Miss Ballato had never really thought much of Jamia Nestor: that girl who sat in the back and didn't say much, with her headphones in, and she reckoned no one knew, but everyone knew, but she seemed to show at least a spark of enthusiasm for the subject, so she let it slide, anyway, in a class like this, Lindsey had much worse things to worry about than the girl that didn't particularly care much for the mind-numbingly idiotic gossip and chatter of a high school classroom. Although it seemed that as of recent, Lindsey herself had become far more accustomed to it than she would ever care to admit.

Gerard knew, of course, but Gerard Way just knew things, remember?

Anyway, Lindsey was busy throughout her life of not really giving too much of a fuck about Jamia Nestor and what she may or may not do in the back of her classroom, until a rather fateful day, in which she found herself inside at lunch time, looking for some goddamn folder that she'd somehow misplaced, and in the act of doing so, she stumbled into an unused closet full of junk, and found herself shell shocked at who she found inside it... not in a metaphorical sense, but that did kind of apply too, but in the literal closet, stood Jamia Nestor herself, jumping a little as she noticed Miss Ballato's presence, and in the act of doing so, a little bag fell from her grasp and onto the closet floor.

Lindsey followed the bag's journey with her eyes: neither her nor Jamia making a move to pick it up for at least a minute after, and in fact, it looked a lot like Jamia had found herself frozen and stuck to the back wall of the closet, and it was then that Lindsey finally gave the contents of the bag any attention, and in one single moment, Jamia Nestor had become so much more than the girl at the back of the classroom with the headphones, who she let off because she always did the work, and to quite a good standard as well.

Because in that moment, Jamia Nestor became the girl with the pills, and Lindsey knew instantly that these weren't the kind of pills she was supposed to be taking, or anyone was, for that matter, and in another prolonged minute of silence, the art teacher leaned down to pick up the bag, and hold it hesitantly in her palm for a few seconds, before tossing it to the bin in the corner of the room, and exhaling loudly, before she looked up to Jamia's gaze once again.

"I'm not going to say anything about this if you talk to me." She began, running a hand back through her hair, and most likely getting paint in it in the process, because this had been a long day, and Jamia didn't deserve this at all. "I'm not going to say anything regardless: I don't want to threaten you, and I'm not going to, I just... you need help with this, and as your teacher, and even as a decent human being, I can't just turn away and walk out of this door, Jamia."

"Okay." She nodded, exhaling forcefully as she did so, her hands even shaking as she spoke, and she didn't look good at all, although, Lindsey hadn't really expected much of a positive reaction from her in this situation. "Thank you... I guess... I thought... you'd get me into trouble... I can't... I... my mum would kill me..."

"It's not like Mr Urie would even do much if I told him." Miss Ballato added in reassurance, "and I'm not going to phone your mum, this is between us, but I am really worried about you, and I want this to stop and I want you to let me help you, because if you don't listen and this starts to be a serious risk to your life, then... then I'm legally obliged to tell someone that you're in serious danger, but it doesn't have to get that far... I don't think you want it to either..."

"No..." Jamia let out a sigh, "I don't... I just.... I-"

"Hey, how about we got out of this closet and you can talk to me in my classroom where there's more than about a cubic centimetre of space. I came in here to look for some paperwork, but that doesn't really matter as much, it's not like anyone at this school knows what they're doing, but hey, you can give me credit for trying, and anyway... a student's wellbeing is more important than paperwork in any sane person's mind, isn't it?"

"I guess so." Jamia nodded, blushing a little as Lindsey led her into her classroom, and locked the door behind them.

"Take a seat anywhere you want, let me just text Gerard- Mr Way, sorry... I... he's going to wonder where I am." She reached into her desk drawer for her cellphone and sent out a quick text, as Jamia sat awkwardly at a desk in the front row, and as Miss Ballato finished, she dropped her cellphone back into the drawer, and pulled up a chair opposite Jamia. "So, I guess, you should tell me how this started?"

"I don't... I don't even know..." Jamia let out a choked out sigh, her cheeks a permanent shade of red, because she didn't want to talk at all, and Miss Ballato was certainly one of the nicer teachers, and she was even competent to boot, but Jamia wouldn't even talk to her best friend about this, she probably wouldn't even admit it to herself, and here she was, facing her art teacher with the red lipstick smile and the dark hair, and the tattoos she wore long sleeves to cover, even in summer, but Jamia had noticed, and her tattoos were something beautiful indeed.

Lindsey paused for a moment, unsure of how to continue, or how to approach this at all; she was out of her depth, and Jamia needed advice, but she could see from the look in the seventeen year old's eyes, that she was even uncomfortable with Lindsey knowing. "You don't have to tell me anything of course, but it's gonna help."

