Chapter 1A: I used to be a good boy

A/N: thanks to Jim for editing!

"Happy birthday to you... "

It was way too early for this.

"Happy birthday to you... "

It had to be too early. I felt like I'd just gone to bed. The way I saw it, I needed those extra twenty minutes of sleep that I was about to miss before I actually got up.

"Happy birthday dear Nelson... "

But it wasn't every morning that I woke up to three off-key voices singing in my bedroom. Only every July fifteenth. The least I could do was open my eyes. I did so just as three smiling faces finished off the song.

"Happy birthday to you!"

And to top in all off, the one woman in the group leaned over me with a candle-lit chocolate cupcake with green icing. Her long, carmine hair, which usually cascaded all the way down her back fell forward and brushed my bed as I smiled up at her warm smile and dark eyes.

"Make a wish," she instructed.

"Mom," I groaned.

"No arguments," she insisted, and my brother and my dad laughed behind her as I lifted myself onto my elbows in my twin-sized bed and blew out the candle.

"Thanks," I told her as she leaned down, kissing my forehead as I placed a loose arm around her to give her a hug.

"Happy birthday," she whispered to me before she moved back so the tall man with a thinning head of dark hair, a beer belly and box-shaped glasses could move in. I commonly referred to him as Dad, even if I'd only known him since I was six.

"How does it feel to be seventeen?" he asked me as he wrapped me in a huge bear hug and I was forced to sit up entirely.

"Pretty much the same as it felt yesterday," I decided, and he gave me a hearty pat on the back before moving aside for my brother, who was a year older than me, but almost a foot shorter at five two. He didn't have to do much to lean down and hug me.

"Happy birthday, freak," he remarked.

He was one to talk. Currently, his shoulder-length hair was dyed an interesting pink color, which matched two of his three eyebrow piercings, and the one through his nose looked akin to a bull ring.

"Thanks, Chad," I replied, and as he moved back I looked at the three of them, staring at me expectantly. I hoped they didn't expect a speech. It was way too early for one of those. "Can you guys do me a favor?" I asked.

"Sure," my mother said.

"Can you get out of my room?" I asked, pulling my covers further up my bare chest. "I'm naked under here."

That was met with a mixture of groans and snickering, but my mom left the cupcake and announced breakfast would be ready soon, and the three of them left together, leaving me to close my eyes for five more minutes before my alarm went off, and I forced myself out of bed. No shower. My family had a system. My parents took theirs in the morning and I got mine in the evenings. It didn't matter when Chad took his because he didn't live with us. He just showed up for two meals a day. It kept him fed and my mom happy.

My brother had just recently moved into an apartment with his longtime best friend, Greg Hugh. He'd decided that when he started taking classes at Heywell Community College next month he didn't want to be living with his parents; and meanwhile, he was working at the only tattoo and piercing shop in town, Dane's House, named after the owner who happened to live in an apartment above the shop. Chad still made time to see us, though, just like he still made time to volunteer every Saturday to read to disabled children at the Heywell City Library, like he had every weekend since he was sixteen; and to drive across town twice a day to walk Blinky, the thirteen-year-old poodle who belonged to Mr. Helton, Chad's first-grade teacher, who'd broken his hip last year and landed himself in a wheel chair. Outwardly, my brother didn't look like it, but he was known as "that nice Larmont boy" around most of the community. That made me "that nice Larmont boy's little brother." I never really minded, though, as long as no one expected me to fill his shoes. I'd been in his shadow for as long as I could remember. I often wondered if that would be the case when I started my Junior year of high school in three weeks, now that my brother and most of his friends had graduated.

I pulled on my best pair of blue faded jeans over the same forest-green swim trunks that I'd been wearing all summer, and then an equally worn-out black t-shirt. But, before any of this I'd coated my entire body in the best waterproof sunscreen I could find. Like my mom, I was fair-skinned. Early on I'd learned that it was pointless to attempt a tan over the summers. My skin didn't tan; it would freckle, or blister, instead. This was the first summer since I'd turned fourteen that I'd managed to get through without acquiring either. I was very proud of that.

Next, I made my white-comforter-covered bed, and straightened up my room enough to be able to walk in it. I wasn't exactly messy. You wouldn't find layers of dust on my oval-shaped windowpane; or on my blue bookshelf, which matched the rug on the furry white carpet. But, I did manage to make a lot of clutter. Mostly, it was laptop accessories, markers, paper, pens, some colored pencils every now and then; and when I was in the mood for it, like I'd been the night before, paint. Sketching was like a hobby for me. I had stacks and stacks of homemade comic books dating back to when I was ten, mostly featuring my friends as silly superheroes in even sillier costumes and predicaments. I didn't read comic books, but creating them proved to be an entertaining pastime. Artistically I wasn't that bad, so I used it. But as far as passions went, I liked to write the most. My shelves were full of binders containing stories, mostly of the fantasy genre, and my computer had even more filed away. I loved writing. Only, unlike my comic books, I never actually finished anything I started to write. I also refused to let anyone, including my family, read anything that I wrote. As far as I was concerned, there was a huge difference between liking to write stories and actually being good at it. But at least my parents and my brother were respectful of this. In my family, we didn't hide things from each other as much as we were respectful of privacy. My mom had brought us up that way, and as a result, neither my brother nor I had ever really found it necessary to keep secrets from her, or lock our doors because we were afraid she'd snoop.

