Coffee and Cigarettes

1

All Frank wanted was a cup of coffee. It was the first day back from spring break and his alarm decided not to go off. As a result, he woke up 30 minutes late to the sound of his mom banging on his bedroom door reminding him that he only had 15 minutes now to get ready. "Fuckkk." Frank groaned. He focused his vision on his alarm-less alarm clock and the realization of how quickly he needed to get his ass out the door set in. "Fuck!" He shimmied into his jeans that he wore yesterday and only had a slight smell about them and a misfits t-shirt that he grabbed off the floor and moved onto the bathroom to finish getting ready.

By the time he was ready to get breakfast his mom was already getting in the car. "Fuuuuck." He had no time to make himself a cup of coffee, never mind clean it up afterwards. He grabbed his tattered backpack and followed his mom to the car.

"No, Frank, I don't have time to get you Starbucks."

"But it'll be 10 minutes, please? I didn't have time to make coffee at home."

"Then you'll be even later than you already are and I'll be late for work. You're just going to have to go without it today."

"Alright."

Frank walked through the front entrance just as the bell rang. "Fuck." Today was not Frank's day. Thankfully, his first block was his home ec class, meaning he might just be able to make a cup of coffee. He traipsed through the door dragging his feet and with all the energy and excitement of a week old corpse. A smattering of laughter went around the room as he made his way to his seat. He rolled his eyes aggressively and dropped down into his chair, massaging his forehead. His teacher, the kind soul she was, simply nodded and marked his attendance as 'present' rather than 'tardy'. She began explaining the day's assignment which was something involving cooking while Frank dropped his head into his arms on the table, shutting his eyes for just a minute more.

As his classmates started getting up, multiple bumping into his chair, he picked his head up with a groan and made his way to the back of the classroom, opposite everyone else. He knelt down and opened a cabinet and pulled out a can of instant coffee from behind a box of granola bars and pancake mix. The organization skills of the home ec room were lacking, leading to it being an ideal place to hide things. The instant coffee blended in perfectly with the rest of the breakfast foods despite the writing on the lid reading, 'FRANK IERO, DO NOT TOUCH'. He brought it in at the beginning of the school year and it had been saving him from bad days since September. Dumping some ice and water from the fridge into a cup and aggressively adding a teaspoon of the powder, Frank plopped himself into a chair at the back of the room near his teacher's desk. Stirring his powdered coffee, looking like a supervillain, Frank finally started to relax. "Wake up on the wrong side of the bed, Frankie dear?" His kind teacher asked.

"God yes. My alarm didn't go off and I didn't have time to make coffee and then my car's been in the shop so my mom was driving me to school so I didn't have time to stop at-"

"You've got a little something on your face, Frankie dear." She cut him off. He looked puzzled and pulled out his phone to use the black screen as a mirror. He'd forgotten to take off his eyeliner before he went to bed and it was now smeared all over his face, making him look like a bride left at the altar. He understood the laughs upon his entry now. "Fuuuck." He groaned, spitting on his hands and scrubbing his face.
"Now don't hurt yourself there, hon." His teacher said, handing him a damp paper towel.

"Thanks, Mrs.Pitt." She nodded and left him to enjoy his coffee. He plugged in his headphones and scrolled through his Ipod's download list, hoping the album he downloaded last night wasn't corrupted or fake. Limewire has its ups and downs. Thankfully the first track started playing; Finally something went right this morning. He pulled out his laptop and started entering his password.

A kid Frank had never seen before came into the room looking frantic. Clearly not paying attention to where he was walking, more entranced in his thought, bumped right into Frank, spilling his coffee all over him and his Ipod.

"FUCK."

"Oh my god, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm so sorry.." The boy tripped over his words as his face turned bright red. For a second Frank was filled with rage like a pot boiling over but caught himself. The boy didn't mean to. He didn't deserve to have Frank's bad day taken out on him. 'I guess all that therapy is working.' He thought.

"I'm sorry, that was an overreaction. It's alright." He apologized in a level tone.

"Thank you, I'm sorry, I'll help you clean it up." The boy looked like an overripe tomato, blushing hard enough to blend into a firetruck. Frank grabbed a roll of paper towels from the table and started dabbing at the coffee spilled on the table and held out a piece so the other could start on the floor.

"The floor's dry now." The boy said, standing up after drying for a few minutes.

"Thanks. Oh you've got coffee on your pants." Frank noticed and instinctively moved to dry off his army green cargo shorts before realizing that probably wasn't an appropriate thing to do to a stranger. He nervously laughed and handed the paper towel to him instead. This time it was Frank's turn to look sunburnt. Uncomfortable by the awkward silence, Frank introduced himself. "I'm Frank. You're?"

"Gerard."

"Rad. So, why are you in the cooking room and why have I never seen you before, Gee." Frank replied in his usual friendly tone. His grumpiness was wiped away with the puddle of coffee and he didn't quite know why, but something told him that his day was going to get better.

"I was actually just coming in here to avoid taking a math test. Stats is... Not going well, to put it nicely." Gerard pushed his longer black hair out of eyes.

"Well I never do much of anything in this class, so we can avoid stats together back here." Frank didn't know why he felt compelled to hang out with the coffee-spiller, but he found himself taking the instant coffee out of the cabinet again, this time making 2 cups.