Someone Out There Loves You (Adopted by Frank Iero)

85

ALEXA

Waking up this morning was disorienting. My head hurt a lot and when I forced myself to open my eyes, I had no idea where I was. That got my heart rate going through the roof, even more so when I noticed the body lying next to me, but then I realised it was Frank and it slowed back down. I was still at the Way's, everything was fine.

Well, relatively.

The events of last night were coming back in the form of a hazy memory. It could have passed as a fever dream if there wasn't the gaping wound in my chest that was synonymous with my post mental breakdown state.

The room was semi illuminated thanks to the east facing window allowing the morning sun to pierce through the blinds. It painted everything in honey tones, allowing me to see the simple layout of the guest bedroom and Frank, who was lying on his side facing the other way from me. I wasn't sure if he was already awake or not.

Everything was very still, very quiet, like I had caught the world as it was still waking.

I stretched my arms up and tilted my head side to side, trying to create space in my stiff body. I was relieved that my hoodie was still on and that I didn't get hot during the night and throw it off thinking I was in the safety of my bedroom. Apparently my brain still worked.

Frank must have sensed my movement as I shifted to sit up and lean against the headrest and hug my knees because he stirred a little, then looked over his shoulder to see me awake. He had a sleepy smile on his face.

"Mornin'," he slurred through a yawn.

I smiled softly at him. "Morning."

Frank tousled his hair as he rolled over. "Did you sleep okay?"

His voice was deeper than usual and I felt certain that he had in fact just woken up. That made me feel better knowing he hadn't been awake and waiting for me to wake up for god knows how long because he was kind and wouldn't have left me alone in a room I didn't know.

"Yeah, I slept pretty well actually. Like, I don't think I woke up at all. I was pretty dead," I said with a bit of a laugh, tucking the hair falling in front of my face behind my ears.

"That's good- I was a little worried you'd wake up and not know where you were."

He didn't need to add "-and freak out," to the end of that sentence for me to know that that was what he was meaning by it.

My immediate reaction when I woke up, funnily enough, was exactly that - Frank knew me well - but I decided that he didn't need to know about it. That only lasted for a couple seconds anyway.

"Nah, I slept fine."

He sat up, reaching down the side of the bed to retrieve the hoodie he was wearing last night, slipping it over his head. "How are you feeling?" he asked as he put his arms through the sleeves and yanked it down.

I hummed as I thought about the best way to answer his question. There wasn't really any point lying to him anymore about how I was feeling, although I was feeling some really intense urges to hurt myself because I didn't get that release last night. Unfortunately, that was just about the only thing I couldn't tell him.

Self harm was the one lifeline I had left, I couldn't lose it too. I did feel a little bad because Frank was trying to help me get clean of destructive things and yet I was turning to one to cope with the loss of the others, but I couldn't stop. The rush it gave me and the clarity and the sense that everything was okay in that moment because all I could focus on was the pain... I needed it.

He couldn't know that though.

"My head hurts," I grumbled, my attention coming back to the spinning and the throbbing as he asked the question. I rubbed my forehead like it would help relieve the pain.