Kenny Larmont, my dad, was pretty much the same way. He had fit right in with our family, ever since the day that my mom married him eleven years ago; and she, my brother, and I took his last name and moved into his house, inherited from his grandmother, just like the three bakeries he owned were. As I grabbed the duffle bag I'd left under my bed and opened my door, I noticed that currently the house smelled like a bakery. Probably from the cupcakes. That reminded me to grab the one my mom had left me. It was gone in two bites, and as always, so sweet that I could hardly taste the chocolate.

When I left my room, I wasn't met with a hallway like most people. I was met with cement stairs leading up a narrow passage that could be downright creepy at night. My bedroom, which was decent in size but more long than wide, had once been used as storage. But when we moved into my dad's house, he'd let us choose our own rooms, and me and my friends had thought the room would make a great clubhouse because back then it seemed like a secret room to us, the way that the stairs wound up to the main level of the house. So, my dad had painted the walls, made sure the heater worked, put in new carpet and did everything he could to turn it into a bedroom that had lasted since I was six years old.

I stopped in the room that my mom commonly referred to as the family room. I referred to it as Mom's room, because it was all her stuff in it. I put down the duffle bag for a moment when I saw a large grey rat making its way across the beige carpeting, and smiled when it made no objection when I picked it up. Just like the piano, the various plants and fairy-figurine knickknacks, the large cage containing an African Grey parrot and another with two white rabbits--the rat belonged to my mother. She was a piano teacher who didn't seem to think normal pets, like a dog or cat, were for her. The rat got out all the time, but generally, he didn't get far, and I was easily able to return him to his own little home before I grabbed my bag and headed down the hall to the kitchen, which happened to be everyone's favorite room in the house. It was also the largest room in the house, round in shape with tall windows looking out towards a green field that, according to my dad, had at one time been filled with cattle when his grandmother was living. Now, there were a few apple trees that had actually produced a few fist-sized red apples this year, and a white goat with a gentle temperament and a healthy appetite for--apples. The goat was also my mother's.

Along with cupcakes, this morning my mom had made a rather large breakfast that seemed to cover the long table that she only brought out for company. And, it seemed, we already had company. Around the table with my brother, as my parents set out the rest of the food, were three faces that I was accustomed to seeing at my house, or anywhere else I went for that matter.

I'd been expecting my friends to be there. They were always there on my birthday. We'd be out celebrating all day, too, if Caleb Spangler had anything to say about it. The tall blond with wavy hair; a cleft chin; an interesting dream complex that he'd only share with his closest friends; and one of the most unpredictable temperaments in all of Heywell, was my best friend. Ever since third grade, when he told me that I was going to be his best friend, actually. Caleb had always been like that. He'd say something, and then he made it happen. That's why I didn't even bother to question it when he'd called the night before to tell me I needed to wear a swimsuit under my jeans and bring an extra pair of clothes today. I always had fun with Caleb, no matter what we were doing. Only, having fun with Caleb could occasionally result in trouble. He didn't always think things through before he did them. But that was okay, because Haily Geld and Joe Douglas were always around to keep him in line.

I'd known Haily for almost as long as I'd known Caleb. She was the biggest tomboy I knew, but even her boyish clothes and backwards hats couldn't hide the fact that she was a girl. She was hardly five-feet tall, slim, but all curves, and her long brunette hair was always pulled back into a neat braid. She also had a huge crush on me. I'd noticed last year, after Caleb pointed it out to me, but since then, I'd adamantly ignored the fact. It was better that way. No way was I going to confront her about it and risk our friendship. Besides, just because I knew about it didn't mean that I was interested. Haily was one of the prettiest girls I knew, and the nicest. But, still a girl. I wasn't interested in girls. Whatsoever.

I was interested in Joe Douglas, though. He was the hot friend. Every group has one. Joe was ours. He was disgustingly attractive. Dark hair. Slim build. A really appealing smile. And, I'd always liked his eyes. He had these really great, dark eyes. He was also Haily's cousin. He'd started hanging out with us just two years ago, and I'd had a huge crush on him ever since. It was too bad he was completely straight. And, really too bad that his personality didn't match his looks at all. To put it bluntly, Joe was a prick, and I'd had better conversations with toiletries. But, despite having an undesirable personality for ninety percent of the time when he was conscious, he was still one of us. He'd find flaws in everyone he encountered, but I'd never heard him say a bad thing about one of his friends; unless it was to our faces, and he was joking--he'd better be joking. And, that was at least something.