Kissed All the Boys | Frerard + COMPLETE ! |

➵ FORTY NINE

Gerard's brain was running a million miles a minute, his fists clenching and unclenching, as Donna drove him to school. What am I going to tell everyone? Will they notice anything different about me? Will they treat me like they treated Lindsey? I probably shouldn't tell them anyways, they'll just laugh at me like I'm some confused joke. I'll just ask Frank. Yeah, he'll know what to do.

But Frank didn't arrive to class until an hour after the late bell rang, his face imitating that of Jack Nicholson's in The Shining. He had woken up late, for starters. Then, he had to wait for his mother to leave for work, which gave him roughly ten minutes to get ready and walk to school, something he realized he'd never done before in this new town. He was prepared to kick it up a notch and hot tail it to school, but the second the hot water spewed out of the shower head and hit his skin, he couldn't pull himself away from it. Frank ended up taking a thirty minute shower, and contemplated on whether he should leave the water running just to make his mom's life shittier. For some unexplainable reason, he decided not to.

He threw on clothes, put his backpack on, and walked out the door, only to get a huge slap in the face as the wind gusted strongly against his body. He zipped up his jacket and crossed his arms, telling himself to tough it out. He took to the sidewalk, the compass in his brain pointing to the high school. Having crossed streets, plummeted through fields, and weaved around parking lots, Frank realized that walking to school took a whole lot longer than driving. As he rounded a corner, he froze, and thought, Haven't I seen this before? Then it donned on him why it was taking him so long – he wasn't getting anywhere near Roman High. He had taken a wrong turn and was now heading away from the school. Correcting himself, he practically ran as he backtracked and finally had the correct building in view.

Hall monitors gave him dirty looks as he shuffled, head down, through the halls and to Physical Science. Shaking his shoulders in an attempt to loosen his tight muscles, Frank knocked on the locked door and smiled embarrassedly at Mrs. Hackworth as she opened it and eyed him up and down with a skeptical brow.

"Sorry, I - uh - woke up late," he fibbed, quickly taking his seat next to Gerard, who had been flipping out all morning due to his absence. When their eyes met, Gerard whispered, "What the fuck, Frank? Where have you been?"

"I'll tell you at lunch," he promised.