Will You Pray for Me?

1

'Frank I- Earo?'

The judge finally calls his name, totally butchering it. But that should be the least of his worries.

He gets up, takes a deep breath, and steps forward. His tie is suddenly too tight around his neck, and he can't breathe. Heavy sweat runs down his forehead, and his hands are shaking.

The still fresh cut in his left eyebrow itches, and he feels like Harry Potter when he gets near Voldemort. The judge is saying something, but Frank can only see her moving her lips and none of her words make sense.

In the end – and thanks to his attorney –, the judge decides that besides his license getting suspended for three months, he only has to pay a $400 fine and go to AA meetings.

His life couldn't get any worse.

Unemployed, broke as fuck, and apparently an alcoholic now.

He already lost everything.

His music career. His fiancé dying. He lost his fucking dog. And now he has a broken arm, hospital bills to pay, and a fucking DUI.

'You're smoking again?' his mom asks when she finds him outside the courthouse to pick him up. It's not embarrassing enough that he's almost forty and needs his mother to pick him up as if he's a fucking child, she also has to scold him in front of others.

'I'm not thirteen anymore, Ma.'

'But it's not good for you, honey.' Frank has to resist the urge to roll his eyes, because it's not like he doesn't know, but she's also doing him a huge favor by picking him up and letting him stay with her while he gets his shit together. Maybe next time he'll take the train home. 'I'm just looking out for you.'

'I'm okay.' He's not. 'It's not like there's a point anymore, right?'

And now she's giving him those eyes, feeling sorry for him. She wraps her arms around him and hugs him tight. He feels like an asshole for hating this, but he's tired of people feeling pity on him for all the shit that's happened lately. He hates his life more than anyone, but the way they look at him and treat him like he's some fragile flower just make everything worse. Maybe he should just off himself.

It'd make things easier.

He stays quiet the whole drive home, and only half listens to his mom talking about running into a friend at the grocery store, and something about curtains.

He wishes he could care, but right now, he can't. Right now, he just wants all of this to end.

*

The house is eerily quiet when Frank wakes up.

He checks his phone only to prove it's almost noon. Not that he has anything to do. His mom should be at work by now – and he should be looking for a job soon, unless he wants to be the lame ass forty year old who lives with his mom. Or maybe he should drink himself to death.

That sounds tempting.

He's not sure he can get out of this one. After Ryan died, his life lost meaning. He thought he'd finally found his person, the one he'd grow old with. And then he got sick, and –

A year later, and Frank hasn't been the same.

It should have been me, he thinks.

He's talked to therapists, and nothing worked.