Chapter 1

Jake and I had been friends since we met at seven years old at our private school. A few years later, Jake, his mom, and his older sister were in a bad car wreck when we were in fourth grade. He was mostly just badly beaten up, bruised, and I guess he had a concussion. I don’t mean to make light of all that, but his mom actually died, and his older sister still has a limp from a badly broken hip and leg. She used to be really into sports, like his whole family, so I guess she’s got depression now or something. I once heard my parents talking about some insurance settlement and how ‘the Steeles would be set for life if they could start living again’.

Anyway, Jake missed most of our fourth grade year, and he ended up having to repeat. I guess it was partly because of his recovery, but I think it was mostly due to how much the wreck hurt his whole family.

We hadn’t been in the same class since, but we were still on the same teams when he came back to school. Finally, just last year, Jake decided he didn’t want to be a year behind anymore. This time I wasn’t so much competing with him as tutoring.

School has always come easy to me; math just makes sense, history is interesting, English is my mom’s “bailiwick” (her word) so I had a cheat there, science is fascinating, literature is an enjoyable pastime (thanks again, to my mom), and so on. It doesn’t hurt that my parents, for all of their many parenting faults, taught me from an early age to prioritize my education. Or else. So, I’m an A student, though I’m in fourth place in class ranking behind a few ultra-studious kids.

Jake and I spent many hours last year in review and test-prep, one subject at a time. In an odd twist of timing, he took his sixth grade exams three weeks before his fifth grade tests! He didn’t break any records, but he had four “B’s” and two “A’s”, easily enough to allow him to graduate and move back into his year group with me - pending his passing the fifth grade tests. So, he buckled down to study for the fifth grade exams, by himself. The competition was back on, and he was determined to beat my fifth grade exam scores!

Unlike Jake, I hadn’t been lumped into the ‘jock’ category, but he was no dummy. With all of the studying we put into his sixth grade studies and his own hard work, he actually did beat my social studies and history exam scores.

I lay all that info out there because Jake and I are incredibly competitive on everything that we can compete on. Most slices of pizza? Jake ate a whole medium pizza and a half of another, (he only beat me by a single slice) and neither of us got sick (because that would have been a forfeit!). Worst sports injury? I once had my scalp cut open during an after school soccer game. That ‘break-away goal’ concept hadn’t quite worked in my favor.

Or, my favorite, how many times could we poke Mrs. Jacobs tight-skirted little butt before we got detention? She’s the hot, young, girls athletics coach and civics teacher, I won, four pokes! And two weeks of detention ... after the parent-teacher conference. Mom glared at dad for a comment he said under his breath about how I had good taste and was pretty much it.

And so it went, anytime we could compete, we did. Longest time holding our breath? Most slices of bread in our mouth at one time? Most times tossing a raw egg in the air - over his sister’s ridiculously huge tennis trophy - without breaking it, the egg or the trophy? ... and on and on the list goes.

He completely recovered from that injury mostly because his dad was a slave driver. Ok, to be fair, he was the boys Senior High Track and Field coach, so he really knew how to train and motivate. But I’d like to think his recovery was partly because I refused to stop challenging him. I ended up gaining a prior-Olympic track and field star as a coach as an unexpected benefit in Coach Steele - Jake’s father. It also explains why Coach would continue to push me just as hard as his son even after he had recovered.

So, we competed on everything. One last example: who had gone farthest with a girl? Well, I had thought I was ahead of my friend on this score. Turns out, notsomuch.

October 19th, 1983

“Hi, sweety!”

I watched as Jake’s eyes widened comically at Shelly’s public nickname. Even my girlfriends had never embarrassed me by calling me something like ‘sweetheart’ in front of another guy!

The mind is a funny thing. It can operate at what seems like light speed one moment: I had registered Jake’s wide-eyed response in a nano-second. Then I had arrived at a long, convoluted story in which Jake backed away in horror from Shelly’s crude attempt to cause me discomfort. She must be messing with him, and me, right?

The mind can also operate at what I like to call ‘sludge speed’. Like when my best buddy stepped forward, took hold of Shelly, and kissed her. Vigorously. With tongue, if I’m not mistaken. I might be mistaken. I might be oxygen deprived, given that even my lower autonomic functions have gotten stuck in ‘sludge speed’, and I apparently stopped breathing the whole time that they ... well, also weren’t breathing - together.

But they did kiss - did I mention it was a vigorous one? - and then Jake did something that totally destroyed my desperate hope that they were both just messing with me. He reached down and ‘adjusted his package’. Kissing my ex-girlfriend had given my best friend a chubby.

I choked. On spit? On my utter confusion? Or maybe it was just the realization that I needed air. Who knows, all I was sure of was that the next thing I knew I was seeing spots, and Jake was pounding on my back. Too bad I hadn’t been timing things, I might have just broken my best friend’s record for holding our breath. Were we still friends?

When I could finally make sense of his words I realized that Shelly was nowhere to be seen.

“You ok, dude?” asked my maybe ex-best friend.

