Chapter 1

I'm lying on my back in the long green grass and the sky is more blue than I've ever seen it before. My brother is lying next to me and our fingers are purple stained with blackberry juice, our knuckles scratched as though we've been playing with a kitten. Little white butterflies sharpen against the sky overhead. I am no longer tired by the walk up here to the top of the hill. It took the two of us an hour. Had it been just my brother walking he would have made it up here in twenty minutes flat. The issue is always me, but that's OK. I glance sideways at Jason, my brother, and let a smile fall over me. We really do have an idyllic life out here, surrounded by the countryside and within easy reach of the town. Living in the middle of nowhere and yet surrounded by life. I close my eyes and let the warmth of the afternoon soothe me.

"Alex?"

"Hmmm?" I am too lazy to answer.

"Alex?"

A headache begins somewhere around my left temple and drags talons across my brain.

"Alex?"

I ache, the muscles in my arms that I've been using as a pillow, I'm stiff all along my right side.

"Alex!"

Jason leans over to shake my shoulder, his blue eyes scared for me.

I woke with a kind of spiralling thud that made me feel as though I had just crash landed on my desk. How long had I been asleep? What lesson was I in? How bad is the punishment going to be? Those two seconds after I opened my eyes are the worst until a familiar voice says my name once again.

"Alex? Wake up, everyone's gone home."

I raised my head, my heart pounding, to find the classroom empty. Last thing on a Friday, double history. Hell of a way to end the week. I wondered how much I missed. I sat up properly and looked up into a pair of impossibly big blue eyes, shining blue, like aquamarine gems and half obscured by the golden fall of his messy hair which he was growing out of what Jason called a 'kid's cut'. My little brotherRiver is fourteen, and the best younger brother that anyone could ever ask for. He's decided he wants to grow his hair long like mine.

He sat on another desk and chattered away while I packed up my school stuff and then we went to go and take a trip to my locker so that I could collect the rest of my gear. There's not much, I'm not strong and so all my text books live in my locker unless I have to take them home for homework. It was grey outside the windows, mid September weather making the sky go dull and the sunshine a rarity. We walked home alone, everyone else had gone already and there were only hints of shouts from afar. That wasn't unusual, and since most of the school population go home by bus it doesn't really matter. Sometimes I wondered if River had less friends in his own year, since he spends so much of his free time at school with me, or whether hanging out with the year elevens makes him popular amongst his year nine peers. Two years younger than me, there is only an inch difference in our heights and we both know he'll grow up to be taller than me.

Our house is well set back from the road just outside the village. It's a twenty minute walk from the school and it takes me half an hour at least. We have a long driveway; you can't even see the house. I remember when we first moved here. I was five and sitting in the back of the car. I'd been asleep for most of the journey and when I woke up I thought we were lost, driving over a track in the middle of lightly wooded farmland or something. And then we drove around the corner and there was the house, sturdy but not small, like an old fashioned cottage with all the mod-cons and a garden big enough to keep three small boys in trouble all day long. When I was a kid it was heaven and now that I'm older it's still just as perfect.

Mum was in the kitchen when we got in and the kettle was already on the boil, standing on the blue painted aga. Her blonde hair was escaping its plait and curling behind her ears like Jason's does. All the family have blonde hair, except my dad and me. Dad's is short and brown and spiky, mine is long, straight and smooth like water. That sort of colour too, lacking that is. You could call it ash blond, but off white would be better, a pale grey you get with people my grandparents age, not with boys of sixteen.

The evening goes the way most Friday evenings go in our house. Dad's rolls in from work in a suit and tie looking haggard and annoyed, brightening instantly when he sees us all. He works in London and his job is always a frantic rush to get things done on time, he's one of a pair of accountants for a big advertising firm. His partner Mack comes around to dinner every so often. My dad comes in, hugs mum and River, who jumps up to meet him and then comes around the table to ruffle my hair.

"Having fun Houston?"

I looked up from my homework, English, nothing heavy, just some notes on the set text and gave him a smile for my family nickname. Jason is Big Guy, River is Little Bit and I am Houston. Houston we have a problem. It used to annoy me but not anymore. Jason arrived a little later, shaking water out of his hair and looking like he'd taken a shower fully dressed. He just rode home from college in the rain, having stayed late to go to Judo, which he does three times a week. Sunday mornings mum or dad drive the three of us out to the gym complex in Brighton. Jason does kickboxing, River does karate and I have a two hour tai chi session and drink tea while waiting for the other two to finish up. I can't do the loud shouts, the hard work or the fast energy required by what my brother's do. Grumbling Jason went upstairs to change and I took a towel, warm from the rail of the aga, and headed on up to his room, which is opposite mine and next to River's. He was struggling out of wet jeans, tight and clingy because they were soaked, when I arrived and I had to help him out of them since all he was managing was to fall over a lot. He striped down his boxers and threw the towel over his head, scrubbing his hair dry. I wandered around his room. A couple of years ago the three of us had a week spat of painting during the spring when we all got bored over Easter. We painted all our bedrooms and had to bunk with each other while the paint dried in various rooms. As a consequence of this River has a room decorated in three different shades of blue swirl, my room has multi coloured zebra stripes on a dark red background and Jason's room is a kind of patchwork of whatever we had left divided by black lines like a Mondrian painting. In some of a white squares were drawings and little poem scribbles, things that he and I did later on. While Jason got dressed I read one of these. The cramped black writing is Jason's but the words are mine.

