Last Chance

“Frank, get up.”

The voice was pinched and unhappy. His mother.

Frank’s eyes cracked open, and he realized he was still on the floor. Last night quickly righted itself in his mind, and he groaned to himself.

His mom was standing above him, looking exhausted. “Get up. I’m driving you to school. I’ll also be picking you up,” she spoke with her tight, serious voice. “You will stay there the entire time. Next time I hear you’ve been skipping, the consequences will be worse, do you understand?”

Frank made a noise, then shuffled to his feet, too defeated to argue. His mom’s eyes widened when she saw his face, but she didn’t say anything else. He watched silently as she left his room, dressed in her work clothes and wearing a pained expression.

When the door was firmly closed, he stumbled through the half-dark room, grabbing at clothes and his backpack.

In the bathroom, he found out why his mom had looked at his face so weird. The patch of skin over his cheekbone had turned a deep plum color, and the bruise was rimmed in irritated red. It was pretty small considering, and had probably been a result of his mother’s wedding ring colliding with the sharp bone of his cheek. Frank pushed his hair down to cover it as much as possible, then continued getting dressed.

By the time Frank was ready, his dad had already left for work and his mom was waiting impatiently by a kitchen counter. She kept her eyes on Frank as he poured cooling coffee into a thermos, and as he shoved his feet into his shoes.

Frank kind of expected some sort of apology from the night before, something to justify the bruise on his face, but none came. His mom drove him to school, dropped him off with a quick “goodbye”, and left.

It was raining today, and the school’s hallways were damp with the muddy prints of hundreds of shoes. Frank sipped his coffee, trying to ease the remaining tiredness from his eyes. He still felt like shit, but at least he didn’t feel like he was going to explode anymore. Now, all he felt was a numb hopelessness and the acute dislike of the people
here.

His car was at home, so he really couldn’t skip and go anywhere good. So instead, Frank settled with showing up to his classes and sleeping. The teachers had given up on him, so they no longer bothered to wake him up or even give him a detention. Frank was grateful for that.

The day was slow, and when the bell finally rang, the students filed out like usual, leaving Frank to wait for his mom to pick him up. He thought about just walking home, but it was raining and he didn’t want to risk getting stabbed.

It took an hour and a half for his mom’s car to pull up in front of the school, and when Frank climbed in, shaking the rain from his hair, his mom gave him a disapproving look.

“I have to be back at work in thirty minutes,” was all she said the entire car ride. However, when she pulled up in front of their house, she did sigh and look at Frank. “You need to know that I’m seriously disappointed in you for your grades and the skipping. But I’m sorry things went that far last night,” she motioned weakly to Frank’s cheek. “I love you, Frank, but sometimes you’re harder to deal with than your father.”

Frank digested that, but all he could process fully was that he was being compared to his dad, who was the equivalent of a household tyrant.Frank rarely even voiced a fucking complaint. Her apology fell short when he thought about.

Instead of bringing any of it up, though, Frank just nodded and got out of the car.

His mom seemed to gather herself up, then she pulled away, leaving Frank standing once again in the rain.

Inside, Frank called into his work and asked for the day off. He had already been subject to countless odd looks about his bruise at school, and he didn’t want any more. After he hung up, he shucked off his jeans and watched TV until he was too hungry to focus.

He was in the middle of eating a defrosted Eggo Waffle when the front door opened. There was the sound of shoes on the hardwood, and the slump of his father dropping his work bag and jacket.

Frank shoved the rest of the waffle into his mouth, grabbed his pants and quietly padded down the hall to his room. His door had just closed when he heard his father turn the corner into the kitchen.

The last thing he wanted was for his dad to confront him, for him to bitch Frank out even more for the skipping or the bruise or not going to work. So instead, he spent the rest of the night laying in bed and listening to the unusual quiet of the house.

By ten o’clock, Frank’s parents had gone to bed, and complete silence settled in. It was then that Frank remember the voicemail from the night before. He found his phone in the pocket of his discarded jeans, and clicked the “Listen” button for the message, expecting a misdirected reminder from a doctor’s office or something.

The phone was quiet for a moment, and then the voicemail played.

“Pick up scheduled.”

The three words lasted less than 10 seconds, then the message ended and Frank was left staring at his phone in confusion.

The voice wan’t one that he recognized, and it also lacked the formal politeness of an office receptonist or something. It was definitely the oddest misdial Frank had ever received, seeing as the caller had left no personal information or indication of who the message was for.

Frank caught himself then, and shook his head.The message was just a mistake. It probably made sense to whoever it was meant for, which obviously wasn’t Frank.

Frank sighed and dropped the phone onto his bed, feeling childish and stupid. For the rest of the night he purposely ignored the cell and puttzed around his room, shuffling through homework assignments and reading his comics.

Before showering, Frank touched his bruise with his fingertips. It hurt like a bitch, but at least it would start fading soon.

With the view of the sickly colored bruise came Frank’s thoughts from the night, along with the feelings of helplessness. He knew things would only get worse, that the abuse would increase in scale and effect.

He’d had done a good job of pushing that realization down over the last twelve hours, but now it was back with the nagging question of “what the hell should I do?”. Frank wanted to cry again, to scream and wake his parents and shake them back to themselves. But he knew that would only cause anger and blows, and his mom would cry, then his dad would storm out of the house and not come home until morning. So Frank needed to just stay quiet, calm, and invisible. Which he was good at.

In the end, Frank just decided he had to avoid his parents more often. Maybe he could book longer working hours, or get another job teaching guitar lessons to take up his time.

With that thought, Frank showered and climbed into bed. At first he wasn’t tired, but after a minute of listening to the quiet of the night, of the fan blades spinning and the noise of city trains a few miles away, Frank was down and out.