard let out a yelp. With that effectively ending the conversation, I headed up to Mikey’s room with his phone.
I opened the door to find him sitting on his bed, staring out the window, “Dude, look what I have!”
He looked away from the window and directly to my hand, “MY PHONE!”
I smiled and chucked him his phone.
He clicked on the screen, “Oh fuck.”
“What?”
“200 messages and 81 missed calls.”
“Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Mostly Ashley, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah. Usually I love texts from her, but this just makes me sad.”
“Why?”
“It means I’m hurting her. I hate being cooped up here and not being able to see her. And I missed the party. And when I was changing, I had a nightmare that I killed her.”
“Fuck. Well, you could have beaten the crap out of her ex at the party. He showed up drunk. Josh and Billie threw him in the dumpster. And spat on him. Meanwhile, Pete totally has a boyfriend,” I filled him in.
“Pete? Seriously? Who?”
“Gerards friend Bob,” I replied
“Good. The gays here are girly as fuck. Way too girly for Pete.”
“Indeed. Oh, and if you get a black eye from Josh, don’t bother punching back,” I said hesitantly.
“…Why would I get a black eye from Josh?”
“He’s head-over-heels for the same girl you are,” I explained.
“Oh.”
“He doesn’t seem to know it yet, you’re safe.”
“Well, that’s comforting. Anything else I should know about? Perhaps you’ve growing a pair and asking Emma out,” he suggested casually.
“What?”
“Nothing…”
I felt my cheeks go bright red. I averted my eyes and looked at the clock, “Shit! Gotta go, it’s lunch time and I gotta be there.”
“It’s cool. Go, be there. I’ll be here, alone.”
“You have a phone now, text people, call people, something.”
“Fine, come by after school?”
“Might as well. It’s that or homework.”
I ran out of the manor and back to school just in time to grab my lunch and head to the cafeteria.
I walked in to find Josh sitting alone at our usual table. As I walked over, he spotted me and sat up a little. As I sat down, he rested his elbows on the table.
“Hey man, where were you in science?”
“Oh, just had to run home and do some jobs for Mom. I got back half way in the lesson but Mr. Barrows was pissed off so he made me clean up the music room for the rest of the lesson,” I lied while pulling out my thermos and my lunchbox full of salad.
“So... you nicked a guitar and sat in the storage room for the rest of the lesson?”
“Pretty much,” I said while chewing on a carrot stick.
“So, what’s with Mikey disappearing off the face of the planet? He die or something?”
I felt my colour drain, what the fuck was I going to tell him? ‘Oh yeah, he’s alive, just now a vampire. He can’t come to school either ‘cause he might kill everyone.’ That’d go down well.
I had to lie.
“He might be really sick. I don’t know. He’s got a bad immune system, remember?”
He nodded, “Well if that was the case it’d be fucking awesome of him to call someone. Ashley is going out of her freaking mind,” Josh was getting pissed.
“I’m sure he will when he can. That’s if nothing bad has happened to him,” I managed before stuffing lettuce into my mouth.
Josh sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“So, what do you-” I was about to say but then when she walked in. Emma was walking over to the table with Ashley and Pete. I swear I was bright red but I couldn’t care less.
I saw Josh turn then look back at me, “Fucking ask her out already,” he muttered.
I looked at him and threw a carrot stick at his head.
“Hey guys,” Pete said happily.
Josh threw him a questioning look. Pete didn’t even notice.
Ashley looked bad. She was slightly pale and not at all as happy as her twin.
Emma sat next to me. Fuck. Why today? Of all days, today? Fuck fuck fuckedy fuck.
Josh, not so slyly, watched Ashley out of the corner of his eye. If he would only realise he likes her. He watched Emma and I with a slight smirk on his face. I looked over at Ashley; she was drinking her chocolate milk, barely touching her food. Mikey would break if I told him.
“So, Mom texted me and told me she’d picked up my guitar to move it out of her way or something like that.... and she’d managed to pop a string on it,” Emma grumbled.
“Bring it over and I could restring it for you,” I said, hoping she’d agree.
She looked offended but blushed, “I am quite capable of restringing a bloody guitar, Frank Iero!”
I blushed, “Sorry, just a thought.”
We just sat there awkwardly after that. I looked up and Josh barely stopping himself from dying from laughter. Dear god, was I blushing that badly? He looked over at Ashley and smiled, she had a slight smile on her lips. The first one I’d seen all day.
Ashley talked for a while before looking out the window while the rest of us talked. Pete seemed to notice her, along with Josh but we couldn’t do much. She suddenly jumped and clapped her hand to her pocket, before yanking out of her phone. Her face lit up like someone just gave her someone just told her that her ex was dead as she stared at the screen of her phone. She was silent for a whole three seconds before she let out a screech that got us weird stares from all over the cafeteria.
“MIKEY TEXTED ME!”
We all crowded around to see one simple word; [i]“Hey”[/i]
She replied as we all settled back down. I looked over at Josh; you could almost see the anger steaming off of him.
~
I knocked on Mikeys door. No answer. I sighed and let myself in to see Mikey sitting in the middle of his floor, texting.
“Your simple ‘hey’ made Ashley light up like you just said you killed her ex.”
Mikey looked up and smiled, “Really?”
“Totally. It was amazing to see it. Although, about 5 minutes before hand, she wasn’t eating and stared out the window. Amazing affect you have on her.”
His smile disappeared, “I... I did that? No...”
“Yup. It’s good that she’s happy but dude, [i]“Hey”[/i]? Really? Is that the best you had?”
“I stared at my phone for ages after you left thinking of what to say. Do you think my brain would work?”
I let him have that. I sat down on the floor with him and we talked about what happened at lunch. He told me what happened after I left. Gerard had apparently said he could go back to school in a few days since he has shown to be pretty good at controlling himself.
We sat there for hours, talking. He would randomly stop mid sentence to reply to texts. At about 5.30, I had to leave, “Dude, I have to go. See you in a few days? I’m sure you can last that long?”
“Sure, see you then,” He said before smiling at his phone.
As I walked home I had to think about Ashley and Mikey’s reactions to each other. He may have a huge influence over her but if she told him to jump off a cliff, I’m sure he would.

Notes

[b]Authors Notes:[i] Ash and Jay[/b][/i]

Ok guys, so... here's something we need to explain. While it may seem like Ashley likes Mikey in 'that' way. The truth is he is her absolute best friend, he's her go-to guy for everything. Their friendship is that close. But Mikey's romantic feelings are completely unrequieted. Ashley just see's him as a brother.
The reason she's reacting so strongly is because she's fucking worried. Wouldn't you be if you heard your absolute best friend screaming in agony and you didn't know what was going on?
Glad we cleared that up.