Some People Watch

Song: Breathe Me by Sia
Frank’s stomach made an obnoxiously loud noise. He looked at his clock, noticing it was six in the evening and that he hadn’t eaten all day. He groaned and set his guitar aside to get out of bed and trot downstairs to the kitchen, crouching down to paw through a cupboard.
“Don’t you dare try to blame me!” Frank cringed, hearing a door slam and his parents’ muffled argument from their bedroom. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry anymore.
“Well who the hell should I be angry at?” his father thundered.
“Yourself! You’re the failure! You can’t even get a good enough job to support your family!” his mother shouted back.
“If we didn’t have three mouths to feed and I only had to put up with you this would be ten times easier!” the voice got louder and he heard a door slam again, his father stomping through the hall and to another room, cursing the whole time. Frank stood up cautiously, scared to go back upstairs and wondering where his dad had went.
There was a bang.
Then his dad stormed back into the room where his wife was waiting. Frank bit his lip, making his way back upstairs, terrified of what the loud noise could have been. When he got to his room he realized what it was.
Frank was furious. In shock. Horrified. There, his guitar lay, the neck snapped off. His guitar. That he saved the money for, that he played every day, the only thing he had. He didn’t even inspect the damage and just went back downstairs, going out the front door and lighting a cigarette as he walked. Where he was going, Frank didn’t know. He just needed to be away. His own father had broken his fucking guitar, and he hadn’t even done anything wrong. He cursed loudly and kicked at the curb, still walking and eventually finding himself at the shitty park that he used to go to when he was younger with his mother. Frank sat down on a wet swing, holding onto the chains and pinching his fingers on the links, just taking drags and thinking, looking down at his shoes and silently watching the ground get harder to see, darkness beginning to surround him. Sometime later he realized he should probably be getting home and did so, numbly walking inside and right past his parents who were trying to yell at him for disappearing all the way up to his room. He didn’t even bother moving the splintered wood from his bed, or changing clothes, or anything. His mother chewed her fingernails, angry that her son wouldn’t respond and finally giving up, walking away and leaving her husband to shout at him relentlessly.
“Do you know what a horrible son you are? You had your mother and I worried sick! What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you do anything right? Talk to me dammit! There’s nothing wrong with your mouth! You’re a disappointment to the family, and you don’t deserve my name,” were some of the things that his father would drill into Frank’s head, while his mother just started crying and repeated the same things over and over again, “What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong?” nearly all night long.
After a couple hours of fitful slumber, Frank managed to get up and drag himself onto the school bus, skipping breakfast like he had for the past seven years and sitting next to a boy who looked to be about the same age with an afro. He introduced himself as Ray and kept trying to be friendly and make conversation, which Frank didn’t respond to in any way the whole ride until they got to school.
The halls were bleaker than normal, people’s voices were hard to hear, faces were hard to see. Frank couldn’t concentrate on his work at all, and went to the English room during lunch, earlier than he had yesterday.
“Oh, hi Frank,” Mr. Way smiled at his student from his desk where he was grading papers, and got nothing in reply. “What, you giving me the silent treatment?” he teased as Frank sat down at the same desk that he did yesterday and just stared at the carpet. Gerard frowned and he scratched his head, wondering if something was actually wrong. “You okay?” he asked, the concern evident in his voice, and still getting no acknowledgement. Finally he stood up and went over to where he was sitting, kneeling next to him so that they could be level. “Frank? Are you okay?” he repeated.
“What do you think?” Frank snapped, looking his teacher in the eyes. The man looked a little hurt and immediately Frank felt bad. “No, I’m not,” he looked back down.
“What’s up, then?” Mr. Way asked softly. “You can tell me anything, you know.”
Frank folded his arms on the desk and rested his head on them. “My parents.”
Something in Gerard’s gut knew this wasn’t going to be good. “What happened?”
“They keep fighting, and last night, my dad broke my guitar. I hate him,” Frank said quickly, “I hate him more than anything else in the whole entire world.”
Gerard bit his lip, knowing exactly how Frank felt. “That’s pretty harsh of him,” he replied, not sure what else to say.
“You think?” Frank looked unamused, “I didn’t even do anything.”
“I’m sorry.. Hey, you look dead. Have you eaten anything today?” Mr. Way asked.
“No.” Frank said bluntly.
“What about yesterday? Anything at all?” Gerard was beginning to worry.
“No.”
“You’ve got to eat something,” he stood up.
“I’m not hungry,” Frank said simply.
“I don’t care, Frank. You can’t just starve to death,” his teacher argued.
“Yes, I can,” he said stubbornly.
“You need to eat,” Gerard pressed, grabbing a wrapped up Hostess cupcake off his desk and bringing it to his student. “Here.”
Frank just scowled at him at first, but after seeing how genuinely concerned Mr. Way was as he insisted for him to eat, he finally gave in and reluctantly ate the little cake. “There. You happy?”
“Yes, I am, in fact,” Gerard said. “So what are you going to do when you get home?”
“I’m not going home,” Frank shrugged.
“Then where are you going?” Mr. Way raised his eyebrow.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You have to be somewhere,” he pressed.
“I’ll just, walk around on the streets and maybe fall asleep somewhere, I don’t know.”
“Frank, you don’t know how ridiculous that sounds. You’re gonna end up killing yourself if you keep this stuff up,” his teacher frowned.
“Good. That’s the plan,” Frank said bitterly.
“You’re not going to die, and you either have to find someplace to stay, or go home.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” he spat.
“Yes, I can, actually. Now where are you going tonight?”
“I can’t go home,” Frank said, his whole tough attitude disintegrating in that one sentence and he began to sound desperate. “I can’t.”
“Do you have a friend’s house you could stay at?” Mr. Way tried.
“Are you kidding me?” Frank laughed spitefully. “I don’t have any family either.”
“You have nowhere to stay at all? No family, no friends? I could call the cops or something but they would only put you in a foster home, which would be worse, Frank. You’re sure you can’t go home?” he asked.
Frank started to cry, and Gerard didn’t know what to do. The boy just completely fell apart and began to tremble with quiet sobs, and little whimpers that pierced through his heart like needles. Gerard just sat there for a moment or two, and finally couldn’t take it anymore, and put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Hey, hey, you’ll be okay, don’t cry…” he tried to comfort him, only making him cry harder. “Shh… I’m here, alright? I got you,” he murmured. Frank stayed like that for a few more moments and eventually ended up turning and clinging to his teacher, crying into the man’s chest for what seemed like an eternity. Finally the sobs began to die down and he began to take shaky breaths, looking back up.
“I-I’m sorry. I got your s-shirt wet.”
Gerard chuckled. “It’s fine, Frank, really. And, you don’t have to go home, alright?”
“Yes I do. Y-You said it yourself, I d-don’t have a-anywhere to go,” Frank looked heartbroken.
Gerard took a deep breath. “You can.. You can stay at my place, alright? I’ve got a couch you can sleep on until we get something worked out,”
Frank’s face lit up and he smiled a little, sniffling. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll probably lose my job, but whatever,” he smiled back.
“I won’t tell anyone. Thank you so much Mr. Way,” Frank hugged him tightly and let go.
“It’s nothing. And, you can call me Gerard.”
Who could say no to those doe eyes?

Notes

I swear these chapters keep getting worse and worse and worse. It'll get more realistic in the next one, hopefully. And since I have nothing else to do, you get two updates today (poor you) Thanks much for reading- comment, rate, subscribe <3
-xokillerthrusts