Frank had been acting peculiar to the end of the week and all this morning, aside from the usual symptoms of his obvious paranoia I picked up at school, he was resilient to to the normal acts of our said friendship like hugging and touching.
At first I wasn't paying much attention, however I liked touching Frank and I liked him touching me. Even though for me slight brush of his fingertips on my arm felt like the most intimate of touches...
But then my own paranoia started to take over. What if I had screwed things up? What if Frank was only my friend to mock me? Surely I had done something wrong for him to start being so resentful.
By this point I was half hyperventilating, Frank was outside smoking. He had been gone a long time (if he was even still there my thoughts cut in) I however, was helping with the ironing.
Any normal person who was about to have some sort of mental breakdown would turn the iron off before any stupid or irrational acts would occur.
But I'm not normal.
The paranoia wave making my head throb and my stomach shift in violent motions was turning into an anger diverted all at myself, the iron sat steaming away on the board approximately thirty centimetres to my left. The rest was a blur of tears and internal yelling, and I just let it spill out of me like the east wind.
"F-frank, what did I do!?" Over and over again I whispered and hissed to myself.
The steaming iron whistled as my skin came into contact with is flared metal base. The burning pulse of pain shook me more than anything, I was practically trying to melt myself. The increased burning spread up my arms and I cried out. Quickly I forced myself to be silent, if Frank was still outside he would hear me. Surely though if he wasn't really my friend he wouldn't care.
After a few minutes the pain almost made things better as my mind was more concentrated on my seething, I deserved this, after all I had driven Frank away. I hated myself.
The pain came too much and I collapsed onto the floor, clutching both arms and sobbing into my chest. My mind took advantage,
See Gerard, you can't have friends. You drive them away. Fucking idiot. Frank doesn't want to be your friend and he never wanted to, I told yo-
"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP" By this point I was howling, partly from my self-mutilation but mostly from the mental damage.
Was I crazy? No, just human.
"What the fu- Gerard?!" Franks tone blurred out in a concerned and scared rush of babble as he ran over to the couch and inspected the situation. His fingers treaded carefully over my arms still tightly held close to my chest. It only took him a simple glance at the iron for him to put the pieces together.
The horrified look on his face and the guilt in his eyes were what tore my heart the hardest,
"Gerard get up now, we need to run your arms under cold water. Please Gerard I-" He stopped himself as if he were to say something inappropriate. He wrapped his arm around my waist and tried to scoop me off the couch. When I was standing in a stable position he helped me over to the kitchen sink. The silence between the short walk was agonizing. Until whilst running my arms under the harsh cold water he asked, "Why did you do it Gerard? I want the truth okay don't try bullshitting me because you’re the worst liar" There was a spark of anger in his voice that struck a nerve in my throat.
"I it-it’s stupid I'm sorry Frank, fuck I was just being stupid and paranoid again." I didn't want to confront him about his behaviour, it would be disastrous.
"Paranoid about what?" Franks face turned to guilt, what did he have to be guilty about?
I squeezed my eyes shut and just spat everything out, "Frank are we still friends? You're acting weird, like you won't hug me, or you get really hesitant about touching and I just got wound up about t and I wanna know what I've done because your my best friend Frank a-and I don’t want to lose you" I cussed under my breath at the last part, it sounded too cliché. I hated clichés, but it was true. I couldn't lose Frank.
Opening my eyes I saw Frank's face has turned a pink that probably had no name yet. His hands were kept in his pockets and his hair flopped over his eye, he looked so defenceless and for the first time, speechless.
After a long time of mind splitting silence, Frank looked up at me. A glassy sheet covered his eyes but looked as if about to smash at any second now.
"You observe a lot don't you" He started an angry reply in which he stopped himself and started again with a deep breath, "Gerard of course we're still friends and I'm afraid I c-can't explain everything right now I'm sorry" he stammered, soon after he pulled me gently into a hug, apologetic and needing. I would have hugged back yet my arms were still under the freezing water that splashed us both with the movement.
"I understand Frank, just know you can tell me when you're ready and I promise nothing will change our friendship at all" I settled for resting my head onto his shoulder as his hands clutched gently on my back, supporting me.
"Thank you Gerard. It means a lot, and I will tell you. Soon" He sighed in relief.
"Soon then" I smiled.
After Frank bandaged up my arms, we resorted to watching the old horror movies he had stashed up in house to kill time before we went back to my place. Sharing his cigarettes and in turn creating out artwork of swirls above our heads. I decided that this was our 'thing' you could say. We smoked in unison and communicated in the process as if we created our own language in the swirls and loops. It was great fun but I couldn't help let my mind wander to this setback Frank was hopefully tell me. I doubted he would let off any hints. Watching him smoke I observed him carefully, his lips quivering still as if he were muttering to himself. He was thinking. The way his forehead slightly creased up and his eyes would look more intense, filled with a range of emotion. I didn’t know what those emotions were, but I knew they were deep and complicated. This was Frank I was talking about, if I had observed anything definite about him it was that he was complicated.
Frank was also definitely intriguing.
I decided to leave him alone and keep my observations at a low level.
I took another long drag from my cigarette and smiled at Frank.
He smiled back, and it wasn't fake.
