We're Just Friends (Frank Iero)

8.

"FRANKIE!"

I ran at full speed, trying to catch up with Frank whilst also trying to work out in my head what the hell had just happened. Frank had told me that he loved me. That's okay, he just meant it like as a friend, right? He loves me as a friend and that's why he doesn't like seeing me get let down by Gerard.

But that's not what he meant. He meant that he loves me.

"Frankie!!"

I tried to catch my breath as I made it to Frank's house. I used my spare key that his mother had given me about six years ago to get inside- she had told me that it would save her having to answer the door every day if she just accepted that I was a part of their family. I opened the door and ran upstairs, where I proceeded to bang my fists on Frank's bedroom door. He didn't answer, so I entered anyway to find him furiously writing something down in a notebook. He looked up and with sadness in his eyes he closed the book and threw it under his bed.

"Frankie what...the hell....just...happened?" I asked between trying to catch my breath. I walked over and sat beside him on the bed, but he refused to look at me. Instead he looked down at his hands as he nervously picked at his nails.

"Poppy forget it, please just go home," he begged. I had previously thought that maybe he was talking nonsense due to being drunk, but he seemed incredibly sober at this point.

"Go home?" I said. "My best friend declares he loves me and then runs home in a panic and I'm supposed to forget it and go home? Frankie, we don't fall out. We never fall out."

"We aren't falling out," he said quietly. I noticed his hands were shaking.

Frank's P.O.V

I couldn't stop my hands from shaking and I could see that Poppy had noticed. She was looking concerned but I had a sickening feeling in my stomach that this wasn't going to end well.

"Do you love me?" she asked so bluntly that it shocked me.

"I...I'm not repeating myself Poppy," I said, becoming agitated. She hated it when I called her Poppy. Despite constantly complaining when I called her Pops, she always knew something was serious when  I called her Poppy.

"Are you in love with me?" she asked. I felt my cheeks burning as I sat there, completely embarrassed and in shock.

"What does it matter?" I replied, trying not to get angry. I was 95% sure that she wasn't going to reciprocate my feelings but a small part of me hoped, when I asked her this question, that she would tell me it mattered because she felt the same, and that she would then kiss me like I had always imagined.

"You're my best friend," she said, taking my hand and holding it tightly to try and stop it from shaking. "You have always been my best friend and I cannot function in this world without you. You've helped me through the shittest times and created the best times. If you feel something and don't tell me about it, it could fuck it up. I hate to think that our friendship has been tainted by you feeling shit about this."

"You can infer the answers to your questions based on how I reacted to seeing you kiss Gerard," I said quietly. 

"Frankie..." she breathed, tilting my head upright and to the side so that I was looking into her eyes. I felt my whole body tense up as my imagination ran wild with the thought of us kissing. The thought of her feeling the same. The thought of us. "Frankie I'm so sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" I breathed, admiring how beautiful her face looked against the orange glow of the streetlight that was pouring in through the window.

"I'm sorry that you love me," she said, looking genuinely hurt. "I never meant for you to feel that way."

"Y-you don't feel the same," I stated. I didn't mean to say that, but it just came out of my mouth almost without control.

"Y-you're my best friend," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I don't want that to change, ever."

"You need to go," I said, pulling my hand away from hers and turning back to face the floor. "Please don't worry about it, we'll always be friends. But please go tonight."

I closed my eyes and half-expected her to put up a fight, but I heard the sound of her feet softly creep along the floor and the sound of my bedroom door close. I waited until I heard the front door close and waited a few moments more before I looked out of my bedroom window into her bedroom, hoping to see her and work out her reaction to the entire situation, but her curtain was closed.

Why the fuck did I tell her.