Our Foundations from Decay

Frank POV 42

Our morning ended with bustling crowds and nervous murmurs. The energy was palpable, a thick fog encasing not only the musicians, but every student in the school. No one could escape our performance of a lifetime. We're gonna turn so many heads, the world will tilt. As I imagined the sea of teenagers rocking out to our emo band -a group of kids they used to shove into lockers and beat in bathroom stalls- I was filled with a sense of pride that shouldn't exist yet.

Confidence was a virtue, but I found myself almost drowning in it.

"Yo, dude." Ray was poking me with a pencil, eyes glazed over in a frown. "How on earth are you doing this?"

"For the last time, I'm not fuckin' doing it. I don't know what the hells going on." I glared down a the crumpled paper in front of me, its frayed equations running evil laps around my head.

My foot tapped against the tiled floor, ansty movements writhing hand-in-hand with the swirling adrenaline in my gut. Just as I was about to reach the peak of my daydreams, a sudden voice had me jolting. The classes' silence descending like a plague, cold hands of fear creeping all around me, sending whispers of panic down my back. Shittttttt.

"Frank Iero."

Ugh.

"I have told you..." The woman took a moment to inhale, her creaky limbs concaving together like a meaty sinkhole. "Time and time again. Watch. Your. Language."

I gave a brisk nod, straightening my posture as inconspicuously as possible.

"Uh, yeah. Will do."

God couldn't tell me what to do, but I wasn't about to test the limits of the Lucifer in front of me.

"you're on thin ice, Iero. Thin ice."

With a final rotten sneer, she stomped off, wilting any juvenile stares sent her way. Her stalking form sort of reminded me of a creepy ostrich, with bulging eyes and a natural-born ability to strike at any moment. It was almost harder to relax here than it was around Bert McCracken. That freak.

As I was stewing in my thoughts, Ray muttered something that sounded an awful lot like 'wrinkly-stuck-up goat', and I felt a dangerous wave of laughter bubbling through me. I puffed out air with a muffled sigh and watched as the worksheet fluttered to the ground like a dead butterfly, falling from its already unappetizing grace.

Maths was the last thing on my mind as the bell's ring freed me from my constraints. With a drag of my arm over the desk, loose pens and workbooks fell into my bag with a crash.

"Hey, dude." Ray's booming voice followed me to the door. "I need help with something, and you're the only one I can ask."

Hmm?

"What's up? Did your underwear get thrown up a tree again? Cus' last time that happened you were so embarrassed-"

"Dude!" Ray choked, knocking into me as he hid his face from a group of rowdy teens. "You don't gotta tell everyone!"

The hallways were always precarious -filled with an army of students with boring classes and boring people- but now the dams of 3PM had broken. I understood why everyone was in such a desperate rush to escape, but I found it hard to have empathy with their ruthless charging and cold stares.

"Hey!" I shouted as boy with bad hair and tall frame knocked into me, sending me stumbling around like a newborn deer. "People are walking here, dickhead!"
My head lifted for an almost comically long time before finally meeting my perpetrators eyes. With squared shoulders and crossed arms, I put on my toughest face, only to be met with casual amusement.