The girl with the sun that shone from her eyes

Turned her gaze upon the ghost boy

And although she said she loved him

He was only half hearted

And so he fell away

Jason's hand was heavy on my shoulder. He had dressed himself in different jeans and a huggable blue jumper, his curly hair damp and springy. He put his arm round my shoulders and we went down stairs for dinner.

The next morning I awoke to River's voice. Odd to do that two days in a row. He was sitting on my bed, which is a double because my room is quite big, reading out loud from a big brown covered book. My book, my journal. When he saw that I'd woken up he turned to me quite frankly with a strange look in his blue gaze I'd never seen before. It passed in a blink and he set the book aside and laid down on top of the quilt next to me, leaning up on his elbows. When he was little, River was scared of thunderstorms, lightening and spiders. Most nights from September to March I'd wake up part way through the night with him curled under my arm, small warm hands hugging me in fear. I don't know why he never went to Jason's room, Jason is bigger, stronger and there is nothing in the world I could protect anyone from. Well, maybe spiders I could. Having had to share a bed with Jason more than once on holiday I prefer to share with River. He's smaller for one, and Jason moves in his sleep and hogs all the blankets.

"MorningRiver."

"Good morning Alex," River sounded chirpy enough, "Do want to go out today?"

"Where?"

"For a bike ride or something. Jason's coming too."

I sighed heavily and reached over to mess his hair, which was fairly messy anyway.

"You know I can't River. I can't keep up."

He looked miserable.

"I'm sorry."

We lay in silence for a while and I thought about getting up, about my homework and about the delicious smells of something involving baking that were rising through the floor. There was also the small worry that my brother had been reading my journal.

"Alex?"

"YesRiver?"

"Can I ask you a question?" He was looking at his hands, fingers playing with a small rock that was one my bedside cabinet. It shimmers in the light.

"You just did, but sure." I was starting to worry a little then, River sounded terribly serious for a fourteen year old. He seemed to be building up nerve, his knuckles white as he clutched the rock.

"Don't get mad at me please, but I kind of have to ask because otherwise I'll just keep on wondering and that's really bad," He toke a deep breath as if trying to talk himself out of it, "Alex, are you gay?"

I blinked. And then I blinked again. Did he really just say that, just ask me that? Did my little brother just ask me that question? From my prone position I half shrug.

"I think so, is that a problem?" My voice was shaking a little.

"No," a pause and then, "No, Alex it's really not. I just kind of wondered and then I got scared because I didn't know and some of the big boys in your year said you were 'cos you didn't have a girlfriend and I didn't know what to say. I got worried and so I thought I'd see if reading your journal would help, but it didn't."

I had to smile at the verbal rush as my brother looked scared and confused, excited and relieved all at once.

"You thought there would be a message in big letters saying 'I think I'm gay' just to help you?"

"No. You only think you are, don't you know?"

"Well, I don't fancy any girls."

"Neither do I!" River says with feeling.

"But do you fancy any of the boys in your class?"

"No!" River smiles at me, "You have a crush on someone in your class? Do I know him?"

"River!"

He launched himself at me and I bundled him up in a hug while he did his best to crush my lungs.

"Don't tell mum or dad or Jason OK?"

"Are you going to tell them?"

"Soon," I promised him then pushed him away, "Now get going so I can get dressed. Next time go bother Jason about his love life."

The middle of Monday was taken up by double Physical Education. I have a doctor's note for all things involving sports, not just for today, or even this term. Medical excuses will last me the rest of my life. School have stopped making me sit on the sidelines and watch and since my whole year had PE at the same time I can hardly go and sit in another lesson. I learned from a very early age to love the library. The librarian is a nice woman called Jane, she runs the place, makes sure the books are on the shelves and if she catches you damaging a book you're as good as dead. The library is where I'm at. Sometimes I help out if there is a lot of stuff to do, but mostly I just catch up on homework or read, or sleep. More than once I've woken up in one of the leather easy chairs covered by a blanket having slept for two hours while everyone else runs around outside. Today I had company. He arrived ten minutes after me and looked as though he'd never been inside the school library in his life. Surprisingly large numbers of students haven't, preferring the internet for their studies and spending lunch and break in classrooms or outside.