"There's illegal things... and... I just... things... I... things people don't want to hear, things I don't tell people-"

"I'm not going to judge: I've already seen the pills... can it get much worse?" Lindsey asked, and instantly regretted it, because yes, from the look in Jamia's eyes, yes it motherfucking could.

"I..." She stammered out, "it started last summer with an illness I faked to get away from the world and my ex-boyfriend for a while..."

-

Jamia from last summer felt like she held some sort of government secret in the fact that she knew her illness was fake, because everyone in the whole damn world seemed to have bought it, and she'd even began to feel slightly guilty in regards to all the cards and get well soon bullshit from distant cousins and family friends she couldn't even fathom recognising ever.

But she in no way regretted lying, because she had to.

Because she needed out of the world for a while, and the ex-boyfriend from hell, who went by the name of Eric formally, but behind his back, most people just referred to him as 'douchebag' - dating him was all in all a terrible move: fuelled entirely by a lack of self confidence, and the fact that she'd felt honoured for just one guy to show even a vague interest in her, even if in reality Eric was a pile of dogshit on the floor, and she was a majestic queen ordering her servants to clean the aforementioned pile of shit up.

But in reality, Jamia was only metaphorically a queen, and she wasn't even convinced of it, and she most certainly didn't have any servants to deal with Eric for her, and therefore she'd had to get herself out of this mess alone.

She'd at least had the guts to tell him they were done: face to face as well, and of course he'd freaked and threatened to hit her, as he'd made quite a habit of doing in the recent past, but she'd simply stared him down and shook her head: disgusted at the sight of him.

It was just a shame that she didn't give have the same calibre of confidence when she had found herself pulling her clothes on and getting out of bed the very instant she'd heard her mother pull out of the driveway.

Because it wasn't like she was just going to waste this all away in bed; she had things to do, and people to see... just an old friend really, but she needed any excuse to get out of the house, because the guilt radiating from all the cards had seriously started to overwhelm her, and that was by no means good news.

She'd made her way out of the front door within five minutes, and with a hood pulled up to cover her face, juts until she made it off her street at least, because they had the worst fucking neighbours, and those neighbours were in fact responsible for a great deal of the cards inside, which really was not a gesture that Jamia appreciated- well, she did, but it was just because she felt obligated to.

She hadn't even planned to spend the whole day out of the house, just long enough to make it to Kitty's, but of course, she never had.

Well, she had, but she'd never quite caught Kitty before she left the house, and instead found herself face to face with Kitty's brother, who she had never even encountered before, but by the end of the summer knew all too well indeed.

His name was Harry, and it was almost impossible to think that the name was once utterly unfamiliar upon her tongue, and that face was utterly unfamiliar in her head.

Harry had ended up like Eric, but in two very different ways - they'd both destroyed her, but neither had done so intentionally: it was just fate, and Jamia was just seriously unlucky, and she was perhaps far too ready to accept that than she should have been.

In fact, she was perhaps as eager to accept it as she had been the pills, and really anything that Harry had ended up giving her, because last summer, one horrible ex-boyfriend had turned into another, and in fact the only thing that had stayed with Jamia was the horrible addiction to the little pills.

-

Jamia's summer was perhaps a lot like Frank's current life, but it differed in the fact that perhaps for Frank it hadn't quite started yet; he was stuck in the springtime, perhaps with one 'horrible' not quite so ex-boyfriend.

Because Frank was still in denial of it all, because it wasn't like Max wasn't ever nice to him, but it wasn't like he was never horrible to him either, and Frank just wondered when the bruises would begin to form in far more visible places.

In true honesty, he both dreaded and anticipated the aforementioned inevitability, because god, no one could ever know, because then he'd have to explain and people wouldn't understand and things would have to change, and in an odd way, Frank really did need Max, but he also wanted it to stop, he wanted to try again, just undo the past few years and try again, but the latter seemed unlikely, so Frank lived with it.

Because it wasn't too bad, and lots of people had it worse, and it wasn't too often, and now, today, Max was even smiling at him, but Frank reckoned that counted for very little now.

"What's wrong?" Max asked, his eyes meeting Frank's; the shorter man curled up on one end of the sofa, not really paying attention to what ever shit was on TV, whereas Max was sat on the other end, with his laptop in his lap, working on something to do with work, or at least that's what Frank reckoned.

"Huh?" Frank sat up a little as he founded himself forced to look at Max and acknowledge the real world.

"You've been weird lately: what's going on? Is school okay?" He asked, sounding just a little like a pedophile with the last question, and Max may not be the best person in the world, but he certainly wasn't that.

"Yeah... yeah... I'm good, I'm just thinking, you know? I told you about Gerard, didn't I? Mr Way." He added, knowing that this wasn't exactly the best topic to bring up in front of his boyfriend, considering the rumours and speculation surrounding it, but they didn't hold any meaning, of course.

