Across the Road

Frank Iero's jaw dropped as his mother drove up to the building.

"It couldn't be..." Frank thought to himself as he heard the car engine being turned off.

Frank would've said something to make sure that they were at the right house, but his mind wasn't ready to speak. As if he were to speak, all that would come out would be air. Mrs. Iero, Frank's mother, smiled as she unlocked the car doors and got out, and Mr. Iero followed her actions. Frank stayed in the car, not wanting to get out. It wasn't just the house, it was the whole neighborhood. Kids at his old school would ridicule him for something like this. Living in, what they would call, "The Ghetto".

Mrs. Iero looked at Frank through the car window, signaling for him to come out. When Frank reluctantly shook his head no, she walked over to the car. Frank quickly and desperately tried to reach his hand to the lock button in the front seat, aiming to lock all the car doors, but failed as his mother opened his car door and pulled him out.

"I should've just tried and locked my door" Frank muttered to himself.

His mother, hearing him, replied "Even if you did I have the keys and one push of a button would've unlocked the whole car"

"So, this is a little smaller then our old house" Mr. Iero said, giving Frank a weak smile.
"A little is an understatement..." Frank muttered again, looking down at his favorite beat-up converse. They were all black, but on the bottom, was a white skeleton, holding up his right hand bones and making a rock and roll sign with his phalanges. Frank's parents gave him the shoes three years ago, for his twelfth birthday.

Mrs. Iero sighed, knowing that Frank was taking the move harder then she thought.
"How do you think Alice and Marco are going to handle this?" Frank asked as he followed his parents to the door. "They love our old house just as much- maybe even more- then I do"

Alice and Marco were Frank's younger siblings. Alice was seven and Marco was nine, both home-schooled by their private teacher, Mrs. Olsen. Frank was home-schooled by Mrs. Olsen years ago too, but he moved to a private school in the seventh grade after wanting to make friends. He didn't play sports or did any activities besides playing video games, and he wanted to find a friend to hang out with instead of being by himself all the time. So he attended Doane Academy in Burlington, New Jersey, just until last month.

"Well no one has a say in this, we can't afford to live anywhere else. And since Uncle Joey owns the estate, he is letting us pay twenty percent less then the actual rent total. Consider ourselves lucky. We could be on the streets, you know" Mrs. Iero explained, opening the door to the house.

"What high school am I going to attend?" Frank wondered aloud, looking around at the yellowed white paint chipping off the walls.

"Belleville Public High School" Mr. Iero answered, walking over into the kitchen.
"We're planning to paint the walls and make them better, we're going to borrow some money from Grandpa" Mrs. Iero said, noticing Frank picking at the flaky paint.

"Dad, did you say public school?" Frank's eyes widened over to his father, who simply nodded yes in reply.

"At least your ears are on today," Mrs. Iero joked. Frank wasn't the best listener.
"Mom!" Frank complained, walking into the soon-to-be living room.

"Calm down, son. It was quite funny" Mr. Iero smiled.

"Maybe in the nineteenth century" Frank thought to himself, walking down a hall. At the end of the hall were four doors. The bedrooms.

His parents had followed behind him, and his mother explained the doors. "The first door on the right is the bathroom, the second door on the right is the master bedroom. The first door on the left is a hall closet, and the second door on the left is the small bedroom- also before you complain, the small bedroom is for Dad and I"

"I have to share a bedroom?" Frank asked in complete disbelief.
"This is totally rock bottom" he thought to himself.

In the old iero house, they lived in a two story, six bedroom, three bath mansion. It wasn't like the big mansions you saw in movies, as it was rather small compared to that size. But if you were to compare this one story, two bedroom, one bath less than average home, then yeah, he lived in a mansion.

Frank walked into the "master" bedroom, and walked over to the window.
"Who is that freaky-pale-vampire-kid across the road?" Frank wondered. The view from the window wasn't exciting, but there was a freaky-pale-vampire-kid talking to two of his friends in front of what Frank assumed to be his house. The pale kid was talking to a nerd, as Frank labeled, with brown hair and glasses, plus a druggie, as Frank labeled again, because the kid had an afro. They didn't look to be much older than Frank. Then, while Frank was absentmindedly staring, the druggie pointed directly at Frank, who was behind the window.
"'I think I just ordered a death wish" Frank thought to himself after he quickly shut the blinds.

"Come help unpack the bags!" Mrs. Iero called from somewhere inside the house.

"Okay" Frank sighed, knowing he couldn't get out of doing it despite how much he didn't want to do it. He would've been fine if it weren't for the afro kid noticing Frank stare at him and his friends. Now he just had to make sure he didn't leave his parent's side.

But it's not like that was going to happen, and Frank probably jinxed himself when he thought that because his parents were unpacking the boxes as Frank got the boxes from outside.
"Oh Lord help me" Frank muttered to himself, walking in front of the house to his parent's car.
"Hey peeper!" The nerdy kid with the glasses laughed, walking over to Frank.

