Pray Before the Dawn

Chapter Fifteen

           

Jonny tumbled onto the ground as the ball escaped from his hands, like a spider weaving itself through hordes of traps. The May sun beat down, its heat enough to scatter the clouds across a vivid blue sky, repelling them as it roasted the grass beneath it. Chris watched the ball roll away and laughed as Jonny's 'excellent hand-eye co-ordination' was no match for his own.

"Okay, that was a test run" Jonny defended himself. He combed his fingers through his curly hair and pinched his black polo shirt in a failed attempt to cool him down. God, he was sweaty. He could feel the sweat forming colonies under his armpits, and god, those colonies were marking their territory by making him smell like a stinky dog.

"Yeah, okay Jon." Chris giggled, "I believe you."

"Nuh-uh, it was." Jonny bore his teeth with a smile before the two erupted in laughter.

"More like a test fall, if you ask me."

Jonny got up from the floor. He picked up the cricket bat that Chris had thrown onto the grass, and wandered over to Chris, resting the cricket bat against the wall.

"I think it went behind the bushes," Chris sat down on the step to sort out his laces. His arm pointed in the general direction of the bushes, but realising he had a stone in his shoe, accuracy was quite difficult.

Jonny had a look behind the lavender. A ball was found nestled found the ball in between a bird's egg and a deflated football. "Got it!" His celebrated, and returned to his friend.

"Hey, I found a birds-" 

Chris was giggling. Jonny followed his eyeline. Two birds were making love on the apple tree.

Jonny smirked, "they're really going at it. If only I had a camera to show the others."

The force of the word 'the others' snapped Chris out of his giggling fit and caused his head to drop. He looked at his half-done laces, fiddling around with them. A nervous disposition panging in his chest. There was something sticky about that word whenever he mentioned it.

Chris cleared his throat. "Jonny?"

Chris' sudden drop in mood tugged at Jonny's shirt as he sank to the concrete slab. "Yeah?" Jonny sat down beside Chris.

"They wouldn't like me. That's why I got upset." Chris' face turned crimson as he looked ashamedly aside.

"Last week?"

Chris nodded. He then sat back, resting his back against the closed door, still looking to the ground beside him. The wind brushed against his curls. He felt a breeze brushing against his cheek, and he followed it with his eyes as it lifted and rattled the trees above him, anything became an excuse not to meet his friend's gaze.

Jonny shrugged his shoulders. A little sad at the confession, but whatever, he thought. Maybe Chris would change his mind soon. "That's fine, dude. Whatever you're comfortable with.". It took him weeks before he could bring it up again.

The heat from that weekend had seemed to collapse. The school was in a frenzy, with the summer holidays around the corner and World Cup starting in a few days. When Jonny mentioned his friends again, he was knelt in front of Chris, who had just been knocked over by Andrew as he stormed past him on the way to detention, kicking him in the stomach and shoving him into the wall.

Jonny had been thinking about it a lot. Every time he and Matthew sat down to play video games in Jonny's room, or sat down so Matthew could teach him a bit more guitar, he would brush against the framed images of his friends, and when he looked at them whilst downing a glass of water before bed, he could just imagine Chris fitting in with the group. It was hard to find the right moment to bring it up, though. There was hardly a moment they could be alone at school, and at either house, there was Matthew stomping around looking for wallets and matching socks, and Dylan running around rooms with footballs and rambles eager to be heard. With the summer holidays coming up, Jonny thought that he should really introduce Chris whilst 'just on the way back from school' was still a viable form of persuasion.