𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫, 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫 | 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

03. facebook mum's and attemped breakups.

T H R E E
facebook mum's and attempted breakups.

Rafe yells a lot.

I use to take in each word, trying to stop him yelling again, but then I realised it was inevitable. No matter what it would always happen again, I'd fix the original issue and another one would just pop up in its place.

There was always something. I think he just liked to yell.

But people yelling at me scares me. My Dad yelled a lot when I was little, I would hide from him. Trying to make myself as small as possible, tucking myself away from his sight. He'd yell at my mother, then my brother for defending my mother.

Robbie is twelve years older than me, so we pretty much grew up separately. But I always adored him, he was the best thing since sliced bread, in my eyes.

When Rafe yells I want to do what little Frankie did, hiding under my bed, or in a cupboard. But I can't, that would no doubt make it worse. The implication that he scared me would make him fly off the handle—because he wasn't scary, he was just intense, or passionate, or protective.

Heaven forbid I even imply he may scare me sometimes.

My brain now almost zones out when he yells, the words are being picked up, looked at to see if it's important, and then chucked away. It's hardly ever important.

"Kelce saw you get into that fucked, John B's stupid car!" He shouts like it's new information for me.

I swear Kelce must have clones because there's no way he can be everywhere all the time. He seems to always catch me doing things I shouldn't be doing.

His words annoy me. My mind deems them important. "You left me on the Goddamn beach, what the fuck was I supposed to do? Make sand castles and wait for you to come to save me?" I ask with a laugh. Grabbing all my dirty clothes in my arms I walk to my bathroom, dumping them in the laundry basket. I may as well be productive while I get a verbal beat down.

I'm way too hungover for his shit, too. My mother must've let him in while leaving to hang out at the country club—she doesn't even like the women, they're stuck-up Facebook mums. One of the worse types of people, in my opinion. She just hangs out with them to appease my father, because you don't want him to be pissed off.

I continue to work around him, dumping my washing in the bin, watering my plants, doing all the tasks I put off that only take two seconds.

"I don't know, Franny. But you definitely weren't supposed to get into that fucker's car." He doesn't stop yelling. He knows we're home alone.

Don't shout back, Frankie. Don't shout back. That'll make it worse.

I stand before him in an old t-shirt I once wore while painting a room at Robbie's house, the pale blue is covered in cream flecks. And I'm wearing some shorts that I'm pretty sure have a hole in them. He, on the other hand, is dressed in the same clothes he wore last night. He mustn't have realised I was gone until this morning, probably woke up to a text from Kelce and stormed over before getting changed.

Don't do it, Frankie. Don't shout back.

I busy myself with making my bed, any more eye contact and I'll snap at him.

"Rafe," I talk to him in a controlled voice, the type of control that lets you know the person is about to explode. "I didn't walk across the entire island, through the Cut, in the middle of the Goddamn nice, because you quite literally forgot about me."

He grabs a handful of the back of my shirt in his fist, yanking me up from my position. I let him stand me up, I look him straight in the eye, and I don't show him fear. I'm too angry for that shit.