Home Alone

"Wha?"

"Frank?"

"Mhm."

"Did I wake you, sweetie?"

"Yeah, kinda."

"Too bad. It's eight, you should be up."

"Ma! I didn't go to sleep 'till three!"

"And who's fault is that?"

Frank just groans and slaps a hand over his eyes. What's with people waking me up with phone calls lately? Not enough sleep two nights in a row tends to make Frank cranky. "Why did you call anyway?"

His mom sighs at his attitude, but says, "Just checking in. Making sure everything will be ready for me to get home tomorrow."

Oh yeah. This is the last day.

"Yeah, everything's fine. I kept the house clean. Even hid all my heroin needles."

"Aw, you're so caring."

"Learned from the best," Frank smirks, finally sitting up in bed. He likes that he can joke around with his mom.

"Well, okay then. My flight lands at 10:15, so I should be home around noon. I may stop to grab something to eat."

"Mkay," Frank mumbles, running a hand through his hair and closing his eyes.

"Mkay," his mom repeats, though a little more enthusiastic than Frank. "Love you."

"Love you too. Bye."

"Bye-bye."

Frank closes his cell phone and puts it on his bedside table. He stares at the wall across the room and his thoughts drift to Gerard. Yesterday was simply ridiculous. Frank had no idea what to do. Everything he said was wrong. It was frustrating beyond belief. He just wants Gerard to like him. As a friend, he tells himself. He wants them to be friends.

I think..

He shakes his head, partly to get rid of the thoughts and partly to wake himself up more, then heads downstairs. When he gets into the living room, he realizes the house may not be as clean as he made it sound while on the phone with his mom. He looks around the room a little, then decides he has nothing better to do than clean. It seems to be the thing he does when he's bored, lately.

Once he's finished putting things where they belong, and even cleaning the windows, he decides to sweep and vacuum. First he sweeps the kitchen, picking everything up with the little scoop-thing you sweep everything into. And, okay, maybe he sort of brushes the little remains that didn't get into the scoop under a mat, but, what she don't know won't hurt her.

He then gets out the vacuum and starts on this project. He does the living room, and the hall way. He even goes as far as to do the stairs, but this sort of backfires when his back collides with the wall where a mirror just so happens to be. He glares at the glass laying all over the bottom of the stairs and part of the hallway. He's not sure if you're supposed to vacuum up glass. He thinks it sounds kind of dangerous for the vacuum, and quite frankly, he's not willing to take that chance. So, he shrugs and puts the vacuum back where it belongs. Since he spent the whole day yesterday watching movies, the television is not looking so hot to Frank. So, he steps over the glass, careful not to get any stuck in his foot, and goes back up to his room.

He sits in front of his computer and moves the mouse around so the screen saver goes away. He checks his email, then his Myspace, then his Facebook. No new messages, comments, or friend request. Absolutely nothing is going on. He exits out of the web browser and starts a rousing game of solitaire, whining in his head about his lack of activities.

Six games, two wins, and three frustrated groans later, Frank gives up on the solitaire. Who invented that game, anyway? Someone stupid, probably.. He thinks a little more about this, then decides, No, it was probably someone really smart. But I would bet all my money that he was a lonely loser.

Frank ignores the voice in the back of his head telling him how 'all my money' is only about five bucks. He shuts down his computer completely, then closes the blinds on the window. He looks around the room and decides just the blinds don't make it dark enough. He grabs an extra sheet from his closet, folds it a few times, and puts it over the window, hanging from the bar above it. When he turns away from the window, he nods, satisfied with the amount of darkness in his room. Did that even make sense? Can you use darkness in that context.. Content? Context? Whatever. In that way.

He makes a confused face at his thoughts and walks over towards his bed. He turns off the little light on his bed side table and faces his cell phone face-down so the light won't bother him. He get in bed and makes himself comfortable. He's had a bad nights sleep two nights in a row, so yeah, he's going to take a nap. He tells himself this is totally something an adult would do, and definitely manly. When he decides, well, maybe not, he also decides he doesn't care. He is going to sleep, no matter what time it is, or what age he is, or what gender he is. Not that taking naps is girlie. It's actually something a man would do. Probably a lazy man, but still.

Frank closes his eyes tight, trying to rid his head of the pointless rambling it seems to like so much. He turns onto his side and stares at the wall, then closes his eyes gently and tries to relax. He knows that it helps to think about things when he's falling asleep. A lot of the time, he day-dreams while trying to fall asleep, and then actually has a dream about what he had been thinking about. He's almost positive that when he doesn't day-dream before he falls asleep, he's guaranteed to have a nightmare. That's just how it is.

So, he thinks of something nice, and starts making a story in his head. And he smiles a little, 'cause it's nice, and he starts to fall asleep.

And he definitely wasn't thinking about Gerard.

Well, maybe just a little.