Vulnerable [Frollie]

Chapter 12

The phone rings and the caller ID says East Sussex Prison and Mollie knows what the woman on the other end of the line is going to say before she does.

Peter had knotted his sheets up tight in a noose and hung himself. He left a note that said “Tell my daughter I love her” and then he was gone.

Frankie’s stepfather is dead and Frankie is in shock and Mollie is angry.

Mollie is stunningly, terrifyingly, shockingly angry. And Frankie is numb. Frankie is nothing, she is unseeing eyes and slow blinks and a monotonous voice and she is blank. Mollie is loud and everywhere and bouncing off the walls and screaming and yelling and pounding her fists and sobbing. She is red and black and harsh blinding white. Mollie is livid.

Frankie sits on the couch and stares at nothing. Mollie paces in her studio and splashes sharp lines of colour and anger on canvases. They pretty much stay away from each other for a while. There is nothing to say about anything.

Except Mollie screams a lot, anguished cries of “he’s sick, he’s a sick fucking bastard,” and kicks things and knocks things over and bloodies her knuckles. She is angry and she doesn’t understand why Frankie isn’t. She screams about that too.

“Say something. Don’t just sit there, Frankie, say something! He’s fucking dead, say something!”

But Frankie says nothing. She presses her knees to her chest and curls in on herself, staring at the wall and not at Mollie.

Mollie paces and cries and throws paint on things. She yells at Frankie but she’s not angry at her. She’s worried.

One night Frankie doesn’t eat her dinner and Mollie loses it. “Why are you doing this?” she screams, pushing her chair back and throwing her hands up in the air. “Why are you doing this to yourself? Why aren’t you talking to me? Why aren’t you fucking doing anything?”

Frankie levels her with an even gaze and says “You’re doing enough for the both of us.” and disappears into the bedroom. Frankie is angry too. But she’s not showing it and she doesn’t know why. She should, she should be throwing her rage and resentment and bitterness around, crashing it into things and flattening it against walls. She should wear it like a badge but she doesn’t, can do nothing but stare blankly at the wall and watch Mollie fall apart.

It hurts but it makes something inside her flutter and feels good as well. She can’t place it but Mollie’s anger is comforting in a way, soothing to her, like her own feelings are justified and its right to be this livid. And she is, livid. It burns inside her like a white hot flame but she can’t seem to bring it outwards, and she knows it’s hurting Mollie because she doesn’t see it, doesn’t understand that Frankie is angry too. She thinks Frankie is calm and in shock and unfeeling. She doesn’t know that Frankie’s fingers itch and she makes her hands into fists involuntarily, wanting to punch something, snap something in half, but—she can’t.

They dance around each other like this for days, not talking when the sun is up but in the dead of night they cling to each other, like two lost stars in the sky searching for their galaxy. They don’t talk about it, but Mollie is quieter as she strokes Frankie’s hair and Frankie listens to her heartbeat, can almost hear how with every thud the anger burn in her veins, sharp like glass. But at night, when the moon seems to come in through their window and shine on her skin, she is calm, and Frankie needs that. Because the ocean inside her is anything but, sloshing around and slamming against her like a tsunami.