love is a battlefield

(clears throat) I'm sure we are all familiar with the song, right?
The Holy Terrors opened with a scene in which a snow ball fight was occuring. Even after reading on to scene's with doctors and nurses and hotels, I couldn't get over that first scene. I had to read it and reread it. I think this is mostly because I wasn't sure what had actually happened. The way in which this scene was described made me unsure at first if it was actually a battlefield. I understood that there were teenage boys running around with injuries to their knees, but the passion with which the whole incident was despribed was quite a bit more than a snow ball fight needed.
Then, once I concluded that there wasn't actually a battlefield, but more a figurative one, I stumbled over the gangs a bit. Was that also an exageration?
OK, now to the really good stuff... who the hell puts a rock in a snowball?!?! This whole incident was just one thing after another that I couldn't quite put my hands on. I understood things once Paul made it home to his sister, but up until that point things seemed to fluid for me to be able to hold in my hands. Gerard felt guilty or scared about saying Dargelos had put a rock in the snow ball. Was that because it was a lie out of jealousy or because he was afraid of retaliation? And why was Dargelos so angry at Paul in the first place? He just wanted to make sure this guy was safe. Is it such a crime to care about another person, even if that person does not return the care?
I was uncertain what was really going on when all of this went down, but it seemed almost as thought Paul had interupted Dargelos from getting beat up, in which case there should have been some appreciation.
Maybe all of this is just too delicious for my mind to be able to understand it.