"Dude, are you there?" Mikey sounded panicked, and he was still speaking quietly. "Frank, hello?"

My bedroom door opened, and my mom stood hesitantly in the doorway. "Frank?" She whispered. I didn't reply.

My phone slipped from my hand and landed gently on the floor by my head. I was still laying in the middle of my room, staring blankly at the ceiling. My mouth was open slightly; my breathing coming out in shallow gasps.

My mom bent down beside me, picking up my phone and silently holding it to her ear. After a few seconds, she pulled it away again, pressing a few buttons until I could hear Mikey's frantic words echoing through the speaker.

"Frank? Say something!"

"Mikey?" My mom questioned. There was a worry in her voice that I'd never heard before. I still hadn't moved or said anything.

"Mrs. Iero? Is that you?" He sounded exasperated.

"Yes, it's me. What's happened?"

"They know what happened."

"Wait, who's they? What exactly do they know?"

"Them. School. Everybody in school. They know what happened to Frank."

"Mikey, what do they know?"

"They know he was raped!" He breathed, sounding defeated. "I didn't want to have to say it," he mumbled, an unusual tone in his voice.

My mom remained silent after that, her eyes glided and remailed fixed on me. I closed my eyes then, wanting the floor to open up and swallow me whole. I didn't want this - any of this to happen. Before I knew it, silent tears were falling from my eyes and landing softly on the wooden floor beneath my head. I heard the beep of my mom hanging up on Mikey's mutters and she dropped down to her knees beside me.

"Frank..." She muttered as she pulled my head into her lap and caressed the side of my face and hair. I whined, my eyes closing tight and my body beginning to shake. My sobs became muffled as I placed a hand over my mouth and forced myself to remain silent. My mom hummed to me, encouraging me to cry, but I didn't want to. Crying had done nothing for me the past year, what good would it do now?

She didn't ask me how I was. She didn't ask how they found out, or who exactly I'd told. She didn't at all question me. She left me after about an hour to sit on my floor and think about what I was going to do. She brought food up for me - three meals. They wound up in the corner of my room; out of sight, out of mind. I was too sick - too disgusting to eat.

In a way, my mom leaving me on my own was a good thing. But it gave me time to think; do they know who it was? Who did that to me? If they did, I'd be the laughing stock of the school. I already am. Who did I tell? I told Mikey. Maybe Gerard had seen the note? Or I'd left it written on the whiteboard that I'd left at Mikey's house? Does Donna know? Has she told Mikey's dad, Donald? What does Gerard think?

All of this lead me to one conclusion - I wasn't going back to school. I wasn't leaving my room, or the house. I didn't need to, and there was no way my mom could make me.

That night, my mom came up one last time to check on me. She took down the full three plates of food, and didn't offer me any more. I climbed unsteadily into bed, but I knew I couldn't sleep. I was awake all night. I left my curtains open, gazing at the stars. In a way, they reminded me of myself. You could see them; the looked alive. But really, they've been dead a long, long time. What you see isn't always what you're seeing. I was dead inside - an empty shell.

I watched as the sun rose through my window. I watched as it slowly faded, and it began to rain lightly. The rain soon turned to hail, and all I could hear was the soothing racket of it pounding against my roof and the window. The noise filled my ears and managed to drown out the sound of my own messed up thoughts for a few hours.

I heard a light knock on my door, and I rolled over, not wanting to deal with my mom's worrying. When the knocking didn't go away, I rolled over, grumbling a, "Go away," in the direction of the door. Then I heard my mom's voice. She was talking to someone.

"Just go in, dear."

I heard a, "Thank you," and my bedroom door slowly opened, revealing a very tired, and sad looking Mikey. I tried to force a smile, but gave up, with just a slight wave of my arm in his direction. He nodded at me and began sitting on the floor. I didn't bother to protest. He's always been the awkward one.

"Are you-" He cut himself off, knowing how stupid the question was. "I mean, how are you...feeling?"

I nodded my head once.

"Gerard, uh, he wants to apologise-"

"What?" My voice cracked and it sounded strained. My eyes were pleading, knowing what Mikey's next words were going to be. No, it couldn't have been him. It couldn't have been Gerard. I didn't tell him. I didn't even hint at what might be wrong with me. He doesn't know, I told myself. He can't know.

"It was Gerard."

Mikey's words cut through my thoughts like a blade and caused my breathing to come to a halt. I couldn't even manage to speak before Mikey started again.

"He found the whiteboard."

"Mikey," I started to whisper.

"It still had...what you wrote on it. He panicked; he didn't know how to handle it."

I tried again. "Mikey-"

"He rang the school-"

"Mikey!" I found myself yelling. He snapped his head up from his lap to look at me, his eyes wide with shock. His words had caused me to feel sick; dizzy to the point of passing out. "Leave," I ordered.

"Frank, it's not my fault-"

"Get out," I was on the verge of raising my voice again. My mom opened my bedroom door and I groaned internally. Mikey stood at once, his awkward knees shaking. He pushed past my mom and saw himself out as I stood. I pushed my mom out of my room and closed the door, dragging the chair from my desk over and placing it under the handle for a make-shift lock; a way to keep everybody out.

I didn't want to speak, I didn't want to eat, I didn't want to live. I wanted to rot in this room.

One day passed.

Two days passed.

Three days passed.

My fourth day of isolation was the day Gerard would turn up at my door.

Notes

I feel bad ugH I'M SORRY I'VE LOST ALL MOTIVATION