Missing

Today

Frank woke up slowly, forcing his aching eyes open at the sound of his third alarm. He groaned, reaching out blindly for his phone. He managed to turn the alarm off without looking up once, a skill he'd acquired during his first few years of high school. He rolled over again, burrowing his head into his pillow and inhaling deeply, letting the heavy daze of tiredness wash over him.

He slept for another five minutes before alarm number four woke him up, the mockingly cheery ringtone blasting out directly into Frank's ear. He let out a muffled growl, surprising himself for a second before slamming his hand down to turn it off.

By alarm number six, Frank had wearily accepted his fate and realised it was about time he got his ass out of bed before he was late for school. He sighed heavily, climbing out of his warm bed and looking blankly around his new room. It was almost completely empty other than his bed, guitar, cd player, and a fuck-ton of boxes. He'd unpack soon, probably. The October weather made waking up in unforgivably early hours even more depressing than it needed to be, dark clouds making the room glow dully. Frank shut his eyes for a second, staring into the darkness of the back of his eyelids before pulling his clothes on.

A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have given a shit about being late for school, but this was his 'Fresh Start', as his mum had put it, and although he knew he would give up eventually, he didn't want it to be on the first day. 

His new school, Pencey, had a uniform, which lay neatly folded on the floor. Frank hated it. He put it on and turned to face the full length mirror that stood resting on the wall. He finished buttoning up his shirt and sighed at his reflection.

His dark hair was standing on end, sticking up weirdly where he'd slept on it. He pulled a face at his reflection, it pulled one back. The uniform made him look weirdly uptight and uncomfortable, he loosened the red tie slightly and rolled up the sleeves of his blazer. He rummaged around in his rucksack, rifling through old candy bar wrappers and fuck knows what else before finding a few band pins and pinning them to his blazer. 

The majority of Franks other clothes were all still stuffed at the bottom of random boxes so he settled for the sweater he was wearing yesterday, a ridiculously oversized navy zip up hoodie that -come to think of it- he couldn't remember ever buying. Judging by the cigarette burns and ink stains on the sleeves, he assumed it belonged to someone from home -probably James- who must have left it at his place at some point. It was his travel hoodie and crumpled as shit from sitting in the car all day long, but they would have to do for now. He shrugged it on, followed by his navy blue blazer, studying himself closely in the mirror. As an afterthought, he messily applied eyeliner, smudging it slightly. Better. But only slightly. 

His new house was old, every part of it creaked and whispered and Frank swore there was a family of mice or something living in his bedroom wall, but other than that it was pretty cool, the kind of house from a horror movie. 

Frank stomped down the creaky old stairs of the house, ignoring the planks of wood groaning under his weight. He slide down the banister on the last five steps, leaning with a thud in the hall, where he was instantly greeted by his mum shouting  "Stop with the banister already, how many times?" 

"Sorry." Frank said back, walking into the kitchen where she was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. She passed him his on mug wordlessly, looking him up and down. "Do you have to wear the hoodie? It looks like you got it off a corpse."

Frank decided to take that as a compliment. "It's cold outside," He said gruffly, gesturing down to his clothing. That was a lie, but he got cold so easily it might as well have been 32°F outside. "And everything else is in a box."