Purple Hearts

Lying on her bed, Franky had never felt so confused.

Totally confused.

Her body ached and her hands still felt sore from the scratches that James had given to her because of what he did to her. Well almost did to her because somehow, somewhere, someone had answered her prayers and had heard her cries for help. It was Charlie, her old friend Charlie who had seen her car, had got out to investigate and had found James attacking her. He’d flung him off her, had punched him to the ground and was kicking him when Franky had shouted out to leave him alone, that he wasn’t worth the energy.

“You’re drugged up to the eyeballs you fucking shit,” said Charlie. “Look at the state of you.” He said staring down at James. He’d never really liked him, especially after that time he’d slept with Franky for a bet.

“I…I’m sorry,” said James his face cut and bleeding, he looked a mess.

Franky was still lying on the ground, her scratched hands pulling her shirt close together. She felt cold and achy and just wanted to get out of here.

“Sorry?” Charlie spat at him. “You should be more than sorry, just fuck off away from here, fuck off.” He said and with that James couldn’t move quick enough to get away from the situation that he’d got himself into.

Charlie looked over at Franky then held his hand out to her to help her up. He pulled her into him and held on to her, she was shaking.

“Franky did he….?”

“No. He hadn’t got that far but he was going to James, he was going to rape me.” She had said then started sobbing.

“Lets get you home,” said Charlie.

“I can’t go home, Dad will kill him for this. Take me…I don’t know…take me to Billie’s, its not that far from here.” She said.

“Billie’s? Don’t you think Billie will kill James too when he hears about this?”

“I want to see Billie,” said Franky. Going home wasn’t an option. She couldn’t go home because there were too many people there to ask questions, she didn’t want to upset Ramona or Emily and she didn’t want her father to find out about this. To see Billie was the only other thing she wanted to do. “I want to see Billie because he knows that Gerard is taking drugs and is drinking again and I want to know how he knows and why he hasn’t said anything to me.” She said.

“OK, if that’s what you want, Billie’s it is,” said Charlie. Fuck it, Billie’s going to hate finding out about this.

**

Looking over at zip up bag hanging on the back of her door with her mother’s wedding dress inside, Franky still couldn’t get over the fact that Billie had known about Gerard and his drug taking, had known that James had got him into it and had tried his best to get Gerard clean.

But he loved her and he’d done that for her, he’d taken her future husband to clean him up, even though he said he loved her himself. Billie had done that.

For her.

And tomorrow she would face Gerard who had tried calling her so many times, face him and confront him and find out what the fuck he’d been doing.

Turning onto her side away from the wedding dress that was just hanging there she sighed. What would now become of the band? She couldn’t bear the thought of playing in a band with James again. She hated him for what he’d done to her; he’d slept with her for a bet, had plied her fiancée with booze and drugs and had tried to rape her.

She never wanted to see him again but there was still the fact that she could be having his baby.

God it was all so confusing.

Hannah had called her up saying that James was staying with her and Ed and he was begging Franky’s forgiveness but she couldn’t do it and it had caused an argument with Hannah who said that James was in love with Franky and he couldn’t help his actions because of the drugs. But Franky wasn’t going to give in on this. She couldn’t forgive James, not yet, it was too soon.

Julia was going home tomorrow, late afternoon and she was going to miss her. When she’d got home earlier she’d gone to Julia and told her exactly what had happened.

“Franky,” she said. “If your mother was here today, what would she make of all this? What advice do you think she would have given you.” Said Julia, hoping that this girl in front of her would see sense soon.

Everyone knew what she should be doing, everyone that is apart from her.

She was blind as to what was right in front of her.

“I think…I think she would say that I shouldn’t be getting married and that I was getting married for all the wrong reasons. She’d sit me down and have a real good talk to me. We always talked things through. I still miss her.” She said then burst out crying. “Oh Julia I really need to talk to Gerard, just to see why he has been taking drugs again. I need him to explain to me, to be open with me.”

Julia went to hug Franky, feeling so sorry for the girl; she had grown fond of and close to these past few weeks. She’d wanted to speak to Tre about the situation to ask him to talk to her but he couldn’t see it, all he saw was that he thought Franky was happy and his little girl was going to be a mother and he just wanted the best for her. She’d wanted to mention to Tre that Franky was still only young and didn’t really know what she was doing for the best but she couldn’t approach him, even after all the talks they’d had she couldn’t talk to him about this because she’d always thought he’d see it for himself.

Now it was too late and Franky needed someone to talk to and she didn’t think she was the right person.

Who was? She sort of knew who was the best person for her to talk to and that was Billie because it was obvious to her that he cared for Franky very much. In fact, she was sure it was obvious to everyone, it must be.

“Speak to him tomorrow then,” said Julia, “you’re getting married to the guy after all, you really need to talk, get it out into the open and get his view.”

“I wish you weren’t going home,” said Franky just before she left the room.

So do I thought Julia but there’s nothing I can do about it.

**

So Franky was still confused, she still wanted to talk to Billie one more, properly because Charlie had been with her today. She needed to speak to him alone, just the two of then and she supposed she had to talk to Gerard to get his side of the story.

But first, she had some thinking to do because now she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to marry Gerard at all.