“Yu ... you, ah, and Shelly?” I stuttered out. I had no time to compose myself, but since Jake was gazing off towards the girls changing rooms, he wasn’t bothered by my baffled glare.

Jake’s gaze softened, and his head bobbed twice as he continued his stare into the distance. “Yeah. I’m so glad you broke things off with that babe last year. I had no idea her family ran into money trouble, but I know that was way before you went solo with Michelle. We met at that public school meet you missed in July. She and I dated through the summer and, uh, well...” It was Jake’s turn to stammer a bit, and the glaring lights showed the red flush creep up his cheeks and even down his neck.

I had no time to ask what he meant. Well, I was in no condition to take the time, let alone un-sludged enough to make sense of things. Too much information was jammed up behind the fact that Jake really was dating Shelly.

“We did it!” Jake blurted out, and his words made me start choking again.

He negligently pounded me on the back again and I finally took a deep breath.

“We’re supposed to get together again tonight, after dad goes in for the evening game.” He continued, his words a bit rushed now. He glanced at me with what looked like a mixture of concern and amusement. I had only choked for a few seconds this time, but I had coughed up a huge loogie into the trashcan. But the key takeaway here was that Jake didn’t seem to think anything was wrong with the situation.

“Hey, could you cover for me? I mean, just in case my dad calls your place, back me up that we were out practicing relay grabs at the park?” He scooped my towel off the floor, tossed it to me, and slapped me once more on the back.

“We better get our practice in!” Turning, he walked away just like he would have yesterday. Back when it would have been a foregone conclusion that we’d cover for one another, and he headed towards the area we usually used to stretch out.

Objective reasoning.

Take a step back from the situation or problem, and consider it without any emotional influences. Emotion kills logic and leads to rash decisions, unwise words, and causes more problems more often than not when you are responding to something that has upset you.

It’s one of the few lessons that both of my parents had beaten into my head, and it has been backed up by our teacher that covers philosophy and history. Even Coach has a variation on the theme: “You will lose. When you lose, never use it in your next race. Only run your race, never let a loss make you run angry.”

I was really angry.

I needed to think, not act, not speak, and there was no way I was getting into the pool with Jake right now.

“I gotta evac!” I pitched my voice towards Jake, using our code for a bathroom break.

He waved one arm in acknowledgement, his mind focused on stretching out. And probably stretching out on Shelly. I shook my head to clear the imagery.

I could hear the blood pounding in my ears as I stepped into the bathroom cubicle and carefully set the latch. Evac indeed. I needed to get this maelstrom of churning thoughts out of my head. Part of me was focused entirely on not hitting anything. Part of me was carefully not thinking about how easy it would be to set up Jake to be caught with Shelly. And part of me was very calm.

That’s where I purposefully immersed my thinking. In the calm, trying to be objective.

Shelly left school last spring without saying anything to anyone, not even the few friends she had left after her bizarre change of attitude. It turns out that she hadn’t gotten pregnant, but she cut off all contact because she was embarrassed because she had to start attending public school.

Next, Shelly and Jake met while I was busy with my family. He hadn’t mentioned her though ... and that’s where my calm, objective, logical mind ran into the first mine field.

Why hadn’t Jake mentioned that he was dating my ex-girlfriend? For at least three months! Set it aside.

Dad and Dr. Jules - my philosophy teacher - both agreed that you had to mark the mines to be diffused later. First you had to get an idea of how big the field was. Dr. Jules was a big anti-war protester and had posters showing statistics on the damage caused by old minefields to civilians. The pictures of little kids missing limbs still haunt me when I think about them.

So, first landmine marked. I now considered the fact that my best friend had not only passed third base before me, but he’d scored before I’d even felt under a girls’ clothing. Damn, that wasn’t so much a mine as it was something I’d normally high-five him even as I tried to figure out how to one-up him. Now ... well, damn.

I had no idea what to feel about it, let alone any plans on how to, uh, well. Damn.

I kept going back to how Shelly glanced at me with what seemed like irritation. Or, was it satisfaction? Was she happy to see that I was upset? She was only 13 last year, why did she start getting so focussed on sex? How did Jake manage to get laid before I even got to third base? Who did I even want to get to third base, and beyond, with?

Objective reasoning, meet circular thoughts, why don’t you two sit in those sludge thoughts and get comfy? So I did, sit and spin that is ... my thoughts swirled around in my head with no answers in sight. Calm, objective thinking is all well and good in theory, but it turns out it’s a real bitch in practice!

After the third time someone had rattled my door, I realized that I needed to “shit or get off the pot” ... heh, one of my grandfather’s favorite sayings. I flushed, washed up for appearances sake, and considered my next move. I still had no idea how I felt about the situation.

I needed to avoid Jake, there’s just no way I could hide how upset I was, no matter how “objective” and “reasonable” my thinking was. Psyche! I was totally lost, not thinking reasonable, objective or otherwise.

I needed to relax, and I knew that Jake hated the jacuzzi, while I really enjoyed unwinding in there on occasion.

So, that’s how I found myself in the jacuzzi. With Laurel Andersen. Yeah, that Laurel, the one who pushed Mia down last year and inadvertently triggered our return to dating.