Seven Minutes to Midnight

2

I didn't meet Frank Pierce until I started at Middlebury High School. You'd think, with both of them being in the same grade, that Veronica would have brought him into our fold sooner. But Frank was an odd duck. He didn't start wearing his trenchcoat until high school, and mostly hung out with other ill-dressed losers who talked Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons until everyone else avoided them like the plague.

It was on a day when Veronica was absent that I sat near his group's table. They were talking about World of Warcraft.

My back to their table, I found myself smiling as they described things their avatars had done in the game, and the weirdos they chatted with. Frank had the most interesting stories, because his stories often involved scenarios that I had taken part in. I was getting the feeling that Frank was actually a Blood Elf named Silverwolf that was part vampire, part werewolf, who headed a guild that was allied with my own.

Frank's voice had also stirred my attention. Unlike the other boys he hung around with, who all seemed to be stuck in the Peter Brady part of puberty, Frank's voice was low and smooth and confident. He spoke slowly and never chattered. I fell in love with him until I saw his face.

Now, to be honest, Frank isn't that bad looking. He just looks NOTHING like his voice. His voice made me think of the Vampire Lestat seducing me into letting him bite my neck. Frank, on the other hand, is tall and lanky, with stringy black hair that he wore in a ratty ponytail. His hair was the worst part of his appearance, and if he dedicated himself to washing it more, he might have actually reached "attractive." His skin was clear for the most part (he had some acne on his jaw that he tried to cover with a scraggly overgrowth) and a nice strong nose and two separate eyebrows. Especially in contrast with the rest of his crew, Frank wasn't bad. But I at least knew his friends were techie dorks from their nasally, squeaky voices, which were often also slurred from orthodontics.

So I struck up a conversation with Frank. We talked World of Warcraft strategy and compared notes on other players. That night, while I talked to Veronica on the phone and listened to her alternate between moaning about vomiting all day and commenting on how much weight she'd lost (all vampires were anemically thin, she said), I chatted with Frank in the game and forged an alliance between our coven and his pack.

When Veronica finally came back to school, Frank began sitting at our table at lunch. It was obvious he found Veronica attractive. Of course, she was the one who looked like a seductress, always wearing things like corsets and low cuts shirts that put her best feature on display. 

(I looked more like one of the children in Village of the Damned. I'd always been super thin, which meant my chest was flat as a board.) 

I had never seen Veronica flirt before, but she certainly turned on the charm for Frank. I really wasn't too jealous. I could all too clearly imagine running my hand through Frank's slick hair.

Quickly we three became inseparable. Frank still hung out with his other friends, but it became clear early on that they didn't have the same confidence he had hanging out with two girls—Veronica and I might as well have been from the moon, or Vulcan, or whatever. Although they might have been able to actually speak to us if we were Vulcan.

It helped that Frank and Veronica never dated, despite Veronica's incessant flirting. Veronica told me once that she thought Frank was gay.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," I told her. I thought Frank was definitely attracted to her... until Lane came along.

_______

Author's Note: Dear god, I didn't realize I had basically named this character Franklin Pierce. *facepalm*

Anyway, here's who I imagine playing Frank:

That's Harris, from "Freaks & Geeks."  Same personality, too.  Harris gets a lot of action from the ladies.