It's Not A Question But A Lesson Learned In Time

“Hello?” I mumbled groggily down the phone when it rang at around quarter to five that morning.
“Hey Frankie!” Hannah said happily.
“Oh hey Han!” I was already feeling slightly more awake.
“So I’ve spoken to Ben. And he says it’s completely cool if you camp out in his spare room for a bit. Well, for as long as you want I guess.”
“Seriously? Thank you so much Hannah! That’s amazing! I’ve booked the flight already. I couldn’t wait to find out if I could stay with Ben. I decided to get it and if I couldn’t stay with him I’d just find somewhere else that’s cheap. My plane is due to land at like half two, your time, at Heathrow airport…”
“Ok awesome. Would you like me to pick you up?”
“If it’s not going cause trouble for you it would be great.”
“Nah, it will be cool. Anyway listen. I’d better let you get back to sleep for a bit. I’ll see you on Friday yeah kid?”
“Yeah. Thank you so much again, and say thanks to Ben for me. I’ll see you in a few days.”

I hung up and put my phone back on the side. Man was I glad I’d taken Joey back to his own room a little while after he had fallen asleep. I laid back down, but there was no way I could get back to sleep now. I got up and rooted through my wardrobe, finally finding the only duffle bag I had and dropped it on my bed.

Looking around my room I was trying to sort things into groups in my head, groups of stuff I had to take with me, stuff I wanted to take with me, and stuff I wouldn’t possibly be able to fit in, and wouldn’t be important or missed if I left them behind.
I sat on the floor a long while later, stuff surrounding me, split into those different groups. The stuff I need to take and the stuff I wanted to take was never going to fit. Now the really difficult task of cutting down the, ‘want to take’ pile. I decided it would be easier to put in the stuff I needed and then see how much room I had left.

“Shit.” I murmured to myself once it was all in. There was barely any room, but there was still loads of stuff I wanted to put in.
“Frankie!” my dad yelled through the door. Uh oh. “Frankie you got to get up!”
“I’m already awake!”
Please don’t open the door, please.
“Don’t be long.”
“Ok.” I finally managed to breath properly again as I heard him walking away from my door. I shut the duffle bag and did it up, before shoving it under my bed, along with the rest for the stuff that was scattered on the floor. I was hoping he didn’t come in my room any time soon, it looked kind of bare now I’d moved everything.

I glanced at my clock; it was showing 7:05. How had I managed to lose track of that much time. I went into my bathroom and switched on the shower, leaving it to warm up for a minute so I could go and get some clean clothes.

When I got out of the shower it was 7:25, dad would want to leave soon. That’s one major disadvantage to him being a teacher, he had to be at work early, which meant if I actually wanted to get to school on time, I had to get up earlier than I used to to get a lift with him. At least today it didn’t matter; I was already awake for once.

I flattened my inherited curly black hair and applied the usual amount of eyeliner, which I suppose you could say is a bit like how my dad used to do his, actually, it’s almost exactly the same. I put on my chucks, grabbed my bag and after double checking none of my stuff was left lying around, I went downstairs. It was 7:45 when I got into the kitchen, so I now had more time than I hoped I would have.

Dad didn’t say anything to me as I sorted out something to eat. That twenty minutes, were by far the most awkward twenty minutes of my life!

When the silence finally was broken it was only briefly.
“You ready?” my dad asked. I nodded, worried about what would slip out of my mouth if I did let myself say something. “Come on Joey.” Joey jumped up and put his bag on his back.
I grabbed my bag off the floor and followed him outside to his car. This was definitely going to be a long trip.

“So um… Done all your school work?” he asked after he had dropped Joey off at his friend’s house, his friends mom took him to school for us, because dad and I had to be at school earlier than Joey. Oh dear lord. He’s trying to make small talk. This is probably worse than the silence.
“Err. Yeah. I only had to choose my favorite poem and say why it was my favorite, or a poem that you can relate to a lot, it wasn’t that hard really.”
“Oh cool… What poem is it?”
“It's one by Philip Larkin. He’s an English poet”
“Oh umm... Cool?” he said, obviously not knowing who I was talking about.
“I was going to do one by Edgar Allan Poe, but his poems are too long. We’ve only got like five minutes.” I smirked. My dad rolled his eyes.
“So... What’s the poem that you’re doing then?”
“It’s called, This Be The Verse.”

I was hoping to god he didn’t ask me to recite it, it could be awkward to explain why I chose it. In truth, I’d only chosen that poem last night, because it really did sum up how I felt.
“See you later.” I mumbled as I left my dad in the parking lot.