Frankie stuffed the letterman in his bag as he entered his homeroom class. He had no intention of wearing it.

His Homeroom was in some random classroom on the highest floor of the school. Next to all the music classrooms, but somehow wasn’t a music classroom itself. They didn’t have random musical notes painted on the walls and they didn’t have any instruments.

Knowing the people in his homeroom, they’d probably start smashing keyboard keys and strumming the acoustic guitars if they had any. Nothing Frankie could take first thing in the morning.

Mrs Tellor was sitting at her desk, she looked over the monitor and smiled at him.

There was nothing wrong with the way she smiled, but there was nothing Frankie liked about it. He gave her a quick smile back before rushing to his seat.

There was an empty seat next to Emery, and then another next to one of Delilah’s friends. One seat was his, and the other was where an absent Delilah should’ve been.

Emery was on his phone, as he always was in the mornings, and Frankie figured that he was probably going through some digital flashcards.

“You’re late…did something happen?” He asked, raising his eyebrows.

Frankie struggled to find words.

Emery’s sudden interest took him by surprise for just a moment. But when Frankie realised that he’d only ever been late a couple of times, it made sense why Emery was asking.

…Is he worried about me? Frankie thought, almost cracking a smile.

If Emery was missing he’d be worried as well. Emery was never late except for the flu he came down with for a couple of days in both Freshman Year and Sophomore year. He missed the perfect attendance award both years cause of that.

“I got caught in the rain,” Frankie said.

Emery looked him over, “You don’t look too wet,”

“I got a ride,” Frankie explained while fiddling with the hem of his shirt

Emery hummed, but he hesitated to go back to his phone. He looked like he wanted to say something and Frankie noticed, waiting for him to speak.

“What’s…wrong?” Frankie asked.

“You know that party?” Emery started,

He nodded.

He stared at Frankie for a bit before sighing and saying “Nevermind,”. He went back to his phone, while Frankie shrugged and searched for his Math homework in his bag.

They didn’t do much in homeroom. Most of the time Mrs Tellor would just let them go on their phones, do their homework; anything at all, as long as it wasn’t too loud. Sometimes they’d have curriculum-required topics like Sex Ed, or Consent, and other times Mrs Tellor would talk about things herself. Sometimes she’d talk to them about their next steps after high school, and other times she’d talk to them about how to sort out their finances, whether to get a credit card or not.

Mrs Tellor was pretty okay all in all. Frankie had heard of some other homeroom teachers not even letting kids leave to go to the toilet, let alone have their phones out. Mrs Reighleigh made her homeroom listen to her news of choice every morning for 30 minutes straight, it was no wonder so many people skipped out on her.

Frankie looked at the Math homework wearily.

Whatever Mr Cress had set him was not only long, but he didn’t understand the topic at all. Homeroom was the first time he cracked the thing open, and Frankie groaned when he saw the inside of it.

Again? He thought. This wasn’t the homework that most of the class got, no, he was one of five people to get it.

Mr Cress normally gave out a single question to do on their Monday lesson, would remind them on their Wednesday lesson, and then he’d ask for it on their Friday. He never checked each person's homework, and just ‘asked questions on it’. Him ‘asking questions’ would always entail asking Alistair Smith to answer because he was the smartest kid in the class, and Mr Cress knew the rest of the class hadn’t done it.

He hadn’t expected them to do it either because most of the rest of the class were his ‘friends’.

Dalton Cress was a man who laughed and smiled too much, he was also a man who acted as if the people he was teaching were his best friends. He wasn't the type of adult to ask whether he was ‘hip’ or not, he was the type of adult to join in on bullying the less desirable people in the class and pretend it was all a ‘bit of fun’.

Where most of the class got the normal homework, he’d give out another version to the kids he didn’t like, and he very much expected them to do it.

