A Case of Unknown Identity

Frank keeps texting Gerard and barely notices when he walks out of his classroom and into the cafeteria with Mikey where they sit next to Brendon, Ray and a few others.

He just keeps texting away, and knowing Mikey is a lurker, he makes sure to sit on the other side of the table so that Mikey can’t read over his shoulder.

“Someone still looks happy,” Mikey says.

“Fuck off,” Frank replies.

“What’s up?” Brendon chimes in.

“Someone slipped him something or other. I don’t know what it is but I want a hit,” Mikey replies, teasingly.

Frank looks up after sending a reply to Watchman to stick his tongue out at him.

Then he hears a sound like a fog horn.

His whole face falls as Brendon looks around confused at the noise.

Mikey’s gotten up to go get a napkin so Frank turns to Brendon and questions, “did you hear that? It sounded like a fog horn.”

“Kind of the most annoying sound ever if you ask me,” Brendon says shrugging.

Frank doesn’t answer, but he texts the number again and looks around him carefully to see if the noise comes again. He’s sure he’s just imagining it or something. Watchman said his phone makes a foghorn noise and it’s probably just a coincidence, but that doesn’t keep Frank from sending the text.

Another fog horn, a few seconds after the text sends.

“Holy fuck,” he whispers to himself and he completely ignores Ray asking him what’s up, to look around. The source of the noise was definitely in front of him from a few tables away. So he looks over in that direction and evaluates the many tables filled with many people most of whom he’s never thought twice about. After Frank doesn’t receive another text he decides he can’t wait anymore.

Another text off into the air from Frank’s phone. Watchman will think he sat on his phone or something but he doesn’t care. He needs to find the source of the noise. There’s no way it’s a coincidence if it happens more than two times.

One more fog horn, and he sees the phone that made the noise. Brendon looks completely bewildered by the noise but Frank’s heart stops.

“No,” he mouths. This can’t be, it just... can’t.

He looks over at the table of his mortal enemy and almost cries.

“Dude are you okay?” Brendon asks. The smile Frank had worn all day is now replaced with pure horror and he almost wants to shriek.

Frank just stares at nothing for a few seconds looking like someone just shot him, and Brendon asks again if something’s worng but the words don’t make it past Frank’s ears.

“I’ve gotta...” he drifts off, and he doesn’t bother finishing his sentence before he jumps to his feet and runs hurriedly to the bathroom to try and compose himself. He’s also pretty sure he’s about to cry and no one needs to see that.

Gerard walks back to his table with an annoyed expression as he sees Lucas holding his phone. Obviously he can’t get in to look through it because it’s password protected, but he looks down at the small black object with a grimace.

“Why do you have my phone?” Gerard asks.

“The fucking thing kept making fog horn noises!” Lucas says looking up, tossing it to him, so that he barely catches it, and almost drops the drink he’d just gone to get. He hadn’t meant to leave his phone on the table, he just wanted to get a bottle of water from the lunch line and it took like ten minutes because everyone was all crowding the caf. at the same time.

Frank probably texted him, so he hurriedly puts in the password and checks his messages. There’s a total of four new messages.

The first one says, “haha I know me too,” which he assumes is the response to whatever Gerard said. The next one is just the word “wut” and then the third is a key smash, but the last one is worrying.

Pansy: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

Gerard looks at it a little terrified. What does he mean? What the hell just happened?

Watchman: What?

Pansy: Stay the hell away from me. Don’t text me. I’m deleting your number.

This must be some sort of joke, he hopes. Maybe someone stole Frank’s phone and is just messing around. What’s going on?

Watchman: What’s wrong? What did I do?

Pansy: And blocking you.

Frank types the words as he sits on the floor of the bathroom, not caring if someone walks in. He can’t even breathe right now. He just can’t believe any of this happened. How can someone he likes so much be so horrible? That Alvin guy? How could that greasy blonde be Watchman? Quickly, Frank rushes into a stall as he feels tears forming in his eyes and he rests his back against the stall door.

