The walk took longer than Frankie expected it to, he hadn’t thought there’d be so many sidewalks that just randomly stopped or that the paths that maps gave him were completely wrong. He knew maps could be untrustworthy but not to that extent.

Frankie walked through a part of town that he didn’t know very well and started to think that he should’ve just accepted Ezra’s offer to drive him.

He was starting to like Ezra, more than he should, so he needed to stay away from him before he got to caught up in liking him. There were plenty of opportunities for him to ice out their relationship a bit and his idiot self had to choose the opportunity that would land him outside in what felt like subzero temperatures.

It was hard not to for some like him, someone who fell for the smallest bit of kindness. He thought briefly about Malcolm, a guy from sophomore year, and winced. He embarrassed Frankie to the whole school; whole world.

The memory reminded him that even if Ezra liked him back it would never end well between the two of them.

Frankie checked his phone when he got to a junction, looking between the roads and the screen to check if he was taking the right path. He was about to walk then someone tugged him by his hood.

“Hello?” Frankie said as he turned around, he breathed in sharply when he was met with Jenner Jenson's face. A face that looked worse than it normally was.

Frankie hadn’t seen him since Monday, he hadn’t come to any English classes nor had Frankie seen him in the halls.

“I didn't mean it, okay?” he said, wincing as he opened his mouth too widely.

Frankie shrank away from him, uncomfortable. “Didn't mean what?”

“Exactly. I haven’t done shit,” he said under his breath before continuing. “Being a dick, okay?”

Frankie blinked, mouth agape. What in the hell?

“You heard that right? I didn't mean it,” he said again, “Just tell him to back off okay?”

“Tell who?” Frankie asked. He had no idea what was going on, why was Jenner acting like he was in cahoots with someone?

Jenner scrunched up his face and then groaned a little, pressing fingers lightly on his face. “Ezra.”

Frankie’s brows raised.

“He’s been making my life hell for a week straight, fuck, just tell him to stop, okay?”

Frankie was stumped by the information but most of all he was stumped by the sheer audacity.

“Why should I?”

The road next to them was empty, not as single car, as empty as the silent air between the two.

Jenner looked straight at Frankie, the slightest furrow between his brows. “I said I didn't mean it.” He said faintly.

His face wasn’t twisted into the familiar anger, it was blank. You could see the purple bruise on his left eye clearly the yellowed skin around it, and the blood pooled into the whites of the eye—a busted blood vessel. He had a swelling lump on his forehead and his lip was sliced open.

He looked in pain and Frankie couldn’t care less.

“You did,” Frankie said, blankly.

Jenner shook his head and laughed. “You and your boyfriend can screw yourselves, gays. You think I- you think my family deserves this just because I messed with you a couple of times?”

Boyfriend?

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jenner’s jaw clenched, he grunted, and held his fist back.

When he turned around to see if anyone was looking at them Frankie knew he was gonna come at him with a punch. It was one Frankie ‘dodged’ by just moving out of the way, Jenner was tired and he was terribly slow. The punch was practically in slow motion.

“You think I’m gonna help you if you beat me up?” Frankie asked.

“You’re not gonna help me either way,” he said, “I’ll blow off some steam, and it’s not like he can get back at me again he already beat the shit out of me.”

“I’ll ask him about it,” Frankie said. The way Jenner was looking at him like he had nothing to lose was kinda scary. Frankie was up for a couple of punches, maybe a kick, not whatever Ezra did to Jenner done to him— something that would make him cry for the first time in years. Jenner didn’t look like he could do much in the state he was in but Frankie wasn’t taking any chances.

Jenner looked him up and down, chest rising and fists clenched.

Frankie contemplated running away from him and shot that idea down quickly. He remembered the first time he tried to run away from Jenner, didn’t end well.

Frankie swallowed, nervously. His body wasn’t choosing between fight or flight, it was freezing while wondering how the blows could be lessened and whether Jenner would spare his face.

“Jenner!” Someone shouted in the near distance.

His face flickered with fear and he didn’t dare to turn around.

“You better ask him,” Jenner said before looking between left and right and choosing the street on the right.

Jenner held his side as he walked off, stumbling and struggling with every step taken.

That boy didn’t look like the big bad Jenner Jenson Frankie had always known him as—he looked weak and small.