We're Just Friends (Frank Iero)

6.

"Douchebag, you're gonna be late!" I shouted up the stairs.

"What's all the commotion about?" asked Bob as he walked past me in the hallway.

"Frankie's being slow," I said, rolling my eyes. At that moment, Frank came rushing down the stairs, Math book in hand.

"I was doing my homework," he pouted.

"You were doing your hair," I laughed, looking at his newly trimmed hair. "I bet you cut your hair all over my nice clean carpet didn't you?"

"Yep," he smirked, avoiding Bob's angry glare as he walked past him and out of my front door.

"See you later bro!" I shouted at Bob before leaving the house and getting into Frank's shitcar for once.

"Wanna skip school today?" I asked, smirking at Frank as he reversed the shitcar out of my driveway.

"No," he said. I thought he was joking at first, but his expression remained serious. "I told you Pops, I'm studying hard these days. Our midterms are next week!"

"Wow, when did you care so much about studying?" I said in surprise. "Just as well anyway, Gerard finally invited me on an actual date tonight, so I'm supposed to meet him at the end of school. Can you believe it, after ALL of this time!"

"Don't know what took him so long," Frank said with a slightly melancholy tone.

"What's your problem?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said, looking at me and laughing. "Just surprised you finally got yourself a long-term boyfriend!"

"Very funny," I said, rolling my eyes. "Can't believe I'm actually going to school in the shitcar today, I hope Gerard doesn't see- it might put him off."

Frank's P.O.V

"Don't know what took him so long," I replied, whilst thinking inside my head that I wanted to smash my head into my steering wheel so I didn't have to hear any more about Poppy and Gerard.

"What's your problem?" she asked. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her looking at me and smiling, and I knew she thought I was joking. Of course she didn't think I was serious.

"Nothing," I said with a fake laugh. "Just surprised you finally got yourself a long-term boyfriend."

I zoned out completely and although she was talking, I wasn't actually comprehending anything that she was saying. All I could think about was how Poppy and I would never be a couple because we were so stuck in the "friend-zone." I let her talk at me whilst I absent-mindedly drove us to school, praying that the engine on the shitcar didn't cut out like it usually does around twenty times a day. I didn't want to embarrass myself around her. Since she had a boyfriend it was getting ten times worse. I'd never been jealous before- she never dated anyone for long enough. 

"See you later douchebag," she said as she jumped out of my car and headed into school. I bashed my head on the steering wheel of my car in frustration.

"What's up Iero?"

I looked up to see my best friend Ray hanging off the open car door. He climbed into the car and handed me a cigarette.

"Let me guess," he said. "Poppy?"

"Poppy," I said through gritted teeth. "She's got like, I dunno if he's her boyfriend or what but they're going on a date tonight and I can't fucking take it man."

"As I've been telling you for the past ten years dude, just tell her," he shrugged.

"You don't get it Ray! If I tell her I like her, she doesn't feel the same. So it becomes really fucking awkward, and it ruins our whole friendship. She won't be comfortable around me anymore, she won't just walk around and get changed in front of me and we won't mess around the way we do now."

"Frank if you tell her you like her, for a start she's gonna tell you that she likes you back. Everybody knows this. Not only that, but things will change anyway if you enter into a relationship with her. She'll stop being comfortable around you and start being crazy nervous, do you want that?"

"No Ray, we're just friends," I sighed. "She freaks out when we joke around about kissing each other."

"So do you!" Ray laughed. "I just wish you'd open your eyes and realize that in a couple of years you're gonna be leaving school and she's probably gonna go to University in another state and you won't see her for a long time unless you follow her around the country like a lost puppy. Tell her before she goes on a date with this guy and save him the heartbreak when she inevitably breaks up with him for you."

I thought about it long and hard, and in a rush of excitement and jealousy I decided that Ray was right. I planned in my head to meet her after school, just before she would meet Gerard. 

I'll tell her I'm in love with her before it's too late.