You're My Nicotine

He was pacing, he knew that. What he didn't know was why the hell the doctor hadn't returned with news yet.

"Billie, you need to stay calm."

The punk sighed in frustration. "Don't tell me to stay calm, Adie," he said.

How could Billie Joe stay calm? His daughter was found unconcious with no warning but just an empty pill bottle, and then Frank announces she's been on pills secretly for the past year and a half.

"She's been living on pills to get her through the days since Aidan died," he had said out of nowhere, just like that.

"This is just unbelievable," Billie exhaled, finally standing on the spot, rubbing his forehead, "October on prescription pills 24/7... my baby, my little girl..."

"I'm so sorry I didn't tell you," Frank apologised deeply. He had raced straight to the hospital as soon as he got the call from the petrified parents. "But I have been helping her brake the habit, and she was doing so well... until..."

Billie Joe stared at him questionnally, eagerly. "Until?" he pushed, Adrienne looking up at the younger man from her seat in the waiting room, "Until what?"

Frank closed his eyes for a brief moment and opened them again with a gulp. This was it. "The night of the prom, she came to me, she was upset because my cousin, Ethan, likes her but she doesn't feel the same way, she told me she liked someone else... and that I was that someone..." he trailed off. Billie had never been attentive to every syllable Frank uttered. "Anyway, we... we ended up kissing, but that's all we did, I swear to you, and I told her that absolutely nothing could go any further with us..."

Both parents stared at him with a gaze that made him extremely uncomfortable, shock plastered across both their faces.

"Please tell me you are joking, Iero," Billie told him sternly.

The younger man shook his head nervously, "I'm sorry."

Billie just shook his head in disbelief, "Do you know how weird that is?" he said, "I mean, you, Frank..."

"I didn't mean for it to get like this-"

"So what, your lips accidentally fell on my daughter's? Is that it?"

"No, not at all-"

"Well what then, you just couldn't keep your hands off the seventeen year old?"

"No, it's not like that-!" Frank tried to explain, but kept getting cut off.

"So what then, Frank?"

"Look!" Adrienne cried, standing from her seat, silencing the pair, and then turned to Frank. "Okay, so I knew October was crazy about you, that was obvious, I mean, she never shuts up about you, but... I thought it was just a high school crush that wouldn't get anywhere... I didn't realise you would lead her on when you knew nothing could happen between you both. How could you do that to her, Frank? How could you break her heart like that?" Her eyes were welling up by this point. "That's obviously the reason she took the pills..." her voice wobbled, "She wanted to... she wanted to... end everything, Oh God!" She cracked and clasped her hands over her mouth, the tears falling freely now. She turned away and began to sob quietly back in the seat

Frank furrowed his brow sadly, looking down at his trembling fingers as they fiddled with each other. Billie Joe and Adrienne felt they were betrayed by him. He was there to help October get through the loss of her best friend, not to break her even more than she was broken already.

"I need you to go, you cannot see our daughter anymore," Billie tried to get out solidly, but was too overcome by emotion, so just came out in a loud whisper. Frank kept his focus on his hands, his eyes prickling. "You've done what you needed to do," Billie continued, his voice returning. "You didn't tell us about the pills, I mean, we could have gotten perfessional help for her, Frank..."

Adrienne's restrained sobs were the only thing filling the silence that came between his strong words, and they made Frank feel sick.

"I want you to delete her number... and delete her from your life entirely."

Billie never thought he would be saying this to his fellow punk friend, it was sort of surreal... but his cold statements hit Frank like a ton of bricks and Frank felt he would fall from the force any second.

"Things didn't get better..." the older man almost spat to the shorter, "They just got worse."

Frank let out a rattling breath and finally looked the bolder man in the eye, his own eyes pink and stinging. "I'm so sorry," he murmured, Billie Joe only turned away and his glazed eyes moved down to the wife.

"Just go, Frank," she weeped.

He bit the inside of his bottom lip and held it between his teeth as a way to stop him from making any kind of noise possible. Bowing his head again, he slowly spun around and started down the waiting room, turning down the corner at the end.

Frank gulped down his emotions and forced back the tears he didn't wish to shed as he made his way down the hall of the hospital. He passed an old man in a wheelchair, a nurse clutching onto papers like they were her everything, and a woman standing outside the room of her lover, gulping down fresh water carelessly.

After carrying on after this woman, he looked into the next room and halted to a stop. He slowly stepped over to the small window and peered inside, his glossy hazel eyes landing on his heart ache.

She was lying under the white sheets of the wheel bed, her closed eyelids smudged darkly with the make up, the few multicoloured bangles still around her wrists, her earlier straightened hair now wavy. She looked so peaceful, just lying there, like she had nothing to worry about, like she wasn't a girl with a mixed up mind.

A male doctor in his early forties came out of the room in a long white coat and clipboard. As he closed the door, he spotted Frank and stepped over.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Frank asked, a plea surging through his words, his eyes fixed on October through the window.

"She's going to be fine," he replied, a smile on his round face, "We did some tests and she hadn't consumed a whole bottle of pills... just a couple headache tablets."

Frank looked up at the taller doctor, his eyes alit, and asked, "You mean she didn't overdose?"

The friendly doctor shook his head and Frank let out a sigh of relief.

"The tablets are very strong, and reacted to the alcohol she drank," he explained, "It was too much for her body to handle... Her parents told me she had been complaining of a headache earlier, I'm sure they'll be relieved to know it wasn't attempted suicide."

"Yeah," Frank nodded, "Yeah, they will be."

The doctor pulled out a pen from his front pocket and said, "You can go in and see her if you wish, I'm going to go and spread the good news to the parents." He gave Frank another smile before heading off in the direction of the waiting room.

Frank walked into October's room and gently closed the door behind him. Knowing Billie Joe and Adrienne would want to come and see their daughter as soon as possible, he knew he didn't have much time to stay.

The only noise in the room was the beeping of the heart monitor that was plugged up to her. Other wires were coming out of her also, it made him feel queazy to see her like this.

Softly walking over to her bedside, Frank looked down at October's sleeping face. She looked so weak, so fragile. This was not the face he had grown to known, this was a different face. It was a paler face. Even though this hadn't been a suicidal gesture, he knew Billie still wouldn't let him near his daughter anyway, and he knew he shouldn't see October anymore, just for himself, for October's and his own sake.

Frank felt like the past six months had so much of an impact on him and he was so bummed he had to walk away from it all. This had all been too sudden, he wasn't ready to leave all this behind in the past.

He raised a hand hesitantly and used it to stroke the familiar chocolate brown hair, biting his lip in guilt and sorrow. He unsteadily leaned his face down to her head and pressed his lips softly to the top of it, before whispering into her hair.

"Goodnight, baby."

People looked up from their seats and magazines as the miserable punk-rock kid from New Jersey walked away from October's life forever.