Early Days II self para
Frankie's first few days in France are hard.
Frankie had been in France for about four days now and all she wanted to do was go home. She couldn’t believe that her father had done this to her, that he hated her so much that he sent her out of the country because she made one stupid mistake; one mistake that was taking everything away from her. She had no one to talk to here, she barely spoke French and she was clearly the youngest girl there, something that seemed to upset the women in charge. Walking through the halls was difficult, she saw girls in varying stages of pregnancy, and it terrified her, she had no idea what it was going to be like to be nine months pregnant, she couldn’t even imagine herself getting that big. But…she knew that it would happen.
Marcela had been the one to travel to France with her, and when she left, Frankie had been a wreck. How could she live in a country that was a million miles away from home? Without her brothers, without anything familiar, while pregnant at fourteen years old. She was already desperately homesick, and she just wanted to be somewhere familiar. The women in charge had told her that she was going to have to start doing chores something that she never in a million years ever thought that she would have to do, but they were very strict on the rules, no exceptions. So for the first time in her life, Frankie Hollingsworth was going to have to do chores and her own laundry and a million other things that she didn’t know how to do.
She was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep, when she let out the first sob. She covered her mouth and tried to control herself, since her roommate was asleep, but she couldn’t help it. She was trying so hard to be strong, but how could she stay strong when she was so scared? When she was so terrified about what was going to happen, and she missed Zig with all of her heart? She just wanted to go home but she wouldn’t be there for another nine months at the earliest.
Frankie didn’t notice her roommate getting out of bed and moving over to sit on her bed. The older girl pulled Frankie into a hug and rubbed her back as she sobbed into Dominique’s shoulder, wishing that it was Zigs, but it wasn’t and she knew that she should just…take whatever comfort she could.
“It’s going to be okay,” Dominique whispered to her. “It’ll get better…eventually. I promise.”
Frankie let the older girl soothe her until she was finally calmed down enough to talk and not cry hysterically anymore. “I’m…feeling really homesick,” Frankie admitted softly, looking down. “I just want to go home.”
“I know, but you can’t, Frankie…so you need to learn to make the best of this place. It’s not so bad, really, once you get used to it.”
“I have no one to talk to,” she shook her head.
“You can talk to me,” Dominique promised.
“Promise?” She asked.
Dominique laughed softly and nodded her head. “Promise…now try to get some sleep, Madam doesn’t let us sleep late if we’re tired,” she reminded her gently.
Frankie just nodded her head and laid back down, smiling slightly when the older girl tucked her in before she got back into her own bed. She was feeling a little better now that she had talked with the older girl for a little while, and she felt like her mind was finally at ease with itself, at least a little. She felt ready to just…sleep, even if she had to get up at eight to do chores, something that she didn’t think she even knew how to do. And then she had classes for hours, it seemed and she really just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep for a few hours instead of doing chores. But this was going to be her life for now, and she was going to have to work to accept it, since it didn’t seem like Zig was going to come rescue her anytime soon.
They were woken up at seven the next morning, much to Frankie’s displeasure. She wanted to tell Madam to go away, but Dominique had told her that the older woman was strict and not to say anything, to just do as she told her. As Frankie read the list of chores for the day, she realized that she was way in over her head, barely comprehending half of the things on the list, since she had Marcela who did everything for her her entire life. She knew that this place was going to be hell, and to top it all off, she felt incredibly sick. Welcome to reality, she thought bitterly.