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Chapter 2

There were only two days left before school started and Ben hadn’t caught sight of Tim once, despite having walked by his house almost twice a day. In his recent attempts, he made sure to use Wilford as camouflage. He was simply walking his dog, just like any other chump in the world. This had made Wilford very happy but hadn’t done anything for Ben except increase his sense of frustration. He blamed the ungodly hot August weather that had everyone closing their blinds and cranking up the ACs.

Narrowing down where someone might go jogging was especially difficult in The Woodlands. Countless paved bike paths ran through the entire town, most of them winding around the plentiful number of trees that hid away building facades. Biking across the city without seeing anything more than woods was completely possible. Tim might have stuck to the same path between his house and the small lake when he first moved here, but now he was probably exploring in different directions. Even so, Ben began worrying that Tim was only in Texas visiting family for the summer and had already gone back to wherever he came from.

Hoping that his luck would change, Ben passed once again through Tim’s neighborhood on his way home. Thanks to a squirrel with a death wish, Wilford was straining against his leash so hard that Ben didn’t even notice the commotion until a voice yelled out with enthusiasm.

“Oh wow! I can’t fucking believe it! Oh, sorry mom. It’s just so fu- freaking awesome! Thank you!”

Ben gave one last desperate tug on the leash and looked up. Tim was in his driveway jumping up and down around a gleaming, black sports car. A scattering of people watched him, amusement on their faces. Ben took in the balloons taped to the garage doors just as someone said, “Happy birthday.” Wilford chose this moment to circle a piece of grass before squatting, bless him, allowing Ben to stand there and gawk openly.

“Thank you so much!” Tim beamed across the car at a man who was the right age and build to be his father before opening the door and diving inside. A second later and the engine exploded into life with a roar. It revved a few times before the passenger window rolled down. “Wanna go for a ride?”

Ben almost said ‘yes’ out loud. There was muttering from the family as they debated who would go or the importance of driving safely. Ben couldn’t hear any of this and had run out of time anyway. Wilford was already dragging him away down the street.

He should have felt happy. He had finally managed to see his dream guy again, but something felt wrong in the pit of his stomach. Ben considered the feeling and realized that it felt akin to having lost a game. The sports car sped by, much too quickly for a final glance, before it tore around the corner. To get a car like that for your birthday! His parents must have been rolling in it. The unease in Ben’s stomach increased.

That was it. Someone like Tim had looks, a perfect body, and a rich family. He was probably a jock and would instantly be popular, despite being new to the area. The chances of Tim even noticing a scrawny outsider like Ben were zero to none. The fantasy had been fun, but Ben abruptly felt as though reality had burst in and crashed the party.

* * * * *

The first day of school was not going as planned. Allison’s car had broken down the same day that he had witnessed Tim getting the ultimate birthday gift. Ben surmised that there was some cosmic harmony in this. One vehicle had left the world as another was born into existence. Did cars reincarnate? He doubted it. He was being dramatic anyway. Allison’s car wasn’t dead. It just needed a new radiator line. Or was it a sparkplug filter? Ben didn’t have the slightest idea what was wrong with it. He just knew that the car being out of service meant he had to share the bus with a bunch of nervous freshman and immature sophomores. He didn’t even have the comfort of Allison’s company, since her father had insisted on driving her to school.

Ben felt as though he could easily be mistaken for a freshman as he disembarked from the bus. He was slender and short for his age. Five feet nine inches wasn’t bad really, but it was becoming apparent that he wouldn’t be growing any taller. Alone and distracted, he probably appeared to be arriving at high school for the first time in his life. A disoriented freshman confirmed this, sidling up to him and asking, “How do they expect us to find any of these classes? What’s 3E2 mean anyway?”

Ben only shrugged and looked down at his own schedule, even though he knew that the ‘3’ referred to the floor, the ‘E’ to the east wing of the building, and the final digit indicated the room number. His own first item was 1W0. He didn’t need to read the class description to recognize what that was–P.E., or physical embarrassment as he preferred to call it. He swore under his breath and started toward the gymnasium where he would be miserable for an hour every morning for the rest of the semester.

Ben searched for any sign of a familiar face as he pushed through the crowded hallways, but the fates were against him today. He saw many people he recognized, but most of them were the jocks and snobs he despised. The bell rang as he stepped into gym, the hallways still full of baffled new kids. Ben took solace in this. The coach would have to wait until all of them found their way to the gym, the rest of the period hopefully being taken up with issuing uniforms and other trivialities.

He eyed the bleachers with apprehension as he neared them and almost laughed with relief when he saw Leon’s tall, stooped form sitting in the highest row, idly toying with one of his dreads. Ben made a beeline for the one person who had made last year’s P.E. classes bearable. He made it to the top row of benches unscathed—even though some idiot tried to trip him along the way—and sat down next to Leon, enjoying the aromatic scent of marijuana that surrounded him like cologne.

“Hey, what’s up, big guy?” Leon croaked in his all-too-typical stoner’s voice.

“Nothing much. I can’t believe we have to do this first thing in the morning. It’s child abuse.”

“At least it’s the last year. There’s no P.E. for seniors.”

“Lucky bastards,” Ben muttered. “Hey, maybe the coaches will be too tired to bother making us exercise.”

Leon would probably still be too stoned to exercise, Ben realized. That meant Leon would be relaxing on the sidelines instead of participating in whatever idiotic sport was the choice of the week. There were a few times last year when Leon’s stash had run dry, leaving him sober and transforming him into an active and capable athlete. Ben hated these times, because it meant he was left alone and defenseless, when he usually would have been hiding behind Leon’s magical aura that allowed him to get away with anything. Ben wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but the coaches seemed to genuinely like Leon, despite him being a modern day version of the people who protested against the Vietnam War.

Ben let out a sigh as one of these former servicemen came marching into the gymnasium, a handful of nervous-looking freshman trailing along behind like ducklings. There were four different coaches who taught P.E., but the only way to tell them apart was their hair. They were all stocky with limbs as thick as tree trunks. They might have been hot back in their youth, but a war and way too many beers had graced them all with tired faces and prominent guts.

This coach, the one with thinning red hair, took attendance by bellowing out each of their last names. Leon talked all through this, eagerly describing to Ben his uncle’s collection of Laserdiscs that he had access to all summer. Film was Leon’s topic of choice. If you knew your movies, you were his friend.