Frank:

It took a long time to get used to. I mean, it’s not every day you get catapulted into a different century. I was forced into a crash course on world news from the last forty years, along with figuring out how to work all the new inventions, and getting used to my new name and powers.

Jeremy taught me how to recognise people like us, and I was used in three recruiting missions between my recruitment and the next fall when I was due to reenter school. I would be entering the school as a freshman, and I’d taken on a new persona. There was no one in my past to love - I simply made myself unlovable to anyone in the future.

I dressed in all black, as was regulation of the Legion, but also regulation of the emo scene. They listened to terrible music, self harmed, and were depressed. Despite the fact that I was repulsed by the screaming music and was virtually unable to harm myself, being emo was a sure way to avoid love, living as a social reject. I enrolled in some acting lessons and they taught me how to act bitter all the time, just to avoid any chance of love from a fellow emo.

And so I became Frank the Emo, and by the next fall, Frank the Emo Fag because I made the mistake of having my eyes linger too long in the locker rooms. Life was pretty awful for the next few years, just going to school and doing work for the Legion.

I didn't exactly have a social life, but the first day of senior year I’d made a comment to some new junior, Mikey, about him looking like a bassist, and it spiked a conversation. He’d invited me to sleep over and play video games that evening, and I said yes out of sheer boredom.

Sometime during the day I'd received a text from Jared during the day.

Considering you for rank promotion. Be at my apartment at 10pm.

No smiley faces or slang like Jeremy. It was easy to see why nobody loved the asshole.

I went straight to Jared’s apartment block after school, hoping he‘d be home so I still had time to go to Mikey's. I knew Jared liked me to be early, but six hours may have been a bit presumptuous.

As I turned the corner to Jared’s apartment block, I was almost knocked down by a man with long brown hair and a hat that only I knew was Jared from the blue glow surrounding his pupils. He was wearing a disguise and I had no idea why, but I was determined to find out.

I followed him as he barged his way down several blocks and ducked into a subway station. I always left a good gap between us, but never enough that he left my sight. I got onto his train and sat a few chairs down from him, with my hood up and a beanie pulled down around my face. He sat for at least seven stops, jumping up with very little warning, meaning I had to run to get out the doors in time.

He climbed the stairs to the street two at a time. I wasn't exactly fit and when I eventually reached the street, I was panting and angry at myself for losing sight of him.

I sat against a wall and frantically searched all around me, when I suddenly saw Jared queuing up in a coffee shop across the street. My heart leapt and I decided to buy a coffee too, to pass the time while I waited for him. I entered a smaller coffee shop opposite Jared’s, never taking my eyes off him as the barista behind the counter made me up a mocha to go.

Jared left his store shortly before I did, but the streets weren’t very busy here so I didn’t need to stretch my neck to keep him in my sights. I noticed from the street signs that we had entered New York City, and Jared seemed much more relaxed here. As we entered residential streets, I was surprised to see people recognise him, smiling and waving socially, and was even more surprised to see Jared being social back.

After I’d been following him for about seven or eight minutes, Jared took an abrupt left turn down a picturesque little cul-de-sac and stopped outside a red-brick house with ivy growing up the walls and a white picket fence. There was a telephone box a couple of feet away from it, so I dashed inside and picked up the receiver, all the while still watching Jared’s every move.

He swung the gate open and didn’t close it, strolling up the path to the front door, which was painted white to match the fence. He stuck his hand into his pocket, pulling out a set of keys. He fumbled with them in his left hand, his coffee cup still occupying the other. He jiggled the keys in the lock and the door swung open.

I heard a squeal from inside the house and saw a tiny blonde haired boy run out and latch himself to Jared’s leg.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy’s home!”

A huge smile broke out on Jared’s face and he spoke in a voice so full of emotion I barely recognised it.

“Hey there big man! How’s Daddy’s boy doing?”

He leaned down and picked up the child, ruffling his hair and spinning him around before placing him on his hip.

“Where’s Mommy today?”

The child pointed a chubby finger inside the door. Jared laughed.

“Let’s go find her then.”

He picked up the coffee cup that he’d abandoned in favour of his child and slammed the door shut.

Daddy? Mommy? The cogs in my head were whirring franticly, trying to process all this information. I may have been born in 1937, but I wasn’t a total idiot. In order to have a baby, you had to have sex. Sex was making love. Love was forbidden. Love destroys. Love kills. This was what I had been taught, and yet here was the man who had taught it to me, disguised and surrounded in love. The Legion, and all of it’s crazy rules, were a lie.

