Only Frankie Knows

iii. how to be a bad friend

dedicated to philosophiyuuuuh
thamk u for readingggg !! (´∀｀)♡

iii.
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I stopped hearing from Frankie since and I can't say that the months of being without her was nice. To be completely honest, with the rawest term I can think of, those days without Frankie by my side was awful.

Sure, I had other friends -- but unlike Frankie, they don't know what cheers me up, what upsets me, they have no idea what my favorite food is, what I hate the most. Nobody knows me to depth as much as Frankie does, but I guess being a little bit lonely in exchange of ruining Frankie's life was a fair price to pay.

During that month, I thought that maybe what I did was . . . bad. I literally ruined Frankie's life solely because I was jealous that she was happy, and the fact that she found that happiness easily so in a guy. In the end, everything I did just made myself suffer even more because Seth did not end up leaving Frankie, which was my main objective from the start. At least Frankie has someone who cares for her and she has someone she cares for, unlike me who's all alone.

It leads me to ask this question every night: was it worth it?

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"I'm fourteen days clean," I said shyly to Frankie. We were sitting together in my bed, both sixteen. I was on my underwear to show her my skin free of slashes.

Frankie's eyes brightened and she smiled so joyfully at me. The fact that nobody else had seen that smile made me feel special -- other people who haven't seen her smile were missing such beauty.

"Oh my god," said Frankie and bounced on my bed, still sitting. I couldn't help but crack a slight laugh. She dropped her phone and reached for my hands to look at my arms. "You're right!"

Her eyes scanned my skin and it didn't feel uncomfortable at all. She was looking at me. With a smile on her face.

Of course that felt nice.

"Have you been taking all your medications too? You have to go to therapy again next week, right?"

I couldn't even understand what she was saying; I was just looking at her face and at her eyes slightly covered by her hair. Frankie was so pretty.

"Anyway, I'm really proud of you," she said, almost a whisper, and rubbed her thumb over my scars, so gently, so delicately; my breathing heaved. "I'm so proud of you, Rowan. You should keep this going."

I didn't know what to say so I just said, "yeah."

She looked up from my scars to look at my face and she smiled.

I think that's my favorite memory of her.

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One of the things I don't like about Frankie is how she openly talks about how she doesn't like the idea of marriage. I personally am in love with it. She says I'm just a hopeless romantic and sure, I might be, why would I deny that? What's wrong with wanting to live forever with the person you love?

Frankie needs a family in the future since she wasn't able to experience a loving family in her childhood. I don't think she'd thought of it that way though.