We'll dance again

I drag myself to school the next morning. Mom refused to drive me because… well I’m not even sure I couldn’t hear her over the sound of my own tiredness.
I don’t even feel well. My stomach is really sore but when I told my mom she said I had to go in on my third day and something about having the immune system of a cucumber.
The way to my school on foot is so different from being in a car I get lost twice, ending up in cul de sacs and parking lots. At one point I’m about to turn in to a school when I realise it says St Brigit’s elementary.
When I finally reach the front steps of the school I hear the bell go and have to run in and find my class.
Late for geometry and manage to get front row seats the show of the century…. Listening to Mr. Robert’s gradually get quieter as the equations got more complicated. I’m actually kind of thankful that I was close enough to hear him. If I sat in the back not only would I not hear him but I’m sure I’d get more notes expressing the guy, Geoff’s love for me. He unfortunately spotted me in the group yesterday as Gabe threw stones at him. I received two beautifully written notes.
Ill fuck u up if you do that again
And
Why do u think ur better than every1 u short emo fag
I’m sure if I were to sit closer to him I’d get a lot more praise. I think his grammar will kill me long before he attacks me.
When lunch comes around I decide to go hide as far away from the other people in this school I can. I go sit in the French literature side of the library. I don’t know why my school of about five hundred English speaking students has an entire corner dedicated to French literature but if it saves me from being shoved in my locker I’ve found my new home.
“Mr. Iero, how nice of you to turn up today,” my chemistry teacher says as I take a seat at the bench in the back.
“Sorry Ms, I couldn’t physically make it here yesterday,” I didn’t feel like explaining, also most of the class had now filtered into the room.
“Don’t let it happen again,” she writes something on the board, “because you’ve already missed getting a partner for the projects. I’d like to have you do it on your own as punishment but that’s not safe. Everyone coats and goggles. Frank, you can go with Ray and Carl.”
A guy waves frantically from another table. It’s the big haired guy who let me out of my locker.
“Hey I’m Ray, are you any good at acid neutralisation?” he smiles extending a lab coat to me.
I shake my head, “nope.”
“Okay me neither but you’ll be better than Carl,” he nods towards a guy who has already fallen asleep, his lab coat half-closed over his letter jacket.
“How does he get away with that?” I say putting on the massive coat.
Ray shrugs, “Captain of the baseball team or something I’m not actually sure. I was afraid for my life today to handle acid and bases all on my own.” He hands me gloves. “Want to hold the thing or poor the other thing?”
“I’ll pour the thing,” I smile and slip the gloves on. They’re massive.
Chemistry class manages to pass without any serious injuries or accidents. We spilled some bleach on Carl’s baseball cap. It won’t harm him just left a lovely patch of melty orange on his red hat. Oh well.
I manage to survive the rest of the day relatively okay, excluding the fact that I corrected Geoff a lot in English again. He was reading from Othello… it was so terrible I nearly cried. I’m pretty sure I’ll be crying for real if he catches me after school so as soon as the last class, French, is over I’m running so fast through the halls I skid into a glass pane.

I eat while doing homework. I know I have a lot and if I ate at the table like my mom begged me to I wouldn’t have made it outside before nine.
Eight o clock to the second and I’m closing the door behind me. I see Gerard and Mikey standing on their boards in the middle of the street, dim orange light flickering and showing up the crevices in their faces. Mainly Gerard’s because I’ll be frank, he’s the only one I’m looking at. Mental note never use that pun as a chat up line.
Mikey catches sight of me and skates over, Gerard in his wake. “Hey Frank wanna come skate?”
I nod a little too ecstatically and follow the taller guys off down the road at a great pace. We skate through the park which is empty except for some middle schoolers spray painting an electricity box.
At the library car park we meet Gabe, Pete and Bert all skating and trying various tricks. Someone has their phone turned over and are blaring AC/DC. We skate around for a bit and talk for a bit and then I skate home.

A little red square with a white one in it is flashing in the corner of my computer screen when I get home.
Hey
From Gerard. I smile stupidly at my screen. Hey I reply, playing it cool.
What’s up?
Nothing really, u?
Finishing maths. Fucking hate my maths teacher. I get nothing and I won’t even need it for my job.
What job?
I want to be an artist. Like I draw comic books mainly…
And this is how our conversation goes, until two am. We talk about his drawings and my guitar, his favourite bands and mine and complain a lot. He hates his math teacher, I hate my history teacher and we complain mutually about how some people shouldn’t be allowed teach. I don’t know if this feeling I have is the buzz you get when you have a friend or if you like someone so I just be polite and accidentally use the “let me be frank” pun. He sends back a XD hahaha XD so maybe he’s not scared off… One can dream.

