So Long, Not Goodnight

Chapter Twenty-Six

She pulled the girl inside, her face sick with worry. "Frank still feels ill, but I'm sure you would make him feel better." She smiled thinly, cocking her head towards the stairs. 

"Thanks, Ma," Jamia kissed her cheek and made her way to Frank's room.

Not bothering to knock, she burst into the room flicking the lights on, as Frank fanned his hands out, trying to block out the blinding lights. "Frank," Jamia sat beside him, moving a cautious hand to his face as his reddened eyes seized at her touch. "What happened?"

His lips twisted and scoured as he tried to bury himself beneath his comforter. "Frank!" Jamia tugged him back to the surface. "Talk to me!"

"I'm a mistake..." Frank whimpered. 

Jamia touched over his hair, face, down to his arms, noticing the weeping lacerations that stained her fingers. "No no no..." Jamia searched his body noticing more and more red stitches. She noticed an empty Xanax bottle that peeked out from under his pillow, it's cap jaundiced against the stark white. 

Pulling it out, the name on the bottle was no one she recognized. "I always have an easy way out, Jay," Frank's eyelids drooped unevenly. "I'm sorry..."

Jamia panicked and got up from the bed, looking around Frank's room. She found his wastebasket next to his closet, grabbing it and setting it on the floor beneath the bed. Rolling him to his side, Jamia pushed Frank's face over the lip of his mattress so it hovered in the air. Prying his mouth open like a lion tamer at a circus, she dug two fingers over his tongue to the back of his throat. She forced her fingers deeper and deeper as Frank retched, emptying him into the trash below. A clump of blue pills fell heavy into the waste and another, until all that came up was bile. Her hand was roped with shiny strings that she waved over, trying to expel.

Replacing the wastebasket to where she had found it and gently rocking Frank's face back onto the bed, Jamia retreated to the bathroom to wash everything off of her hands and returned to find Frank sitting upright, breathing from his mouth. "What the fuck was that about?!" She silently screamed at Frank.

Frank rubbed at his eyes and sighed. "You couldn't have just let me fucking die," he sobbed. 

She got down on her knees, hands splayed over both of Frank's knees. "Frank... Please... Talk to me..."

He shrugged and gave in, letting all his words spill out like vomit. Being late, their story, the intimacy, a mistake... It all tumbled out of him and into her. "Oh, Frank," Jamia held onto him. "I'm... So so sorry."

Frank leaned into her and cried, muffling the sound by her sweater. "But like, fuck him," Jamia continued, holding Frank to her. "Fuck him. He doesn't deserve you. He's fucking filth. Leaving you like that after all of that."

"You know what..." Jamia met Frank's eyes. "Why don't you come and stay with me this weekend? My parents are going away for the night and it'll be just me and you and we can get drunk and high and just forget the whole disgusting world, just you and me, yeah?"

Frank smiled for the first time in what felt like forever, shaking his head yes. "In the meantime," Jamia continued. "You can't just let him get the best of you. I know it hurts and I know that it feels like the end, but it isn't. This just means that you can do better. Don't you dare blame yourself. The world is an ugly place, Frank... But not you. You're beautiful."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah... I do."

Frank tried to pull himself together after Jamia kissed him goodnight and headed home, preparing for school the next day. Linda hovered in his doorway, watching him pick through his closet, looking more alive than he had all week, she thanked God for Jamia as she made her way back downstairs.