Frankie was abandoned, again.

He stared at the fading mural in front of him, and his eyes traced a grey blob that just barely passed for a tiger- the school's mascot. He tried his best to focus on something other than all the people staring at him. They watched him as they would an unpopular circus attraction- more odd than entertaining, too pitiful to laugh at.

Frankie knew that look well, and he hated it. After all, it wasn’t a crime to be alone, it wasn't as if he didn’t want friends.

The bell rang, and he finally decided to walk to his classroom. The hallways were crowded, they always were, packed to death with people who liked to stand or just walked entirely too slowly.

Frankie knew to squeeze his way past, slow enough that he wasn't shoving but fast enough for people to get a hint and move out of the way. He knew to take the shortcut through the west entrance of the school, since no one went that way on Wednesday mornings.

Then he finally got to his English class, with two minutes to spare. He didn’t go in just yet, and leaned against the wall instead

How could I be doing something wrong? Frankie thought. If he was doing something wrong, Frankie couldn’t see it, all he knew was that for some reasons friends just didn’t like him.

Friends like Delilah White.

Delilah had to leave after suddenly remembering that Mrs Jones wanted to see her early morning, about an English project that she hadn’t turned in. She’d apologised to Frankie while glued to her phone, as she’d been the entire morning- as she was every morning.

He’d put aside the lazy apology, it was in typical Delilah fashion to ignore him. But the ‘English Project’ that’d materialised out of thin air felt strange.

Frankie hadn’t hear about this ‘English project’ at all.

Delilah White always had something to say- whether it was gloating about her grandmother not being dead, or what she should have for dinner that night- appropriate or not, she’d say it all the same. If there was ever something about Delilah’s life that Frankie didn’t know, he’d know it soon enough, and would know it well.

Especially school assignments, she never shut up about them. Frankie remembered her deadlines before his own.

So, she made that project up.

She made that project up to weasel her way out of walking Frankie to class.

Delilah was very desperate to get rid of him, and that wasn’t the first time she lied to do so. He once thought that he might just set her free from the misery of having to be his friend since she didn’t seem to want to do that herself, for whatever strange reason.

It was too bad Frankie was a lot more desperate than her.

Then there was Emery Arlo.

The three of them, which was half their friend group, walked each other to their morning classes since they all had homeroom together. Everything was fine on the days they weren’t walking Frankie to his classes, but as soon as they were something ‘went wrong’ or ‘came up a lot of the time’.

Delilah did it on purpose, obviously, but Frankie wasn’t sure about Emery Arlo.

Emery was tall, about 6 foot- something like that- and he tended to leave Frankie and Delilah behind more often than not.

It didn’t look like he was doing it on purpose, Frankie hoped he wasn’t, it felt more like he didn’t care for the two of them- didn’t see the point in walking them anywhere. Going through flashcards, and listening to study guides on his headphones seemed a lot more important to Emery.

It’s only a five minute walk, Frankie thought. He was getting used to it, but it still stung.

They were his friends, shouldn’t they be around him, or at least want to? It wouldn’t hurt as badly if they hadn’t promised. He couldn’t have been disappointed if they hadn’t set the expectation in the first place.

“Frankie? You've been standing in front of the door for a while now, love. Are you okay? Do you want to talk?” Someone said.

It was the Counsellor, she peaked her head out of the door directly opposite English.

“No, Mrs Tellor, I’m fine,” Frankie said, waving her off.

Frankie didn't want her help, and didn't need it either.

He pushed against the English door and went in.

His English classroom was small, and the lack of windows confirmed that it really was a repurposed janitor's closet.

It was big for a Janitor’s closet, but for a classroom? Tiny. Delilah had once told him at the start of the year that the rest of the English teachers had given Mr Moore- his English teacher- the ‘shitty small room’ because they didn’t like him much. Frankie didn’t think that teachers got to decide their classrooms, but either way, whoever decided definitely didn’t like him.

He got to his front-row seat, and took the extra care to make sure he didn’t trip like he did last week. There were too many bags on the floor, and no one ever wanted to move theirs for him.

He set his bag down, and turned his attention to the front of the class.

Mr Moore sat on his wheely chair as usual, and stared at the class as usual. He looked like shit, as he always did, and smelled like it as well. There was a reason people didn’t like Mr Moore, reasons: he was socially awkward, gave out assignments twice a week, didn’t look ‘right’, and didn’t smell right either. He was a huge man, somewhere around 500 pounds, and travelled around the small confines of the classroom by wheely chair. No one had ever seen him leave the school- whether walking or…wheeling, and some figured that he might not be able to walk at all.

It wasn’t hard to dislike Mr Moore,

It wasn't nice either.

He wiped sweat from his forehead, pushing limp strands of black hair to the side. Of the many teachers balding in Easgrey High, Mr Moore was one of them.

“Pass this sheet around,” He said as he gave Hilary Cox the attendance sheet.

They always did it by paper in his class, and passed it around. Didn’t work most of the time, something always ended up happening to it before it got back to Mr Moore.

