“You Karen Page?” A gruff voice asked, a bit too loudly considering they were in the library. Karen looked up and nodded. “Frank.”
“I know who you are.” Karen said softly, watching as he pulled the chair out next to her and sat down. Karen knew who he was, he was probably one of the most popular guys at her school. It was cliché that she was the one picked to tutor him, she knew that. It was the oldest cliché in high school movies and young adult novels. It almost made her laugh with how cliché it was.
Frank chuckled to himself, his lips turning up in a smirk. He shrugged his jacket off and turned to look at her. Karen was a beautiful girl, strawberry blonde hair that was kept up in a loose bun. He had a few classes with her, but she wasn’t much for talking. He probably heard her voice once or twice a week. Frank also couldn’t remember the last time he saw her eating lunch with friends, every time he’d seen her in the lunch room she was completely alone. “So, which of the classes I’m failing were you picked to help me out in?” He asked.
Karen couldn’t tell he wasn’t taking this seriously, and she figured she was going to have the time of her life doing this. “Science. Biology.” She said, picking up her Science notebook and dropping it in front of him. “You’re welcome to any of my notes, I’m very good at taking notes.” Frank picked up her notebook and flipped through them. She wasn’t kidding when she said she was good. Almost every inch of the pages were covered in notes, with highlighters and post it notes on every page.
“Damn.” He said, shutting the notebook before running his hand over his head. “Note taking isn’t my thing.”
“There’s a copy machine, you can make copies.” Karen said. “I would go from here,” Karen leaned over and picked up the notebook, flipping her note to a section on genetics. “This is what we started earlier in the week, which I’m sure you were not paying attention to.”
Frank scoffed at Karen, but she was right. He hadn’t paid attention to a single word their teacher had said. “Biology is boring.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that you need it to graduate.” Karen argued, tapping the page and dropping it in front of him.
“And to play ball, apparently.” Frank said, picking up the notes. “Where’s the copy machine?”
“Corner by the computers.” She said, pointing her thumb towards the computers where the copy machine. He nodded and stood to his feet, walking over to the copy machine. Karen watched, blowing air from her nose. This was going to be a fun rest of the year.
Karen and Frank met up in the library every Tuesday and Friday for the next few weeks to study – which mostly consisted of Frank trying to change the subject and find out more about her instead of studying. Karen always found a way to get the subject back to what they were supposed to be doing. She tried to pretend to be annoyed with Frank, but there was always a smile on her face when they were together.
Frank became so used to the weekly meetings that when Karen missed two of them in a row – which in the past months she had never done. Even when she had been sick, Karen was always there. When Karen still hadn’t been there the following Monday, Frank had grown even more concerned. He broke into the office after hours to get her address. He ripped the page out of her file, folding it up and shoving it in his pocket. Frank didn’t know what would he would say when he showed up at her families door, but what he did know was that he needed to know if she was at least okay.
Karen lifted her head up when she heard a knock on the front door and climbed out of bed to go downstairs and answer it, but she heard her mother do so instead. She choose to climb back into bed instead of going to see who it was, she wasn’t in the mood for company. She didn’t know if she would ever be again.
“Karen? You have a visitor.” Her mothers voice was soft as she knocked on the door, only to open it seconds later after she knocked.
“Tell Matt and Foggy to go away.” She said, not turning around to look at her mother.
“It’s not Matt and Foggy, it’s someone else.” Karen rolled over and looked at her mother, sighing. She climbed out of bed and pulled her blanket back up over her sheets, looking in her mirror to smooth out her hair. She’d showered when she woke up, but hadn’t done much else besides that.
Karen left her bedroom – and heard her mother walk towards her own bedroom – and head downstairs, almost skidding and falling down the stairs when she saw who was sitting in her living room. “Frank?” She asked, tugging on her shirt before she walked the rest of the way down the stairs.
Upon realizing that Karen had come downstairs, Frank stood to his feet and brought a hand up to his neck, massaging the back of his neck. “Uh, hey.”
Karen stared at him for a few minutes in confusion, twisting her fingers together. “What are you doing here?” She asked, taking a few steps towards him.
“I uh… You didn’t come to school. You never miss school. I was,” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I was worried.” Karen was surprised that he had noticed so much about her, and was surprised that Frank had been worried.
Karen caught sight of her parents snooping on the conversation out of the corner of her eyes and she bit down on her bottom lip. “Come with me.” Karen said softly, turning around and heading down the hallway. She heard Frank following her as she walked through the back out to their backyard.
“What’s with all the flowers?” Frank asked once they were outside. For a few moments, he just watched Karen as she sat down on one of the swings on an old swingset. Inside their house, mostly in the kitchen and dining room, were bouquets and bouquets of flowers. He didn’t dare count, but it looked to probably be close to fifty.
“Did you know that President Johnson wasn’t embalmed? And his body was such in a terrible condition that the undertaker put a huge bouquet of flowers on top of his coffin, just long enough so that the funeral could take place?”
Frank raised an eyebrow and took a few steps over to her, grabbing the chains of the swing next to hers, awkwardly sitting down in it. Karen’s legs swung back and forth a little, but she wasn’t actually swinging. “No, I didn’t.”
“I didn’t either but I started looking for answers has to why people send flowers to funerals.” She said, her eyes fixed on her legs.
Frank looked up to the back door, where he could still see some of the flowers. “Who died?” He asked softly.
Karen sniffled and cleared her throat before responding. “My brother. Car accident.” She said, her voice barely above a whisper. Frank turned to look at her and he awkwardly reached out to grasp her knee.
“I’m sorry.” He said.
“They said he was driving drunk but… He’d never do that.” She sniffled, bringing a hand to her face and wiping tears away from her face. “He was smarter than that, we were raised better than that.”
Frank sat there and listened to Karen talk about her brother, about how he was the bravest person she ever knew. He sat there and listened, his hand still resting on her leg without much thought. He didn’t know what to say. He’d never lost anyone before, at least not that he could remember.
She fell silent after a little bit and Frank didn’t know what to say to her, it didn’t seem like anything he could say would do her any good. “How’s school? How’s um… We had that test last week, how did you do?” Karen asked after several minutes of silence. She lifted her head to look at him. She didn’t want to talk about her brother anymore, she just wanted to think about something else for a change.
“I got a C.”
“A C? You got a B last time, what happened?” Karen asked.
Frank turned his attention back to her and flashed a sideways grin. “I didn’t have you riding my ass.”