+Bad Catholics+ Frank Iero

+23+

I fiddled with my pencil as I sat at my desk, the only thing lighting my room a small table-top lamp and momentary flashes of lighting beaming through my window. It felt like the words and numbers on my calculus textbook were playing pranks on me, warping and switching places with each other every single time I read them. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't absorb a single thing.

Though I'd become accustomed to the general looming discomfort of being in the house alone, I felt uneasy. Not just about being alone, but about what had occurred earlier in the day, and about my feelings around it. It was like I suddenly woke up one day and everything was different, and by some miracle a stickler for details like myself didn't notice. All I could do was roll it all around in my head in attempt to figure it all out, but there was too much to sift through. Beth, school, Frank. My priorities, somehow. They were all so different. The worst part was that it didn't seem like there was anything I could do to make it all go back. I didn't even know if I wanted some of it to go back.

Something about it all made feelings come up that I thought I didn't have the ability to have- but really, they were hidden away in some secret place I had forgotten about. I could speculate on who it was that found them, but feeling them was enough to stomach. Turns out I was actually a little jaded.

The rain became more aggressive, loudly panging against my window. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, tugging the sleeves of my father's sweatshirt over my fingers. It was one of the first really cold nights of the year and I felt it- I was too afraid to use the heat in the house because I didn't know if it would even work. I knew that Beth's bills were paid for, but I didn't know how. All I knew is that my dad and his friends had things "all taken care of". Unfortunately for me, I didn't know what that meant.

Part of me wished I had just agreed to Frank's offer.

Another flash of lighting came through the window, this time a much quicker crack of thunder rumbling through the house. I jumped in surprise as my lamp went dark along with it, the grumble of the earth still echoing behind me. I reached over and flipped the switch a few times, but nothing happened.

"Great," I mumbled, realizing the power had gone out.

I opened my desk drawers one by one, rustling around for matches, but finding nothing. Taking a deep breath, I stood and walked to my closet and began looking through boxes, the sound of the rain deafening now that there was no light in the room. I managed to dig out a flashlight buried under old blankets in a box, tapping it a few times before getting it to light.

Another clap of thunder hit and I rushed over to my window, closing the curtains before turning back to my door. When I was young, the power went out in our home constantly and my dad gave me a few demonstrations on how to re-set the breaker, but I wasn't sure I completely remembered any of it. I knew that there was a breaker in the basement of Beth's home, so that's really the only idea I had. I could do without the light, but I couldn't do without the alarm clock I used to get up for school.

I flopped down on my bed, flashlight still in hand, and considered just going to bed in the dark and hoping the power would come back before I fell asleep. The only thing that was stopping me was being on thin ice in school- well, thin ice in my world, at least. Eyes were on me already, and it wouldn't help for me to be late to class for the first time in quite literally my entire life.

I stood up again and walked to my door, staring at it for a short moment before opening it and making my way downstairs cautiously. The old window panes in the living room had loosened over time and clacked back and forth with every gust of wind, only a small sliver of moonlight leaking onto the hardwood floors. I waited on the second-to-middle step on the stairs, surveying the room but not moving the flashlight. I realized that I never really looked at the living room anymore- it felt even gloomier in the dark.