It didn’t make much sense, there was digital one he could use right infront of him

When the paper finally did get back to Mr Moore, he looked less than happy.

It was all ripped up, and even wet.

He held the limp sheet up in the air.

“Who was it?” Mr Moore said. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and a frown etched itself into his face. He looked deeply tired.

They all knew who it’d been, the boys at the back of the class had been sniggering the whole time they had the attendance sheet.

“He’s making a big deal out of nothing,” someone said towards the back

“You lot at the back, I can always just pick someone,” He said, “I can pick someone or you can tell me who it was,”

Someone groaned, “It was an accident, okay?”

“Jenner Jenson, Don’t speak to me that way,” He said, “Not just the sheet either, you’ve been talking since the start of the lesson after I specifically told you to be quiet,”

A couple of humorous gasps sounded out, maybe some giggles.

Jenner Jenson went by JJ, and Frankie knew it’d been him speaking before Mr Moore even called him out. He had an annoying, grating, voice which was far too memorable.

He was a football player, with a position Frankie couldn’t remember or had never been told about. Jenner was badmouthed, rude, uncouth, and had his own posse of lackeys who were just as unpleasant as him. He disliked weird, loners, and hated Frankie. If there was a shitty unfunny joke to be made in English class, Frankie would be the target of it more often than not.

“Don’t call me that, piggy” He said.

“I’ll stop calling you, that, when you start listening to me- my name’s not piggy either, very immature of you,” Mr Moore said sternly, “I know it was one of you at the back, maybe it was all of you- I don’t care. One of you own up, and come to the front, or all of you are getting detention.”

They all went quiet.

“Coach is gonna bench me if I get another one this week,” Jenner said. Frankie heard him clearly from the front of the class, he didn’t seem to know how to whisper.

“He can’t give all of us detention,” another said, confidently.

“I can,” said Mr Moore.

None of them seemed to know how to whisper.

Mr Moore raised his head to look at some of those boys, he glanced at all of them until his eyes landed on one and his eyebrows raised.

“Ezra Grant,” He said, “Get up, now,”

Frankie only took a quick glance towards the back, for fear of catching Jenner’s eye.

Loose black curls hung close to his forest green eyes. His skin was olive-toned, and he had a couple of flat moles dotted on his face

Ezra frowned in confusion.

“I saw you talking to ‘JJ’. Front. Now,”

“I wasn’t talking to him,” Ezra replied.

“Front. Now,”

His chair shuffled, and then he was standing.

Ezra Grant was a football player. He was also Frankie’s brother’s best friend.

He was quiet, and he was pretty well-off.

That was all Frankie knew about Ezra.

“Where?” Ezra said, his voice a little louder than it was before.

Frankie didn’t bother watching for the rest of it. As always, Mr Moore would pick one of those boys to come to the front and sit next to someone, and Frankie knew it wouldn’t be him.

He wasn’t as smart as Cameron Brent, nor was he a teacher's pet like Hilary Cox.

He probably didn’t even exist in Mr Moore’s head.

Frankie, instead, searched his bag for his pencil case once again. He’d searched at the start of the class but he hadn’t found it then. Maybe he left it at home?

“Next to Frankie,” He said.

His heart lurched, and his throat went dry. It wasn’t Ezra that was the problem, it was his friends.

“Who?” someone said. It sounded like a girl's voice, and she wasn’t quiet about her question at all.

Small intermittent chuckles sounded from the back of the class.

Frankie wanted to close his ears, and he tried his best to, he knew very well they were about to humiliate him.

Ezra sat down, and Frankie felt his bag graze his leg as it dropped to the ground.

He whispered a ‘Sorry’ under his breath.

“You think he’s gonna give Ezra rabies?” Jenner said.

Ezra furrowed his brows.

“Rabies?” Some girl questioned, amused.

“Yeah, ‘You seen his teeth? He bites for sure,”

“That’s so fucking horrible,” She said while bursting into laughter.

They were loud enough for everyone in the class to hear them, though the rest of the class that weren’t with Jenner pretended that they couldn’t hear anything at all and kept their heads down to finish the task on the board.

If the whole class were laughing, Frankie would probably cry.

“Guys, that’s literally Foster’s brother,” someone said.

They went silent for a moment.

“Shut up,” said one girl, “They don’t look like each other at all,”

“They just have the same last name don’t they?” said another girl.

“I’m not lying, they are, I saw him go home with Foster once,”

“That doesn’t mean shit-”

“They are brothers,” Jenner clarified, “Irish twins.”

“Told you,” The guy said to a girl.

She kissed her teeth before speaking, “He told me he has a brother that goes here, he didn’t say the brother was…Frankie,”

“You were gonna ask him out weren’t you?” The guy said, chuckling a bit.

He shouted ‘ow’ right after. Frankie assumed she’d hit him.

“Well, yes. Foster turned me down, so I was gonna try out his brother, but…I should take a break from dating instead…gosh. You’d never guess they were related, no wonder he never told us who his brother was.”

“Really though,” Jenner started, snickering a little, “ If I had a brother like that, wouldn’t want anyone to know either,”