Through his tears the phone screen looks blurry, and the smudges of his tear covered fingers leave rainbow streaks on the hard surface. He quickly and surely blocks the number, and deletes the texts.

He has to abandon everything he thought about Watcman and forget him. He can’t just set aside the fact that that person is a bully, and a monster. The first step he has to take is to forget about Watchman and having that reminder in text form could kill him, so his entire inbox is erased out of spite.

“Frank? Is something wrong?” Brendon’s voice asks.

“Go away,” he says.

“I... am so lost. Did I do something?”

“No,” Frank says and he tries to calm his breathing, “I just need to be alone right now, okay?”

“Alright, but uh, tell me if you need to talk or something,” he says back, and Frank hears the door close behind him.

Frank lets out a loud and rather ugly sounding sob, but covers his mouth, paranoid that someone is going to hear. He bites down on his arm through his sleeve and the pressure pains him, but it’s the best he can do to keep the strangled goose sounds from coming out of his throat.

When Frank finally feels confident enough to leave the stall he walks out and makes sure his eyes aren’t too red in the mirror, but when he checks his watch he sees that he’s already late for his fourth period class and swiftly exits the bathroom.

“Shit,” he says, and hurries back to his locker to grab his things then he sprints off down the hallway to class.

When he arrives his teacher isn’t too keen on his late arrival. He’s a thin man with not much hair up top, and a painfully unappealing comb over.

“Frank, you’re late.”

“No shit Sherlock,” he says. Probably shouldn’t have said that to an already rattled teacher. He might’ve gotten off with just a warning if he’d kept his mouth shut, but he’s not exactly in the best of moods and his teacher isn’t at all afraid to give him a pink slip.

Frank checks it and sighs. ‘Talking back to the Teacher’ is such a stupid thing to get detention for. Everyone talks back to the teacher they just do it out of ear shot, yet Frank is the only one with a detention for it.

He goes over to sit next to Brendon who looks completely unimpressed with Frank’s snarky display.

“Someone’s had a bit of a mood swing,” he says, quietly so that the teacher can’t hear.

“Can we just,” Frank pauses so as not to yell or make a rude remark, “just not talk about it. I’m not in a good mood.”

“Exactly. Whatever happened must have been some hell of a fuck-up for you to have gone from Spongebob to Squidward so hastily.”

Frank doesn’t say anything in response he just folds his arms on his desk and rest his head between them, surrounding himself in a dark enclosure for a half minute or so. He just needs to gather his thoughts.

How could someone so perfect be so imperfect? Why couldn’t Watchman have been the cute red head? The one with the soul! The universe just isn’t that kind though apparently, because Frank had to get saddled with the greasy bully. He can’t be friends with Watchman after finding that out though. There’s just no way. He can never forgive someone who got so much pleasure out of hurting him. He doesn’t even want to think about being near someone who is such a sadist! Someone who gets joy out of causing pain and distress. Someone who likes bullying people for fun.

Brendon puts his hand on the back of Frank’s shirt and lightly, but forcefully tugs him up, because they’re teacher would not overly enjoy Frank blatantly ignoring him.

“Do you need to fake a nurse visit, or should I just slap you to wake you up?” Brendon whispers.

“Neither, I’m fine.”

“Yeah and I’m an astronaut,” he replies oozing with sarcasm.

“Alright fine, I’m not okay,” Frank hisses back.

“You promise?” Brendon raises an eyebrow.

“I’m not okay, I promise.”

“There you go. Admitting it is half the battle.”

Frank rolls his eyes and half-heartedly muddles through three more hours of hell and resignedly walks into the detention room for an hour and a half more of hell. He never gets detentions usually. He’s had a few for various reasons like skipping class or for being a bully. The teachers at his school are all extremely stupid and have trouble distinguishing between bullies and victims. If victim blaming was an Olympic sport, than Frank would have the silver, second, of course, to the entire female gender.