The Watercooler Romance

2. Another Night And I'll See You

Clank.

My blue ball rolled through the nearest hoop and pushed through the other side to rest neatly on the grass, not too far from an unwon hoop.

"Good run, Frank." Ray smiled and moved in position to follow his yellow ball through the hoop I just won. If he got it on the right angle, he could knock it through and win the hoop I'm lined up for...
Clink.

He missed the unwon hoop but got it through the one he was aiming for.

"Ray, if you'd angled it like this," I pushed my croquet glasses up onto my head and moved behind him and pointed my mallet in a slight different direction. "and tipped it on this side, you could have made two hoops there."

"Oh yeah. I'll remember next time."

He smiled.

Ray was such an easy friend. He smiles all the time like nothing bothers him and he just takes in all the information happily.

He had a funny face, too big a nose, fat lips and wide, brown eyes. His hair was fun, too. It was bigger than his oval head, and poofed out in hazel brown curls in all directions. His hair and his height - nearly six foot, conpared to my 5"5 - made him look quite formidable, but once you knew him, he was like a happy, poofy bear with a fro worthy of any princess.

Ray is my best friend and the Co-Captain of the Croquet Team, him being the only other member. I smiled because I had Ray as a friend.

It was only a few weeks into September, and a few weeks into the start of our school year, and Ray and I were looking forward to another year of croquet to ourselves; as we had last year. We were basically two content Sophomores playing croquet at eight in the morning.

I didn't think much was going to change for that year, but much did.

I was sitting in first period Physchology - I have no clue why they put Psych period one on any day, is it supposed to wake us up? - when the teacher Mr. Grendell brought in someone no-one but myself had seen before - the dark-haired guy in the back of the car from yesterday. We locked eyes again.

"Morning everyone, we have a new student starting his Sophomore year today, so I want a warm welcome for him." He looked about the class, who were mostly droopy-eyed and propping themselves up by their hands. I could finally get a good look at him; he was taller than me (judging next to Mr. Grendell he was about 5"6), and his shoulders a little broader. His face was composed of bright, browny-green eyes, a sharp, cute nose, and perfect lips covering small, slightly uneven teeth. He was dressed in the school uniform shirt, tie and blazer, but his hair was a lank, black mess. It had a clean sheen to it, but hung all around his face, and had the fringe sweeping over the left side. Mr. Grendell gave the new guy a soft nudge.

"Go on, introduce yourself, son. They won't bite." Mr. Grendell waswas the sole laugher, but the new guy cracked a wide smile, showing small teeth.

"Hey guys," he smiled, looking around. "I'm Gerard Way, and I just moved here, can't wait to start!"

His smile was as large as his apparent innocence, but that dwindled when he saw that only one student was paying him any attention - so consequentially his eyes ended up on mine.

He saw the seat to the right of me - who sat in the back left corner, the door being on opposite far right corner - and made for it, but one of the guys on his way stuck out his foot and Gerard toppled down.

He got back up and discreetly kicked the foot that tripped him as he went to his seat, and dodged the hand that lashed out to grab him, pushing his hair behind his ear and grinning like a little kid.

When he got to his seat he got out a workbook, a pen, and then looked left to me and grinned some more.

I smiled back. He seemed like a cool guy; someone who won't take shit from dicks like Harrison. I decided I liked him. Something he said next made me like him even more.

"Hey!" He whispered at me. I looked over. "Do you know if this school has a croquet team? Mikey and I have always wanted to play, but our old school never made a team." He asked. I stared. He stared back expectantly.

"Uh, yeah," I stammered, completely shocked. "I'm actually the Captain." I grinned; how can it be that the cute new kid liked croquet? It seemed like he couldn't get any better! A little voice was whispering 'new friend, Frank, a new friend...' . I told the voice to shut up so I could think straight.

"Have I missed tryouts already? It was kind of stupid of us to come already 3 weeks into term, but our parents could only find a house about a month ago." He said.

"Um," I quietly laughed. "well, there's only two people on the team at the moment, myself and my friend Ray, so if you want to join that shouldn't be a problem..." I smiled at him, and he grinned madly back. "Great! When's practise?"

I laughed again. "Usually it's whenever we want because we're the only people on the team but our normal times are Tuesday 8am - don't worry that's the only early - and Wednesday after school," I glanced at Gerard to check he was cool with that, and he nodded. "so bring your mallets to school tomorrow and we'll meet after school on the greens."

"Cool!" He grinned. "I'll tell Mikey."

"Gerard and Frank," Mr. Grendell called. Our heads snapped up. "Do you have anything to share with the class?"

"No, sir." I sniggered and chanced a glance at Gerard, who had thrown a mischievous glance of his own my way.

Once the teacher had turned back around, he held out his hand in the gap between our two tables and said, "I'm Gerard Way, pleased to make your acquaintance." Abashed, I took his hand, smiling sheepishly. "Frank Iero, pleased to make yours." I glanced at the board where Grendell was drawing something that looked complicated - I couldn't even tell what it was. "This gets harder, you know." I said. He smiled back. "Alright."

***

Throughout the rest of the day I learned that: Gerard Way and his brother Mikey had just moved from L.A., Gerard was a Sophomore, Mikey an 8th grader, Gerard was in my History, Maths, Chemistry and PE classes, and they had both joined the croquet team.

And at the end of the day, as I was walking home, I had a good feeling in my stomach, and I remembered that I had been able to breathe properly pretty much all day. I was actually really looking forward to tomorrow. And I felt really good with that revelation.

Later in the night my dog Texas crawled into my bed, and I slung my arm around him happily. Early, early morning I had a dream that Gerard was sleeping next to me, and my arm was slung around him, holding onto him as if he might blow away in the breeze. In my dream I knew that if Gerard went away I wouldn't survive - I wouln't be able to breathe and I'd be dead in the dream. So I clung onto him, but the window had blown open and a huge gust swept in and pulled Gerard out of my grasp. Instantly it felt like my throat was clogged with cement; I couldn't breathe. As Gerard was flung away from me I started screaming, but then jerked upright in bed, awoken by someone screaming in real life.