Polly

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An wattpad shifted this all into italics and took away loads of paragraphs, I'm fixing it now but it might look a little odd for a while. Sorry, should be all nice and spaced soon. 

Got some rope, you have been told

Promise you, I have been true

Let me take a ride, cut yourself

Want some help, please myself

In a town where not much seems to happen, a lot seems to have happened to seventeen year old Frank in his short life.

Of course, Frank isn't seventeen anymore but that's where the story really begins, so that's how old I'll say he is, or was. Though truthfully, that's a lie too because a lot had happened to Frank before he reached seventeen.

It was either the hard way for Frank, or no way at all and that tradition didn't start at seventeen, even though it takes a grand place in his story. What I'm trying to say is that there are plenty of stories about Frank that took place long before he was seventeen, like how he was born with the umbilical cord wrapped snug around his throat or how he fell off his bike and into a pond when he was six because he didn't want to bother with stabilizers. See? The hard way or no way at all.

Frank actually grew to become a most excellent cyclist but that doesn't fit in much with the story I'm trying to tell you. You'll have to forgive me; I'm not much of a storyteller really, but Frank had insisted that his was to be shared and he's in no condition to tell it. So that's why I'm here, telling you.

I should probably take some time too, to introduce myself. My name is Cherry Iero and Frank is my father. I'm thirty-six and live on the Jersey East coast three miles away from where I was born. 

You'll find out more about my mother later in the story but for now we'll focus on Frank.

All the things that happened to Frank before his seventeenth birthday do have relevance to the story. After all he was a growing boy and very much developing a personality and life long before he turned seventeen but all stories need to start somewhere and this one would be far too long if I started from Frank's birthing date. Or perhaps, I could have started even before that with his parents and grandparents and then his ancestors and dinosaurs and finally the great creator himself, but I fear then I would loose the plot entirely (that pun was intended).

So, we'll start at Frank's seventeenth birthday, it's a nice stable place to begin and then perhaps we can come back to see more of Frank's early life at a later date, perhaps not.

At seventeen Frank is just starting to discover a world outside of school and church and the fine dinner parties his mother sometimes throws when the rest of the town's feeling a little down (see how already I could go on and on about people that are not Frank?). He stands alone at the refreshments table in jeans and a t-shirt, the jumper his mother made him go out in is abandoned on the back of a chair a few feet away because of the itching it had caused. 

Frank's birthday is on Halloween so most everyone is eager to attend his party, everyone but Frank.

Frank is sociable by nature but teenagers get into the habit of becoming reclusive and awkward and at this stage that is how Frank feels. He once described the sensation to me like it was as if he could not fit into his own skin. A most unpleasant condition irritated mostly by parties and other large bodies of people. The drink had helped a little but now he fears he wont be sober enough to go home without his mother noticing, so he stands nibbling on onion rings and watching the others dance.

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