I feel incredibly paranoid all day at school. I opened my locker that morning and found twenty folded notes saying guess which bell will bring a punch… Now if you can honestly say that doesn’t creep you out then maybe you don’t understand.
I shouldn’t correct the quarter back I tell myself over and over but come English I correct his pronunciation of “Iago” five times before I can stop myself.
After school I’m not as fast out of the grounds as I’d like and get caught in the car park. Geoff and Carl pull me in behind someone’s massive pick up.
“You made me look like an idiot again, Iero,” Geoff spits, droplets of his saliva actually landing on my face and I want to hurl.
“And you poured bleach on my hat!” Carl hisses.
“I wouldn’t correct you all the time if you could learn to fucking speak. Even your friend here who I only see at nap time can string a sentence!” Oh shit. Shut up Frank.
Geoff’s eyes narrow and he aims a punch at my head, or where my head would be if I weren’t so short and capable of ducking a lot shorter. I dodge the first three punches aimed but kicks are harder to get out of the way of, especially when someone holds you in place. I get shoved to the ground and expensive Nike’s get forcefully shoved into my ribs.
I cry out but they get another few kicks in before somebody shoves them away. “What the fuck are you doing, assholes, beating up a freshman.”
“Fuck of Bryar,” one hisses, I can’t tell which, my eyes won’t open.
“I think we’re done here anyway,” one growls. Probably Carl. He sounded a tad too articulate to be Geoff.
I hear footsteps march off. A hand reaches down to take mine. I’m suddenly lifted to my feet where I waver unsteadily, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
“Oh no!” I see a blurry image of a person running toward me and my tall saviour. “Oh god is he okay? Wait, is that Frank?!” The voice sounds like it belongs to my chemistry partner, Ray.
“I don’t know who that is,” the voice of the guy who is holding both my shoulders.
“My chemistry partner other than Carl, oh god it is!” I try to open my eyes but I only see a blur.
“Ow, fuck,” I moan and try to make sense of the world around me. My ribs feel shattered and I think I’m bleeding from everywhere. “Thank you,” I mumble in the general direction of Bob, my saviour.
“You’re a junior,” he says in a surprised kind of monotone. I nod and it hurts like a bitch. “oh.” Yea, Bob, I know, I’m small. “Want a lift home?”
“Yea please.”
“Shouldn’t we take him to the hospital?” Ray says opening the car door, or doors I’m not sure I’m seeing about six.
“Too expensive, I’ll go home and sleep it off,” I force myself to say casually despite the fact that I think I may throw up my ribs.
Bob guides me into the side of the pickup and I feel my way around the seat. “There’s no seat belt,” Ray says sitting in beside me and then Bob climbs in beside him. The three of us bump along the uneven road. Each speed bump sends a painful jolt through my torso and I’m getting more and more suspicious of whether or not I’m actually broken.
Ray and Bob help me into my house and up the stairs. They say their goodbyes and drive off towards one of their houses’

I don’t go into school the next day. My mom is super concerned that I’m getting bullied here too but I tell her it’s okay and that I’ll talk wo the teachers or something and that she doesn’t have to intervene today. She also confirms that nothing is broken just really badly bruised. Like everything is bruised. My torso is an array of purples and greens and patches of yellow. Like an artist threw up on his paint tray.
Friday morning I don’t feel much like going to school. I had told the skaters that I was beat up in the most macho way I could and they’re all swearing vengeance on the “Riverside stuck up assholes”.
I was expecting their visit yesterday evening when they all piled into my match box room and poked around at my posters and records.
What I really wasn’t expecting was them to all show up at half ten the next morning when my mom was at work. “Guys… what?”
Gabe grins and pulls a bunch of pirated dvds out of his coat. “Every good zombie movie ever,” he grins even wider. Mikey and Gerard pull cans out of seemingly nowhere. I don’t even question it, just let them set up a zombie marathon in my living room. Gerard sits next to me on the small couch and the rest pile on the long one. The zombie movies were actually poor quality but I don’t even mind.
And the best bit about the whole thing is how Gerard and I slowly sit closer and closer together that there is room for Pete to sit in with us too. The guys leave and I spend the rest of the day smiling and practising my demi plié across the landing.
I manage to convince my mom to let me go to ballet that night. I say that it will mentally help my recovery or something.
I almost immediately wished I’d stayed at home. I am literally the only guy there and the second shortest in the class. All the girls are en pointe and the ages range from fourteen to seventeen. I watch as the long thin woman in a black leotard corrects people’s positions and shouts at girls who do potentially dangerous movements. After a half hour spent on movements at the bar we are sent pirouetting across the floor. The teacher, Adrienne, critics each movement each girl does. One girl does such a bad job that I accidentally laugh at her. “Think you can do better, fag?” the girl hisses.
“Now, now!” Adrienne claps her hands, “none of that. Monsieur Iero, it is your turn.” I nod and begin. At first I can hear a few smug snickers but they quickly die out. I don’t know why I’ve just always been good at ballet and learn very quickly. This was my first pirouette since July and I’m worried it was rubbish.
“Chin up Frank and see me after class,” the instructor calls. “Amie, your turn.”

After the class has filtered out Adrienne walks over to me, “You have much talent, Frank. I’d been watching you since the start mainly because you are a new student but also because I believe you to be a natural dancer. But your small frame makes it difficult to give you any male parts you see. How would you feel about dancing the same as my girls?”
“Uh…” I don’t want to. I really don’t want to. How embarrassing would it be to go out in a tutu and prance about with those fourteen year olds who sniggered at my demi pointe movements? “Sure,” I find myself saying. What. No. “Actually em…”
“I’m sure if you continue to show promise you could even take the lead,” she smiles.
“Um am I the only guy here?” I mumble.
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t you need a guy to do the guy parts?” I sound incredibly needy just there.
“Yes maybe, but I’m sorry you’re shorter than most of the girls.”
“I could still well perform in a pas deux, or a fish dive or anything taller guys can do.”
“We shall see next week, yes? Go home now and remember chin up and strength,” she pokes my stomach.
My mom gives me a lift home and I tell her all about the fact that I’m the only guy and how I apparently impressed. I decide to keep the fact I was asked to dance as a girl to myself. As if ballet wasn’t feminine enough without me having to wear a tutu.

Notes

So yea I'm sorry this took so long I've been busy! I'll try and get the next chapter up tomorrow but if I don't I won't be able to update again for a while because i'll be off on an internetless island for three days D: If you want to read something else as you wait I have to other fics (completed) "Drowning Lessons" and "All My Favourite Colours". Let me know what you think :))))) x