Frankie Fever

I didn’t see Frank for three months after the meeting when we returned home. After he was sent to a Young Offenders Institute, I tried to visit him - love me or not, he was still my best friend. But he wouldn’t see me. The officers would return, shaking their heads, and apologetically inform me that he’d asked for me to go away. I didn’t give up.

I’d go there every Saturday morning to try and visit him. For twelve weeks, I took the bus across the city and walked half a mile to get to my destination and returned with nothing. They informed me that Frank had been having ’difficulties’ settling in. He’d been experiencing night terrors, anxiety, franticness, depression and had been screaming at night for a ’Gee’.

Returning to school and trying to restore myself back to normal life felt completely surreal after all that had happened. I’d walk the halls, feeling like a ghost, listening to complaints about homework and parents. Robotically, I’d make my notes in class, stare blankly whenever I was asked a question and then leave when the bell rang. Three thirty would come and I’d walk home, head straight upstairs and do any homework. Mom would knock on the door and enter with a coffee and a cookie for me. Sometimes I’d eat and drink, sometimes I wouldn’t. I’d always remain still until she’d gone.

She sat with me once and told me I had nothing to worry about. While she wasn’t proud of what I’d done, she ‘understood‘. How I began to loathe that word. She didn’t understand at all. This had never happened to her. It wasn’t exactly your average teenage experience.

Mom swore blind it didn’t matter that I was gay. I was still the same person to her and she loved me the same. Of course, hearing your liberal mother telling you ‘it’s okay’ is exactly what you want to hear when your best friend’s gone to a Young Offenders Institute, your heart has been broken and you’re struggling to keep your grip on reality.

The rumours about me and Frank spread pretty quickly. First of all, it was announced to our grade that Frank would no longer be with us due to unforeseeable circumstances. Then the whole story leaked. One of the cops involved in the case had a kid in the grade above me. She knew Frank pretty well, heard everything and told a ‘few friends‘. Amazing how a few friends soon becomes the whole school.

Quite often, I’d be met with looks of curiosity. That Gerard, kid, the weird one? He’s gay? Really? Shame. He was kinda’ cute. Like I care. I was drilled with questions on a daily basis. What was it like? Who was on top? Is getting touched by a guy the same as getting touched by a girl? How had I managed to turn him gay? Did he bite with everyone or was it just with her? Sarah became my messiah. She’d either order people to leave me alone or give a vicious, sarcastic answer to any question thrown my way. She was the one who shooed the crowd away in the cafeteria and sat next to me with her tray of lunch. She was there when it all became too much for me. She even stayed over at my place sometimes, just so I didn’t have to be alone.

I felt completely empty without him. I’d even taken to sleeping with my half of that little strip of photos under my pillow. There was no bright eyes and wide smile for me in the morning anymore. No one to slip vodka into my coke at lunch. I missed the feeling of husky breath in my ear to suggest we skipped last period and went to the mall. It was like my life had lost all meaning as I had lost him. Sarah had hugged me tightly when I told her this and then said ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.’ Stupid and cliché as it seemed, she was right. That became my mantra.

So I lived my robotic life, making that journey every Saturday and returning unsuccessful. Until, one day:

“Certainly, if you’d like to come through here, please.”

And there he was. Sitting at a little table, elbow on the table and his chin resting in his hand. He was thinner and didn’t look particularly well. But he was still here. I’d began to wonder if he’d ever existed at all. Now I had the reassurance. At least now I knew he wasn’t a figment of my imagination and it had all happened. Even if he told me to go away and leave him alone, I knew this was all real and he hadn’t disappeared from the face of the Earth.

The first thing he did was throw his arms around me and sob. I returned the fervour appreciatively, breathing in deeply to catch his smell. At least he smelt the same. I inhaled some more as I squeezed him tight, trying not to cry myself. He sobbed into my shoulder, stroking my hair. I smiled to myself gently.

“Hey, Frankie.”