Frank P.O.V

I staggered the short distance back to my home, trying incredibly hard not to turn around- or fall over. I didn't necessarily want to be home, but I had to be. Mother would worry, wondering where I had wound up last night. The black eye and the busted lip would surely inform her well, and my stepdad would definitely ignore it; however much my mother begged him to talk to me about it.

My scraped knuckles rapped on the splintering wood of the door, narrowly managing to dodge the small bits of nail sticking out. The dull clunk of my mother's kitten heels echoed throughout the hallway, then the door peeled open.

"Frankie! Where have you been? What have you been doing?" She gasped, her acting skills had never failed to impress me yet. She didn't care. All that she cared about was the fact that her formerly perfect son was careering off the train tracks to normality and straight down the pathway to hell.
I shook my head, brushing past her to get to the fridge. There was no beer, she made sure of that, so I had to make do with lukewarm apple juice.

"Fridge is dying, again." I called in a bid to change the subject off me for a change.

"Frankie, we need to talk. I hate it when you feel like this, I don't have to call the doctor again do I?" She said in her patronising tone, I ignored her.

"Fridge. Is dying again." I retorted, sipping the half-sour juice from the clean glass between my grubby hands.

"I'll have to get your dad to fix it." Her hands cupped her face exasperatedly, she already knew that I would never answer that question again.

"Not my dad." Whispering those three words through my teeth, it would make her skin crawl. I had never met my real dad, he had probably left to get away from her. Her face grew redder and redder by the second, and I knew that I had struck a bone.

"He's as good as. Isn't he the one who's helped to provide for this family?" She tried to calm herself, to stop herself from screaming at her beloved son.
I stopped myself from arguing, I didn't need any more drama.
Instead, I placed the empty glass into the sink, brushed past her once more, and hurried up the stairs to the bathroom.

It was much cooler in there, the energy-saving lightbulb flickered as the image before me in the mirror grew more in focus. Me. Sleepless nights had finally begun to take their toll on me - the purple rings circling my eyes growing darker and darker as the room brightened.
My waxy skin, paler than I had seen it before. I looked as if I had had a heavy dose of chemotherapy, and was trying to make a swift recovery. Except the road to recovery was much longer, and more mapless than I could ever dread. There's nothing worse than having no sense of direction.

Short, strong-fisted knocks, they scared me from my complicated thoughts. It was my stepdad, he had been given the task of talking to his wayward 'son'.

"Frankie, are you in there?" He called, his voice raspy from waking up moments ago. His stale, body odour making its way under the door.

"Yup." I said quietly, parting my eyelids using my cold fingers.

"Where were you last night?" He was chewing gum, the click of it between his yellowed teeth made me want to heave. But, I wasn't about to lie to him. I could never lie.

"Out. Drinking. Met a guy, you know- what I usually do on Saturdays." I admitted, twisting the tap that cued the cold water to its mark. I flicked it onto my face, to try and wake me up. Instead it made my eyes itch, and I wanted to go back to sleep.

"You know that's not good for you." Which part wasn't good? The drinking, or the guy?
The both of them had mixed feelings about their wonderful son growing up to like his own sex, not the beautiful church girls that were so plentiful in that town. He knew that I was thinking that, and he sighed, resting his head against the white door.

"We have no objection to who you are, you know that, Frank. It was just a shock to us, it is to most parents. We want to help you, we hate to see you down, Kid."
That was all very well rehearsed, they must have written a script. I would've commended them for it, but I didn't have the energy- or the patience. He sighed again, tapping the door with his fingers. I heard him leave, setting me free from our conversation.

I needed to change, the beer that I had absentmindedly sloshed down my clothes last night served as a constant reminder; of him. I couldn't look at him. To long for somebody to love you, when you've only just laid eyes on them for a few moments, is much too overpowering. And with the fragile mind that I had, it was enough to bring on a breakdown. To feel so unloved, and so possibly unwanted- I just couldn't think.

I changed into something cleaner, tossing my clothes into the ever-growing heap at the bottom of my bed, deciding to go outside in the backyard. It was peaceful there. It was the closest that I could get to the countryside, even though it's brown grass was dying, much like the happiness inside me.
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Song Of The Chapter- Loose Change by Royal Blood

A.N
My love for Tate Langdon will never change (even though he's a lil tiny psychopath- amongst many other things) I have a heck of a lot of revision to do and I feel like my time is consumed by it -_- but, don't forget to comment, vote etc, it helps me out a lotttttt