When I’m stressed, I like to get high. Not in a drugs sense, but as in distance off the ground. The higher I am, the less I feel attached to the crazy world I’m living in. I become more of an observer and less of a living person. I tentatively stepped out of the telephone box and surveyed the area, seeing that the tallest thing in sight was the oak tree in Jared’s front yard. I scaled the tree, using a bench to give me a boost. Once up there, surrounded by the green and slightly browning leaves, I started to feel better. I decided that all of this was Jared’s doing. Jeremy was too hung up on the girl in his past to be lying, and all of the other leaders and officials seemed one hundred percent legit. Jared had always been the one who was trying too hard to be calm and cool. He was the one who was hiding something. He had to be.

The metallic click of a door opening disturbed my thoughts. I made a hole in the foliage to see where the noise came from, and was greeted by the sight of Jared and a dark haired woman walking out of a side door and towards my tree.

My heart was pounding in my chest. Surely Jared could sense me?

The couple came and sat in the wrought iron bench under the tree. I tried my hardest not to make any sound, but this was hard to do since they had decided to start kissing directly under me. It was disgusting. They had more of their tongues in each other’s mouths than was in their own. I struggled to hold back horrified noises. I was repulsed by kissing, or what was referred to as kissing these days. In my time, a kiss was touching lips, not eating the other person’s face. I’d never had my first kiss, and at this stage, I doubted I ever would.

“I hate it when you have to go away.”

They had obviously surfaced from face sucking and were now facing each other. The woman spoke softly, and Jared played with the blonde streak in her hair.

“I know Sierra, baby. I hate it too. The office is just so understaffed now, they need me.”

Office?

“I know Jared. As long as I know you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”

She pecked him lightly on the lips.

“I hate leaving you and little Max all alone though. It breaks my heart that I’m missing all his milestones.”

“That’s what a camcorder’s for babe.” she smiled, “I love you, Jared.”

“I love you too, Sierra.”

I waited for the explosion. The flash of light and the sparks. The empty space where Jared had been sitting. But it never came. Because, as I was now assured of, the Legion was a fat load of bullshit.

They got up from the bench hand in hand and walked into the house. Once I was sure they were gone, I sprung down from the tree, landing perfectly because I had a lot of practice when it came to jumping from a height. I brushed myself off, and was just moving towards the gate when I heard a sound behind me. I turned to see Jared at his front door, mail in hand and eyes glued to me in a look I couldn’t read. I didn’t know how he would react, so I turned and ran.

I knew he was following me because I could feel him pushing at my senses with his powers, trying to get in, but for once, I had the courage to resist. I held him off, and even pushed back at him several times. I had something up on him now, and he knew it.

I reached a subway entrance and I jumped down the stairs in one clean movement, hitting the ground and rolling so as not to injure my ankles. I wasn’t able to run as fast as Jared, but I knew that that would slow him down. I ran to the first platform I could find and just managed to get into a carriage before the doors closed. In that moment before the train moved, I saw Jared stumble onto the platform. We locked eyes for a split second, and in that second I saw something in his eyes that I’d never seen before; fear.

The train pulled away and we were in the next station in seconds. I swapped trains a few times and eventually ended up outside the house of that junior kid who’d invited me over. I decided I’d go in, and he and his friends actually seemed so happy to see me. They thought it was so awesome that a senior wanted to hang around with them, even though I still had no idea how I got invited.

I tried to get into the video games, but I was just so bad at them that I eventually gave up and sat back to watch them play. Hours later, the door burst open and someone who I guess must have been Mikey’s brother stumbled drunkenly in. He wanted to talk to Mikey immediately, and Mikey followed him out. I couldn’t get a good look at him from behind the door.

I left the room shortly after them and made my way down the stairs to the kitchen, my feet plodding quietly on the carpeted floor. I entered the open plan kitchen-living area without switching on the lights, the moonlight shining in the window was enough for me. I took a glass from the draining board and filled it from the sink silently. A muffled conversation drifted through the air towards me.

“What do you want Gerard? I’m missing the best part of Buffy.”

That was Mikey, the kid who’d invited me. I crept over to get a better look. His brother, Gerard, I’m guessing, was extremely attractive. He had dark hair, high cheekbones and a cute little nose. I couldn’t really make out much of his face in the dim light, but I decided that he was hot.

“I-I-I’m gay!”

Since I was quite young, I knew I preferred boys to girls. In my time, you just were not allowed to be gay, but after waking up in the 90’s, I was starting to embrace that part of me more. It was hard to accept, but now I was beginning to. When Mikey left the room, I stepped out from where I was hiding, and let the word slide off my tongue.

“Gay.”

I thought it sounded right. I winced as I heard a murmur and realised that Gerard was still in the living room, but he was so drunk that I doubted he heard me anyways. I backed out of the kitchen and climbed the stairs to Mikey’s room, pausing outside his door to sip my water and affirm something in my mind.

Gerard was gay.

“Join the club.”

Notes

Title credit: New Divide - Linkin Park