Frank ignored him as he pulled out a box that said "kitchen appliances 1"

"Mikey, be softer on the kid, we don't want to scare him away" The afro kid snapped.

"Yeah, we don't want to hurt him just yet" The pale kid said, coming up to Frank from behind and stroking his neck.

"Get away from me vampire freak!" Frank flinched away, careful not to drop the box. He then ran inside and slammed the door before walking over to the kitchen and setting the box down on the counter.

"Well don't shut the door, there's more boxes" Mr. Iero laughed.

"Sorry for all the work but there's not too many boxes today and tomorrow Mrs. Olsen and Ms. Bailey will be coming over to help." Mrs. Iero assured. Ms. Bailey was the nanny back at the old house. She would come every Thursday night while Frank's parents had their date night.

"Oh well it will be nice to see their faces again" Frank snarled, looking towards the door he was about to exit again.

"Frank, just get the remaining boxes" Mrs. Iero sighed. "This is hard for all of us"

Frank groaned as he walked outside again to see the three boys holding some of the boxes from the car.

"Of course I didn't lock it to go back inside real quick, as back at our old house that wasn't a problem!" Frank thought to himself as he hurried over to the guys.
"Hey!" Frank snapped. "What the hell?"

"We can help, can't we?" Mikey smirked.

"Yes you could, but that doesn't mean you can" Frank gritted his teeth, trying not to throw any punches at the careless kids.

"Why can't we?" The afro asked.

"Because I don't even know who you are!" Frank complained, taking a box out of the afro kid's hands.

"Right, how rude" The vampire kid chuckled, "I'm Gerard, that's Mikey, and that's Ray"

"Well whatever, I'm fine doing this by myself" Frank said, taking another box out of Mikey's hand.

"You could do this by yourself, but the more help, the faster it gets done" Ray smiled. He was the only one who didn't look like he was about to murder Frank for no reason.

"No thanks" Frank said grabbing a third box, this time being held by Gerard. He grabbed the box from underneath, which Gerard decided to take advantage of as when Frank pulled the box away, Gerard brushed his hands against Frank's. Frank felt a weird feeling in his stomach as a jolt went up his arms and spine, and like pixie dust, when the jolt stopped, the weird feeling spread throughout his entire body. Frank then looked up at Gerard's face without changing his angry expression, and Gerard winked at him. Frank looked away quickly, wondering if Ray and Mikey saw it, and stacked the third box on the other two boxes the guys were holding.

"Hey!" A voice across the street called, "Lunch!"

"Gotta go, Gerard" Mikey said.

"Bye guys, bye rich kid" Ray turned around and ran to his right, most likely running home to his house, further down the street.

"I'll stay here, Mikes" Gerard smirked at Frank, "Got some unfinished business. Save me some food, will ya?"

"Sure" Mikey agreed non-hesitantly, walking back to the house across the road.

"He your brother?" Frank asked nervously, he still didn't know how to feel after what had just happened.

"Yeah, you got siblings?" Gerard replied.

"Two. A seven year old sister and a a nine year old brother" Frank replied shakily. Was Gerard going to hurt him?

"Nice. I can help you with the boxes if you want" Gerard offered.

"I'm fine, asshole" Frank remarked, picking up a box.

"Okay, fine. One more question- and answer honestly" Gerard started. He waited for Frank to nod before he continued. "You gay?"

Frank was taken back by the question, but then smirked. "Nope, I'm as straight as the pole your mom dances on"

Gerard gave him a death glare as he smacked him across the face. Frank didn't do much but quietly wince from the pain (and drop the box labeled "glass 1"), as he kinda deserved it.

"Fuck you" Gerard said, spitting in his face. Gerard then walked behind Frank while he was wiping the spit off his face. He leaned forward, his breath hot against Frank's neck, and whispered, "I felt that too"

Frank looked at Gerard, surprised by what the older boy said.

"I'm not gay" Frank thought, "That didn't mean anything"

He watched Gerard walk back into his house and just stayed there, looking blankly at where Gerard had just been, completely ignoring the sound of his parents.

"Frank!" Mrs. Iero snapped, picking up the box of glass that Frank had just dropped. "It's all broken..."

"You okay, son?" Mr. Iero asked worriedly, seeing Frank not move.

Frank snapped out of his trance to look at his father. "I said: you okay, son?"

'I'm not okay'
"I'm okay" Frank lied, "trust me."

Notes

Thanks for reading, will update whenever I can!

DISCLAIMER:

THIS STORY WAS NOT MEANT TO OFFEND ANYONE. IT IS MERELY FICTIONAL BUT INCLUDES REAL PEOPLE AND PLACES.

(Yes, the schools are actual real places)

BYE! :)