Missing

Gerard had only ever come into contact twice with Frank, if he was remembering correctly. Once he accidently walked into him and stuttered his way out of the situation with thousands of 'sorry's' and the second time it had been in the school music room. Neither of these meetings had been out of the ordinary, it was only after Frank's death that they began to even cross Gerard's mind again.

Gerard could have been described as your everyday teenager. 17 years old. But with hair the colour of reds and crimsons that fell down to around his neck. His skin was as pale as freshly fallen snow and his hazel eyes stayed glued to the floor the majority of the time. He sat at the back of the classroom in mid-November, a scarf wrapped around his neck in an attempt to try and distract himself from the fact that he could literally see his own breath.

Next to him sat his friend Ray, about a similar height to Gerard but with an afro of long maroon hair and deep chocolate eyes. Usually they would have been talking but when the snow is piled 2 foot high at the windows and the heating barely works all of their warmth and energy needed to be wrapped up like a present with a neat frozen bow placed on the top.

The rest of the class shivered and raised their heads as the teacher strode into the classroom wrapped in a knee length coat whilst clutching a hot water bottle. She sat at the table with her ginger hair flowing down her back and her hands concealed by three layers of gloves as she stared every student out with icy blue eyes without saying a word. The class fell silent as she entered, only beginning to chatter as the silence outlasted the seconds.

"Now then class…" The teacher said, almost spat in a grumbled tone as her eyes continued to scan the room. She waited until no voice but her own could jump into the freezing air.
"Welcome back to school, where the heating's shit and the computers don't work and I'm sick and tired of everything being so shitty shit." She sighed, resting her head in the palms of her hand as she rebooted the computer on her desk for the second time.

"Now then…" She almost hung onto her words and then sneered at them as they dissolved into the frost about her lips, "now…you've probably seen on the news about Frank Iero, a student in form J11 going missing a couple of months back, haven't you?"

The majority of the class shook their heads, not knowing who Frank was or why they should even care for that matter of fact…only interested in whether they would be allowed home because of the snow.

"Well…" Continued the teacher…" I've been told to tell you that Frank has in fact passed away, his body was found washed up 3 days ago."
"Will there be an assembly about it?" piped up one of the bitchy girls who sat on the front row, almost immediately.
"Probably…"
"Okay…I didn't even know him anyway…" She shrugged, turning away without a care in the world.

Chatter rose gently about the classroom again, all but one conversation avoiding the subject of Frank's death.Gerard sat at the back of the classroom wondering why nobody was even remotely upset at Frank's death.
"Ray…you know if I die…" He began, running a hand nervously through his hair.
"If you die?" Ray muttered sarcastically.
"Okay…so when I die…" Gerard corrected himself.
"Yeah what about it?"
"Do you think anyone would care?"
"W-what?!" Ray stuttered in disbelief "…of course people would care. I'd be upset if you died and so would your parents and brother and your friends and family. Why would you ever think that we wouldn't?"
"W-well…" Gerard continued, scanning the room, "Nobody here seems to care about the fact that Frank's dead."
"He was a nobody to us Gerard…Don't worry he probably has some family to go to his funeral or something like that but we never even knew him in the first place so don't get caught up about it…okay?"
Gerard nodded glumly…trying to convince himself that there was somebody out there who cared about Frank's death.

There was in fact an assembly about Frank later on in the day. The entire school sat as a shivering cold mess as the head teacher stood in front of them with a frown plastered to his face.

Behind him on a projector a faded picture of a teenager glimmered. The eyes were full of sadness, folded into greens and browns and blacks, the face was pale and longish scruffy black hair hung from his head, through it Gerard could just see that he had his ears pierced. His lips were chapped and faded and begun to blend into the background, a silver lip ring hung on desperately. The boy looked as though he was a ghost, but this was a picture from when Frank was alive.

All students sat in silence as the head teacher talked in a melancholy voice about how much Frank would be missed, although he had never even talked or paid attention to the boy in the entire time he had been at school. Support was then offered to those that felt that it was needed and the students were sent back to their classrooms to wait out another wintry afternoon.

Notes

Thank you for reading. :)
-lou