Frankie took small glances at Ezra.

Nothing too strange or too obvious. When Mr Moore left the classroom in his wheelchair Frankie watched him do so, and just happened to catch a glimpse of Ezra. When Frankie looked at the clock to check what time it was, he just happened to take a quick glance at Ezra. Then when Ezra asked him for a rubber, their eyes might have met for just a second too long.

Peek after peek, and Frankie got a vague idea of the person sitting next to him. Ezra was slouched in his chair, so much so that it just about made them the same height. He was leaning backwards, with his arms crossed, and looked like he had no intention of doing any work. He didn’t even have an exercise book infront of him, only a pencil which he didn’t look like he was doing anything with, even though he’d asked for rubber.

All in all, Frankie felt like he did a pretty good at stealing glances.

Frankie yawned a bit. The tiredness was really getting to his head.

That Sunday ‘morning’ he’d gone to bed at 4am then and slept till 4pm. After that, he made sure to only go downstairs to get something to eat after 8pm- when his dad would leave for work- he also made sure to avoid Foster the entire time.

He did everything in his power to make sure that he didn’t run into the two of them, and it worked, he only ran into his brother once. Foster didn’t try to speak to Frankie at all.

So now it was Monday, and his annoyance had fizzled out, which was good because Cedric had told him via a note under his door that Foster would be driving Frankie everywhere, exceptions being ‘very extraordinary circumstances’ and ‘Foster’- whatever the last exception meant.

Trust Cedric to not know Frankie well, but know exactly where to hit him; where it would hurt the most. Having to spend extra time with a brother he hadn’t really known since Freshman Year was a layer of hell he didn’t deserve. He’d keep it up with it for the first couple of days but that was it.

Cedric didn’t have a conscience, Frankie was convinced. He had once admitted to disliking Frankie when he came home drunk one night, so the man clearly knew what he had done wrong. He should’ve felt guilty, guilty enough to ignore the consequences of Frankie’s actions and let him off for any wrongdoings.

He should be spoiling Frankie to death, not dishing out punishments like a good Father would. Cedric would never apologise to him, and would therefore never be a good father. If he could never be a good father, why couldn’t he be a lenient one?

Frankie heard a voice calling from the back, and he ignored it.

If it was anything to do with behind him, he didn’t want it. Especially after what happened between him and Jenner on Saturday night- Sunday morning? He was surprised Jenner hadn’t dragged him off somewhere and beat the shit out of him.

Though, this was unlike the time in Junior year when Jenner had shoved Frankie every time he saw him for a week straight after Frankie shoved into him by accident once earlier that week. Ultimately ending in him beating him up on Friday of that week, and finally getting his revenge.

It looked like a simple apology was good enough for Jenner this time.

“Frankie,” whispered Jenner. It was louder this time and stuck out against the normal classroom chatter. Frankie noticed Hillary, in the front row, raise an eyebrow and look behind her checking whether she was hallucinating hearing his name or not.

Soon more of his friends seemed to join in.

“Frankie,” they whispered in between giggles, “Frankie, did you come to Kennedy’s place on Saturday?”

“I swear I saw you,”

“Frankie, turn around, why are you ignoring us? We didn’t mind that much, you can come to the next one,”

“Frankie, we wanted to hang out with you,”- he laughed in between his words, amused by his own joke-”We really wanted to play by the pool,”

Frankie covered his ears a bit, he knew that he’d be confirming that they annoyed him- that they’d want to do it even more- but the sounds of people whispering his name made his skin crawl, and with the amount of people joining in he doubted that they would stop any time soon.

Just a bit later, Frankie felt something graze his neck. It took him by surprise, and his hands fell from his ears. He watched the thing bounce onto his desk

It was a scrunched-up piece of paper, one he wasn’t going to read.

“Read it already, Frankie” someone whispered, “Frankie, what are those glasses even for if you don’t use them?,”

“Read it or else, Frankie,”

“We’ll just send another one,” said someone while giggling.

He didn’t bother with them, they’d keep throwing notes whether he read that one or not. There’d be some nasty message when he opened it, and while it’d be nothing he hadn’t seen before he didn’t want to see it again.

Frankie felt a jolt, coming from his right.

He watched Ezra pick something from the ground, a piece of paper identical to the one that had just been thrown at him.

He heard a “Shit” come from the back as Ezra opened the paper.

Then Ezra grabbed the other one on the table, and read through that as well.

Ezra turned to his side, his knees grazing against Frankie’s thigh.

“‘No one likes you, go kill yourself, heart,’” Ezra said slowly, under his breath which only Frankie could hear, “‘Read the notes, you ugly bitch’”

Typical, Frankie thought.

It wasn’t nice to hear right now but the truth always hurt didn’t it? It was taking a while for him to become used to words about his appearance, the pain never seemed to damper, but he’d accept it soon enough- it was the cold hard truth.

“Jenson?” Ezra asked. Jenner Jenson always went by JJ, and Frankie only called him Jenner in the comfort of his head, whether it was his full name or his first, it was ‘disrespectful’ all the same.

If it was anyone else, he would’ve mouthed off to them- like he did to Mr Moore just last week- and to some people, like Frankie, he would’ve beat them into the ground.

If it was anyone else, Jenner would’ve been pissed off atleast.

“Yes?” Jenner replied, timidly.

But it was Ezra Grant.

Jenner always seemed afraid of him, as if he was holding something over his head.

Ezra said, blankly, “What is this?”

When Frankie couldn’t resist turning around, he saw that pretty much all of the class was turned around or sneaking glances.

Seeing Jenner’s face was pure bliss. His eyes darted everywhere but Ezra, and he struggled to breath. He was nervous, and Frankie enjoyed every second of it.

“...It wasn’t meant for you,” He explained, meekly, “It was an accident…you know I can’t throw that good-”

“Apologise then,”

The look on Jenner’s face was an obvious dread. You would have thought Ezra asked him to lick his feet- keel over and die even.

“...I’m sorry I didn’t mean it,” Jenner said. It took a bit, it looked like he had to strangle the words out of him.

Hushed laughs came from the back of the class.

Jenson muttered something. His lips moved, but not even the people around him could here what he said judging by the way they moved closer to try and hear him. He curled into himself like a crab hiding in its shell.

“.... keep it down sometimes,” said one friend. He leaned into Jenson with a concern tinged with amusement.

“Yeah, you’re like really loud man,” said someone else.

Ezra scrunched the notes up before speaking, “The trash,” he said before holding the paper up for Jenner to come get.

Jenner did as he said with no complaint, getting up and sitting down as fast as he could.

Mr Moore came in just a moment later. He seemed confused by the utter silence in the room, save for a couple of laughs.

---

I don't care much for this chapter so have a little drawing of a scene from next weeks chapter.

(I haven't drawn a guy in a while so be nice)