When they couldn’t do the question or got it wrong because it was significantly more difficult, he’d stand them up in front of the class and shout at them for ages. Then he’d make them stand or sit at the back, and depending on how he was feeling he’d give a detention- a maximum of one a week, he tried his best to not look too suspicious.

The class would laugh, of course. They didn’t know he gave out harder questions, they just thought the five of them were exceedingly stupid- a level of stupid that was funny. Unless he had some sick fetish for making minors cry, Frankie figured that he wanted to fit in with a bunch of high schoolers; he wanted to be ‘funny’.

‘It’s only one question, can’t do even that?’ Mr Cress would say.

He’d always split the one question into 20 others, even one wrong meant that they were idiots. The man thought he was comedian, and he was to everyone who wasn’t getting publicly humiliated.

Frankie remembered the day one of them reported him for picking on them. Mr Cress explained to the board that he was just trying to ‘push them’ that they were ‘below target’.

It was Bullshit. None of them were performing high or low in their year, just average, like the rest of the class. The school board didn’t take it seriously, but he’d still stopped for almost the whole semester after getting reported. He behaved as if he were terribly afraid of any consequences, so, Frankie never thought he’d start again.

Great, Frankie thought. It was just his luck that the man would add more shit to his plate, but strangely, it wasn’t all bad to Frankie- there was something that made him happy if just a little bit.

In the strangest way possible, Frankie did miss it a little. He found friendship in their shared fears. The five of them would study together, split up the homework into 4 questions each, and triple-check each answer to make sure it was correct.

When they got all of them right they’d gloat in watching Mr Cress’s disgruntled face.

If they ever got one wrong, they didn’t blame each other and exchanged smiles while standing at the back, shoulder to shoulder. Sometimes they went out to eat at the bakery, something sweet always made it better.

It was a snapshot of friendship that Frankie had never known, even in middle school.

It was nice, but it was fleeting.

He pushed the math question to the side, it either fell next to Emery or on the floor. Even though math was in the afternoon, there was no way he would be able to do that many questions by himself. He was going to get shouted at, probably given a detention, and he could almost hear the snickers in the math classroom right now. Frankie put his head on the table.

He only lifted his head when he realised it was time to leave. He watched people flood out of the room, and caught a glimpse of Emery’s straight black hair until he was gone altogether. Frankie was supposed to walk him to his class.

Frankie packed his things away frantically. He cursed, why didn’t he put his stuff away before the bell rang for first class? Geography was on the first floor and in the opposite direction, ages away from his fourth-floor homeroom.

Why didn’t Emery wake me up? He thought bitterly.

“Good morning Frankie,” Mrs Tellor said, drawing closer to him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” Frankie said as he rushed out of the room.

Mrs Tellor was the typical kind woman. Round, motherly, attentive. She was ginger, with honey-brown eyes, and honey-brown freckles.

Frankie disliked her, thoroughly.

When Freshman year started, Frankie was at the lowest time of his life. His father hated him, he and Foster would never be the same, and he was getting bullied.

Frankie wanted to be gone.

But he knew he wasn’t supposed to think like that, he knew he had to tell someone.

He’d first told Emery. Frankie couldn’t remember his reaction but he remembered his words- talk to the school counsellor, she’ll help you.

When he got there he told her everything except for what happened that summer. Mrs Tellor told him that everyone felt “depressed” sometimes, that she would sort the bullying out, and that there was ‘no father who could ever hate their child’. He believed her, and it made him feel better for just a moment.

But he hadn’t known that she told his dad, he hadn’t known she was ‘required to do that’.

Frankie didn’t remember much from Freshman year- something to do with trauma apparently- but what he did remember was the faint disappointment in his father’s eyes when he got home from school that day.

The way his jaw clenched, and the way he’d looked down at Frankie.

He said that he got a call from the school, and then he asked if what they said was true. Yes or no?

Frankie said no.

The next day, Mrs Tellor asked him how everything went. A large smile was on her face.

Frankie told her to leave him alone.