ANON (Frerard)

Part 2: 5. Where Do We Go From Here

The thing about Frank is that, he realizes how collectively fucked he is for next year, and still doesn't do anything about it.

Everyone else his age has already applied for colleges months back, some even receiving their results already.

It was the middle of May now, and Frank still hadn't even attempted to apply for anything. He'd be lucky to actually be accepted by anything now. Maybe community college will work out, because that's all he's destined for anyways.

Life without Mary has proven difficult, and he can't even contact her because he doesn't know his mom's phone number.

He supposes he could drop by the school, but it feels like it's steeping some sort of weird boundary.

Long story short, Frank misses her, and rightfully so.

His dad finally returns from his four month business trip on a Saturday. The man comes right through the door, as if it were normal, sees Frank, waves, and then goes straight to his office space. Frank barely has time to register that the man in his house is his dad before he's gone again.

A couple days after that, his dad asks where Mary is. Frank's honestly just impressed that he managed to remember before a week had passed. He explains that his mother took her to live with her. He just mumbles something about reading over those divorce papers again, and then disappears to his office of course.

At some point in that week, Frank decides that he wants to get a job, which is the first beneficial thought he has that year, funnily enough. So he prints up his ten minute resume and walks around looking for places that are hiring.

Frank applies at three places by the end of his journey. A McDonalds, a thrift store, and a small pizza business. Each said that they'd call him by tomorrow if he got the job, and so he shrugs, hoping for the best.

By the next day, the pizza place calls him back, asking if he can work a trial shift.

Step one of getting your life on track: doing shit you should've done a long time ago.

***

It was odd to see all the school displays, set up in hopes to recruit the young minds. Of course, these were aimed at juniors, not seniors like Frank, because seniors stents stupid enough to not apply for college.

Frank didn't tell anyone about that part, you know the part where he's fucked up his whole future.

The booths took place outside of the cafeteria, which caused a lot more crowds than there would be if it were located somewhere else, and Frank decides he should just leave, because he's sure he's heard some famous person or otherwise say that there was no point in looking at things you can't have.

But as Frank was fleeing the scene, he caught the attention of a certain teacher, he hadn't thought about in a while.

"Mr. Armstrong," Frank waved, winces as a student was pushed into him.

"Here, why don't we step out a bit," he suggests.

The teacher and student walk down the hall a bit, until they are in an area barely occupied by people.

"How's your semester been, Frank?" Mr. Armstrong asks, genuinely curious.

"It's been really great!" Lies.