"You've mentioned him." The tone in Max's voice took a turn for the worse, growing impatient and snappy almost instantly.

"Yeah, I'm just thinking about this art trip, like he really wants to take the kids to France to look at paintings and shit, and like he really wants to do it for them... he's a really good teacher, like he actually cares so much about the kids and his subject, okay, he's slightly more apathetic to the people who don't try, but that's understandable, but everyone kind of mocks him, you know? Because he's pretentious and up his own ass, and you know, I did too, after students told me about him at first, but now, I... I don't know, I feel bad for it."

"I can't see what I can do about that-"

"I'm not asking you to do anything, in fact, it was you that asked me what was wrong first of all, wasn't it?"

"Stop getting all fucking bitchy with me, Frank, and you can imagine that I'm not exactly thrilled to hear you go on about how great this other man is-"

"You're overreacting, fucking forget it, fucking forget this."

-

Come his second class of the next day, Frank was beginning to regret the decision to yell at Max like he had the previous night.

And regret came in the form of a big fucking red bruise on the side of his cheek, that he'd only been half managing to cover with his hair and not showing the side of his face, and sitting in the corner doing very little and just letting the class get on with whatever they wanted to do.

The aforementioned had worked perfectly with his first class, who were older and didn't much care for him, and were happy to just chat for an hour, whereas this class, were his 'favourite' if he had to pick one, and he was pretty sure everyone in the room was at least somewhat convinced he'd fucked Mr Way at some point or an over, which certainly didn't help, and certainly not now.

"Frank?" A guy on the first row: Daniel, spoke up. Like seriously, he even knew names in this class, and that was the equivalent of Mr Urie finally understanding that it was not appropriate to confiscate drugs from students for his own personal use.

Frank raised his head, somewhat cautiously, before answering, "yeah?"

"What's wrong? You're being quiet and like an actual teacher..." Daniel continued, raising his voice and glancing around to get the rest of the class' attention, and Frank found himself in a deep hole of motherfucking regret as he felt the whole room's eyes on him, and in agreement with Daniel too.

"Yeah, talk to us, Frank, you know you can."

"We're your students but we're still here for you, you know?"

And of course the lovely addition of, "oh my god, have him and Mr Way broken up?" From Megan with her shit hair and shit shoes that literally looked like blocks with bondage straps on top of them.

"Shut the fuck up Megan." Said the guy with green hair, who was definitely somehow in all of Frank's classes.

"Leave Megan alone." Frank let out a sigh, making the mistake of turning his head a little as he did so. "I'm fine by the way, just tired-"

"Frank, what the fuck happened to your face?" Exclaimed at least four people at once, as the whole class suddenly fixated upon the bruise on Frank's face.

"Ugh..." Frank groaned, "it's nothing-"

"If that's a hickey then this is the final proof we need that Mr Way is in fact a vampire-" Megan, again, obviously.

"It's a bruise, that's obvious, and Jesus, Megan, that's the final proof we need that you're an idiot-"

"Guys, please, stop picking on each other..." Frank let out a sigh, sitting on his desk, and far too causally at that. "Look, okay... there's a bruise on my face, it's embarrassing, I know, I was really tired at about one last night, well one in the morning, and I walked into my fridge, and it looks really bad, but I'm fine, just embarrassed, and really tired and maybe mildly concussed, but I'm fine, I promise-"

"Okay, Frank." A girl on the second row smiled at him, "but are you sure you don't want to go to the nurse like-"

"I'm not convinced..." The green hair dude added, but he was ignored by the class, and horrified stares from the girls who couldn't even fathom the possibility that the angelic Mr Iero might lie to them.

"I'm fine." He insisted, getting up, "look I'll even teach this lesson to prove I'm fine-"

"No, Frank, I think that would ensure that we all thought you were very mentally unstable." Daniel, you know, the kid who had brought it up in the first place, continued.

"Okay, fine, what do I even normally do in my lessons then?" He let out a sigh, just a little frustrated, because seriously, the last thing Frank wanted to do right now was deal with people, let alone sixteen year olds who never knew when to shut up and had little to no respect for him.

"Mr Way." Said just about everyone.

Frank rolled his eyes, "Mr Way's just a really good teacher, you know? You bitch about him all the time, but he's passionate about art and cares about the kids who try, so you know, someone should give him credit for that-"

"If credit counts as blowjobs then I think you're doing that for us, Frank-"

"Just fuck off will you?" Frank let out a sigh, following his words with an overly halfhearted, "I have a boyfriend, not that anyone ever seems to accept that, but-"

"Your boyfriend's name is Max, right?"

"Yeah..." Frank added, forcing a smile, "look, can we not talk about dudes and whether I am or am not fucking them, please."

"Max." The green hair guy repeated, his eyebrows raised as he glanced at the bruise on Frank's cheek once again. "Max."

-

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