Intuition.

“Frank Iero! Pay attention, boy.”

Fuck. My head had snapped up so hard that I got whiplash. Now it was hurting, a lot.

“Sorry sir,” I mumbled, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Now, as I was saying…”

I tuned out. Science was okay but I truly didn’t care for the subject. Dad would have been ecstatic if I became a doctor like him but I couldn’t understand the need to want to be one. I live through everyday without a father because he’s always working. I don’t want to turn out like that. I can only imagine how lonely it’d be.

“Okay class, you may leave,” Mr Smith bid us. I was later than everyone else to gather my stuff up.

“C’mon. Its break, we’re all going to go and play soccer. You have to be on my team this time,” Gerard said eagerly.

“Sure. Just let me grab the rest of my stuff,” I replied, really looking forward to it.

“I’ll meet you at my locker.”

I watched him leave the classroom before gathering everything else. By the time I met him at his locker though everyone else was already out on the oval or on the concourse.

“You ready?” Gerard asked, still leaning against his locker.

I nodded. “Yeah. Hey, do you mind if I stick my stuff in your locker for break?”

“Sure, go ahead.” He opened the locker and helped me put my stuff in it. Just as he was locking it back up my stomach let out an awfully loud grumble.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I woke up late.”

“It’s alright,” he laughed. “You can have something before we start the game.”

“Yeah,” I said.

We both turned to walk out to the oval but I started feeling dizzy. The hallway was kind of spinning a little and white and black specks appeared in front of my eyes. I stopped and started swaying.

“Frank? Frank? Are you okay? Frank?”

Gerard’s voice seemed so far away. His concerned face swam in front of my eyes. But then it was suddenly gone and it was the roof swimming before my eyes. Then there was nothing, just pure nothing.

“Frank, wake up. Please, wake up. Just say something, dammit!”

My eyes slid open and I found myself staring up at a gorgeous face. I smiled.

“Thank god. Frank, are you alright? What happened?” he questioned.

I was silent for another moment and within that moment everything came back. My eyes widened and the gorgeous face I quickly recognised as Gerard’s.

“How long was I out?” I asked from the ground. I sat up and rubbed my head that was still making me feel slightly dizzy.

“Only about thirty seconds,” he answered. He looked so worried. “What happened, Frank?”

“Nothing. I’m fine, just a dizzy spell is all,” I replied nonchalantly.

Gerard helped me up and kept his hands firmly on my shoulders, making sure I wasn’t going to faint again.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked, his expression serious. It was odd as this was the first time I’d ever seen him serious like this.

“Last night.”

“How much did you eat?”

“I don’t know, a normal amount?” I put forward. “Let’s go play soccer already.”

I tried to push past him but he didn’t budge. “When you eat something.”

“I’m not hungry,” I lied. But my stomach betrayed me by making a rumbling noise that lasted a good ten seconds. We stared at each other for a moment before I nodded, my eyes flitting to the ground, admitting defeat.

“I’ll have something to eat.” I gave up. Gerard opened his locker again for me and I grabbed out an apple.

“That’s not enough,” Gerard said firmly.

“It’s all I have,” I muttered.

He ratted through his bag and produced a sandwich. “I hope you like salad.”

“I can’t take that, it’s yours,” I argued.

“I have two of them,” he shot back.

We stared at each other again, before I finally gave up. Again.

“Fine. I’ll eat it. Then can we go and play?”

“Sure,” he smiled. Ah, that smile. I was beginning to miss it for a moment there.

I pulled the cling wrap off the sandwich as we walked out to the oval and took a massive bite. After the first I practically demolished the whole sandwich within minutes. Then I wolfed down the apple. My stomach gurgled in relief of having food in it.

“So you were hungry,” he laughed. “That is the fastest I have ever seen anyone but my brother eat.”

I looked away, not wanting to show my face. It was disgusting how fast I basically shoved it down my throat.

“Thank you,” I mumbled. “Hey…do you reckon I could just visit the bathroom before I start playing? I’ll meet you over there.”

Gerard gave me a funny look. “Uh, sure. Don’t be too long.”

He started walking over to the oval with his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. I couldn’t get the look he gave me out of my head. It was just burning into me. I shook myself mentally and headed for the bathroom.

Five minutes, I headed back over to the oval, ready to play. Standing at the sidelines, I took the teams in, figuring out who was on whose team.

“Frank! Come one our team! Gerard’s killing us, man!”

I laughed at Ray, who was desperately tyring to defend the goals against Gerard. Running over, I noticed everyone on Gerard’s team stopped talking and got into their positions. I smiled to myself.

The moment I got into position in front of Gerard everything started to speed up. Suddenly it wasn’t the fun game of soccer you play with your mates at lunchtime; it was an ‘I’m going to beat your team no matter what’ type of game now.

Within moments both teams were drenched in sweat from the constant back and forth of the ball. We were all puffing beneath the bright sun that shone above us. There were no clouds in the sky for cover.

Like many times before, a crowd had gathered at the sidelines and people were cheering. What they were cheering, I couldn’t tell, but it was nice all the same.

When the game ended, my team had won by only one goal. Everyone was red in the face and puffing, heading to their bags for drink bottles filled with water to quench their thirsts.

I watched Gerard as he walked towards me, his hands on his hips with a drink bottle in one hand, and his chest heaving from the game. He was grinning at me, that special grin that I liked to think was reserved just for me.

“You said you’d be on my team this time,” he fake whined.

“But you were kicking Ray’s team’s ass!” I laughed, bending to search my bag for my drink bottle. My search came to an abrupt end when I remembered I had left the drink bottle in the fridge.

“Shit,” I mumbled to myself quietly, frowning at my bag.

“Here.”

I looked up just in time to see Gerard chuck his water bottle to me. It dropped to the ground beside me and I picked it up, smiling up at him.

“Are you sure?” I asked, almost shyly.

“I can always fill it up again, so why not?” He continued to smile back at me.

I stood up and chugged down the rest of the bottle. Some of the water ended up dribbling onto my chin, sliding over my jaw and down my neck. When I finished, I took a few deep breaths and wiped my mouth with the back of my arm.

Handing the bottle back to Gerard I noticed that he was biting his lip. I raised an eyebrow at him and he quickly let go of his lip and smiled, his eyes darting down for a moment.

I decided to ignore it; I didn’t understand what it meant anyway.

“Shall we go to class now?” Gerard asked, stretching his arms above his head. I kept my gaze focused on his face.

“Yeah. I don’t have any classes with you for the rest of the day so I won’t see you until tomorrow. Don’t forget that you’re staying over, okay? Bring your stuff to school.”

“Couldn’t forget it,” he laughed. I smiled back at his grin and we both headed off to our classes. We walked in silence for a while before we had to part. Other students swirled around us as we said our goodbyes.

“See you tomorrow,” he called as he waved, quickly being hidden from my view by others.

“See ya, Gerard,” I whispered quietly to myself.

He was a good friend. He was different from the type of friends I’ve always had.