It is painfully obvious why Chris Ford is skipping out on PE too. He carried his backpack in one hand, the green of his uniform mostly obscured by a large white sling. He managed to fracture a bone in his right arm and snap his collarbone over the weekend. I would say that some people have no luck, but he was dirt biking with no pads and probably deserved it. Thankfully he was wearing a helmet, otherwise he'd be no more now than a funeral date and a painful memory. It struck me that we'd be spending a lot of time off PE together and the thought was warming, like hot sweet tea. Spending time alone in the library with the guy I'd dreamt about for the last three years was not high on my list of things that would happen soon. Of course, it would be a whole lot better if he knew I existed.

Chris was taller than me and well built, he likes sports apparently and all the teachers love him. He's not stupid, but his forte is not maths, that much is for sure. Everyone loves Chris, he's kind and funny with a smile to die for and all the girls just adore his accent. American, native American although I'm not sure exactly where he originates from. Chris is his western name, apparently he has another one too, but no one ever calls him that. When we were back in year eight someone asked him about it and he said he would only tell it to someone he deeply adored. All the girls have been trying to get in his pants since. As for me, I watched his black haired form move around from behind my book. He took a couple off the shelves and then his gaze was caught by a leaflet for the Judo class that my brother takes at his college. He picked one up and between juggling bag and books, the whole lot fell onto the floor.

"Fuck." He swore softly, more for the reason we were in the library than any school code against foul language, and knelt to pick up his stuff. As he did his elbow clipped a table corner and he grunted in pain, holding his damaged arm. I put my book down and summoning all my courage I walked over and knelt down to help him gather up his stuff. Work books and pens from his open bag were also scattered over the floor. He got up a little unsteadily and I handed him his bag and stacked his books and the leaflet on the table. I was too scared to say anything to him, afraid I'd get tongue tied and say something really stupid. I began to walk away, but he caught my wrist with his free hand.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"You're..." He stood there for a moment, brow furrowed, trying to remember my name.

"Alex," I supplied, he'd been in my class for four and a bit years and he didn't know who I was, "Alex Delaney."

"Nice name, French right?"

"Originally yeah. You OK with those books Chris?"

He looked at me hopelessly and sat down, gesturing for me to do the same.

"So you spend a lot of time in the library?"

"Yeah, it's a bit like a second home. I've never seen you in here before."

"Well no, I spend most of my time out on the field," he picked up the judo leaflet again.

"My brother goes to that."

"Yeah?"

And we talked. We talked for the whole of the two hour session and it was absolutely brilliant. It turns out there were a lot of things I didn't know about Chris. He's got an older brother at uni and twin sisters who are in their last year of primary school. He lives in the closest town, in a house that's too small. He said his room is like a box, space enough for a bed and a small chest of drawers and nothing else. He likes art although he dropped it in year nine and has real trouble with his maths. It is a good rambling conversation that doesn't really mean much and yet gives us a link all at once. We left the library together, heading the same way, but then his friends arrived and he walked off with them without a backward glance. I had already been forgotten.

There were complications when I was born. My nickname comes from the hospital. After mum went into labour one of the doctors said "Houston, we have a problem", it was a very off joke at the time and luckily my dad didn't beat him up on the spot. I was born almost two months early, and tragically I'm told, with only half a heart. I was never meant to survive, each day was a miracle and I was frail as a feather made of ice, my mother says I was twice as beautiful too. After four months they let my parents take me home, any day, they'd said, he could go any day.

Well the days came and went and when I was two River arrived on the scene, this bundle of loud energy. Him and Jason took to each other straight away which was probably the best thing that could have happened. Jason was almost five by then and perfectly able to keep his littlest brother out of some trouble.

And grew up. I'm weak, I can't run or swim or do any sports. Sometimes I lie in bed at night and listen to my heart thudding double time to keep the blood going round me. It takes me twice as long to go anywhere as anyone else. I can just about ride a bicycle, but only very slowly. I wasn't held back in school, despite what the teachers wanted. Mum just told them that there was nothing wrong with my brain. No special treatment, no extra classes and with the exception of sports I do everything the school wants. I suppose that having two brothers so full of life made it easy, but I wasn't treated like glass at home. River and Jason had to both learn early on that they were not allowed to push their brother. One and only time Jason and I ever got in a scuffle. I was six, he was eight and I was dead for exactly one minute and twelve seconds, my medical record says so. He's never lifted a finger against me since.

As a consequence I'm not blond and blue eyed like the rest of the family, nor do I have Dad's darker colouring. My off white hair makes me look albino, and I'm so pale I'm probably a bit anaemic, but my eyes aren't pale pink or even a shade of red. They're green, grey-green like moss rather than sharp green. When I was in primary school I used to get teased a lot for my colouring, but I always had Jason to stand up for me when I couldn't do it myself. I go to Tai Chi to learn muscle control and improve my stamina. These days I don't get tired so fast and I can spend a bit of energy making myself look like I can fight when I haven't got half a chance in hell.