Frances and Gerard started to hang out more and more. They'd cut classes together and go to the locker rooms, sitting on top of the lockers smoking cigarettes. They didn't really talk then, because they had to listen for footsteps, but when Frances did speak, she was always saying "Fuck this school." or "I can't wait until I get out of here." but a lot of kids said things like that.
Hanging out together after school was more gradual. At first, it would be Gerard walking Frances back to her house. Then, one day, once they got to her house, she kept going.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Straight." she pointed ahead of her and kept going. Gerard quickly caught up with her.
"Why aren't you going home?"
“Why should I? Nobody will miss me for a few hours.” With that, she kept going. Gerard paused for only a moment before catching up with her. Her hair was blowing in her face and she reached over to brush it away. Gerard watched, fascinated, as her nail bitten fingers ran through her hair, gently lingering for just a moment before moving away the thick hair. Gerard suddenly wanted to reach out and take her hand, but something stopped him. Frances looked at him through the corner of her eye.
“Can I help you?” she asked with an amused grin. He quickly shook his head.
“I was just thinking.”
“While staring at me?”
Gerard didn’t respond. Frances suddenly took Gerard’s hand and spun herself around. Gerard laughed and spun her quicker and quicker until she suddenly broke away, spinning away from him, laughing.
“You’re insane!” he called. She kept spinning. Gerard ran up to her and then put his hand on her arm, making her stay still. She grinned.
“It’s fun. Try it.”
“I can’t.” he said. He wanted too, though. He wanted to just laugh and spin around the way she was, but he couldn’t get himself too. She shook her head.
“Nobody ever wants to do anything. They just wanna sit there and moan about what they ‘can’t’ do.” She pouted.
“You’re really weird.” Gerard finally responded. She started spinning again.
“Of course I’m weird- that’s the point! That’s what everybody tells me. I’m weird, I’m anti social, I’m this, I’m that, whatever. I’m very social, you know? That’s the funny part. I don’t wanna sit around and make all that nice small talk. People keep acting like you should act a certain way around them and that’s stupid. People should just be themselves and stop pretending, so that you can be yourself and stop pretending.”
Finally, she stopped spinning and fell to the grass. Gerard sat down next to her. He ripped out some of the dead grass and then sprinkled it onto her hair. She laughed.
“I wish I could do that.” Gerard said. “I wish I could just act like myself, but I’d probably scare everyone.”
“So? That’s the point.” She suddenly sat up, leaning further towards Gerard. He nearly fell back as she leaned her head so far that their foreheads were touching. Gerard could feel her warm breathe as she said “Scare the shit out of people. That’s the point. Scare them so much they’ll never be able to see just how scared you are.” With that, she sat back. Before Gerard could respond, she jumped up and left. Gerard called out to her, but then stopped. He sat back, thinking it over. It made sense. But what did she mean? Was she scared? Was she just fooling around with him? Why couldn’t she just tell him?

Notes

Funny story, true story *sweats nervously* I actually wrote a lot of chapters today, and I really liked some of them, but they didn't go in the right order but I felt bad that I hadn't updated this, so I forced myself to write a chapter. Hee hee *cartwheels off a cliff*