Three Cheers for Sweethearts [Frerard AU]

PART II: Chapter 1

PART II - THE STUDENT LIFE IS GONNA KILL YOU

CHAPTER 1 – SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE

A/N: In this chapter we introduce Austin as a character, who looks like he does in the picture above. (I have noticed that, at least when I click on this chapter, the picture is there 21 times. I cannot fix this. So let's all hope it just fixes itself.) Enjoy!

For the second time in two days, I crashed into Frank while walking to Theatre. I stopped short in front of him, our noses about an inch apart. Frank laughed nervously and I stepped back.

"Sorry," I mumbled as I quickly turned to the classroom door.

Mr. Burner cut to the chase about this Shakespeare unit. He told us we'd need to pick groups of three to four people to perform a short scene from a Shakespeare play with, to treat like a real performance. Ryan and Brendon eyed each other across the room, and Mikey was eyeing me.

"I see you all eyeing each other," Mr. Burner said, "so go ahead, pick your scene partners now."

Mr. Burner always tried to keep everything thematic - there were no group members, they were scene partners, even at times when we weren't acting in a scene together. Whatever made him happy; he was the kind of person that you just didn't question.

I walked over to Mikey and we awkwardly looked around to see who else needed two more people in their group. There was Frank, there was Brendon, there was Ashley, there was Austin, but I didn't know any of them well. Of those options, I resigned to Frank. I tried to catch his eye, which didn't take long because he was already looking at me. Austin eventually joined our group. He seemed like a decent kid – extremely tall and with a muscular figure but a boyish face and an emo fringe which softened how intimidating he could be. He was a second-time senior, but didn't act like it.

Mr. Burner passed around a sheet for us to write out names on, where I saw this:

Hayley, Bret, Ashley

Ryan, Kitty, Jack, Brendon

Anette, Kristen, Lacey

Amy, Tom, Vanessa

Austin wrote down Austin, Gerard, Mikey, Frank, and finally, the bell rang.

I had no way of knowing where this dumb assignment would lead.