He's Not Dead He Only Looks That Way

Frank stares himself down in the mirror, trying his best not to give too much attention to his ridiculous school uniform.
The new kid again. Frank lets out a long sigh. Voicing his problems has never worked for him, but his friends used to say that when he’s not complaining, he’s not happy. And they’re right; Frank’s the type of guy that would sit through a terrible movie and just be content bitching about how awful it is.
This skill comes in handy; he finds it easier to disassociate himself from his surroundings by providing an inner monologue. It’s probably not healthy, sure, but anything that means he can distract himself from the present is a good thing to him, even if it means missing out on what’s right in front of him because he’s too caught up in his head.
Frank really doesn’t want to go to school here; nor does he want to live in this city. It’s their second move this year, and it probably won’t be the last. Frank and his mom (well, mainly his mom), are horrible abusers of urbanization. His mother keeps flocking to bigger and bigger cities for job opportunities, and she’ll drag Frank along, kicking and screaming. The primary reason Frank doesn’t like being a modern nomad, at least by his standards, is the size of the cities they go to. The bigger the cities are, the bigger the public schools are. The bigger the public schools are, the more kids there are. The more kids there are, the more likely Frank is to be bullied. Frank has enough trouble making friends as it is, and thrusting him into a completely unfamiliar environment with a herd or two of assholes about every five months isn’t helping.
“Frank! You’re going to miss the bus!”
Frank cringes at the word. A freshman riding the bus. In other words, a fucking nerd. But Frank can’t drive; he has his permit, but hasn’t taken driver’s ed, so he can’t drive himself to school, and his mom is busy; she has work, so she can’t drive him to school. So in the meantime, this overweight guy named Jack with diabetes will drive Frank to school in a bus full of screaming children seeing as it’s meant to hold, well, children, not high schoolers.
Frank clomps down the steps, emphasizing his general resistance and anger with each stomp. He grabs his backpack, muttering,
“See you, Mom.”
“Bye, Frank. I love-”
His mother’s goodbye is cut off by the shutting of the door. Frank walks up to the bus stop, which is only a ways up the street. He’s standing there, minding his own business, when these boys who are surely only in 7th grade approach him.
“Are you a sixth grader?” one asks.
“No, he’s a high schooler; look at his uniform!” the other points out.
“Why are you riding the bus if you’re a fucking high schooler?” the boy scoffs.
“Yeah, you pedophile,” the other laughs.
Frank rolls his eyes. At least kids his age will have more entertaining insults.
The bus slowly comes to a halt, and the doors open. Frank gets on after the boys, pointedly sitting as far away from everyone as he can. Which is directly behind the bus driver.
The high school is the first stop, which is undoubtedly the luckiest thing that Frank imagines will happen to him today. This also means that every day, he’ll only ride the bus for about ten minutes, rather than twenty like the younger kids.
The bus pulls up right at the front of the school, just alongside the seniors’ parking lot. As if this weren’t embarrassing enough, Frank is the only high schooler to get off his bus. A couple get off at the bus behind him, but he is alone.
To start off the day with some emotional and physical battery, Frank’s not even inside the school when two seniors are tailing him.
“Hey, you get dropped off at the wrong school, midget?” one smirks.
Frank is trying to think of a clever remark, something that’ll teach this kid to back off. But all that comes out is the following, in a very small and childish voice, “Just leave me alone, okay?”
“Oh, you want us to leave you alone?” the other mocks. He shoves Frank, demanding, “Well, it’s not about what you want, now is it, faggot?”
“Look, it’s my first day; I don’t want any trouble, alright?” Frank squeaks, his voice coming out much wavier than intended. “Just find something better to do.”
“Do you know what I think would be fun?” the taller boy asks.
“What is that?” the other replies.
“To go through midget boy’s backpack,” he snarls, grabbing Frank by the collar harshly. Frank is utterly helpless as his backpack is taken from him.
“Give it back, please?” Frank begs. “I really just want to go to class; I won’t bug you guys, I swear.”
“You know, nothing interesting is in here,” the boy dismisses, dumping everything in Frank’s bag out onto the floor. He kicks one of the folders and tosses the book bag across the hall, pushing past Frank, cursing,
“See you later, fuckface.”
Frank is close to tears of embarrassment as he scrapes all his belongings together. He’s pissed at himself for letting those boys walk all over him.
The bell rings, and half of Frank’s… well… everything… is still distributed across the hallway. Frank groans; no way is he making it to class on time.
Frank notices a shadow looming over him, and barks, “Look, two other assholes already ruined my fucking day, why don’t you go pick on someone else?”
The shadow leans to the side and then straightens again. Finally, it disappears altogether as the figure kneels next to Frank, collecting some of his notebooks.
Frank glances over to see who it is helping him. It’s this really wiry looking boy with horn rimmed glasses and light brown hair styled with more hairspray than what Frank’s mom uses.
The final bell rings, indicating that they’re both late.
“Why are you helping me?” Frank asks tiredly. “You’re late to class now.”
The boy doesn’t say anything, just proceeds to scoop up Frank’s possessions and stuff them into his backpack. Frank rolls his eyes, and has given up on talking to the kid when he murmurs,
“I’m Mikey. Who are you?”
“Frank,” Frank responds. He struggles to say something else, but the boy hands Frank his now full book bag wordlessly, heading down the hallway at Mach speed, head ducked.
Frank’s shoulders droop. The one friend he could’ve made today, gone. He gets up and slumps to class, kicking over a trashcan on the way there.

Notes

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