Chapter 1

Brock Miller sat on the lawn chair gazing into his back yard. It certainly was smaller than at his old house. The forest and meadow at his former home had been the scene of countless memorable adventures--and of one memory too horrific to forget.

Still, here was a damned sight nicer than where he was two months before. But it wasn’t as nice as where he’d been two years ago. Yet, it was home, for now.

His old life was over, destroyed so fully that there were no remnants left to salvage. Yet he had the memories, including the ones he longed to forget.

A tiny voice startled Brock from his thoughts and he turned to see a small blonde head peering at him over the fence that separated his house from his neighbors. He’d have to get used to living with people nearby, too, he supposed.

“Are you the new neighbor?” the girl asked.

“Hi, I’m...” Brock caught himself. “Brock. Brock Miller.”

“I’m Jenny Miles,” the girl said. “What grade are you in?”

“I’ll be a junior,” he replied.

“Me, too,” she answered. “Maybe we’ll be in homeroom together. They sort us by alphabet. What classes are you taking?”

Brock shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not sure yet,” he answered. “I have to go to the Board of Education office soon and get everything set up.”

In fact he had to wait for the transcripts from his old high school and the school he attended the year before to come before he could register.

“I might be in private school,” he said. “That’s still up in the air. I guess we’ll see how I do this summer.”

“Cool,” Jenny said. “Do you live with your mom and dad?”

It was the million dollar question. He’d hoped to put off the answer for a little while longer to consider what to say.

“Mom and Dad don’t live together,” Brock answered. “Dad’s not around much.”

It was true enough, he guessed.

“So you’re here by yourself?” she asked incredulously. “That must be pretty great.”

Brock couldn’t see much way out without an outright lie. He’d have to use those sooner or later. He was hoping for later.

“You could say I live by myself,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, though. I’d hate for people to get the wrong idea about my living arrangements.”

Jenny nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “I live with my mom. When my sister and I were younger she always worried about people finding out she had to leave us alone of the evenings sometimes.”

What Brock worried most about was people thinking they could party at his house unsupervised. But Jenny’s explanation served its purpose too.

“My dad is a real jerk,” she continued. “I have to go visit him for the rest of the summer starting next month. I hate it. He lives in Wyoming and works on a horse farm. I can’t get the smell of manure out of my nostrils until Christmas. My sister just turned 18 this year so she doesn’t have to go. I’m trying to talk her into it because it’ll suck worse to have to be there by myself.”

“Yeah, there was a pig farm down the road from our old house,” Brock said truthfully. “It stunk to high heaven. I hated to be downwind during the summer.”

Jenny laughed.

“Chicken farms are worse, I heard,” she replied. “They stink all year round.”

The teens chatted at the fence line for another half hour before another voice called Jenny to supper. Brock considered the downside to living alone: he had to cook for himself, clean up after himself and do his own laundry. At least his mom used to share the burden with him.

His mom. He had to quit thinking about her every 10 minutes. But he couldn’t help but miss her.

Brock was just deciding on what microwave dinner to heat up when Jenny knocked at his door.

“Mom wants you to come eat with us,” she said excitedly. “It’ll be fun and she wants to meet you.”

Brock knew it was rude to ask what they would be having but almost anything would be better than another Lean Cuisine microwave entree.

Dinner with Jenny and her mother, Leslie, was an adventure for Brock. What few social skills he’d learned in his early teen years had been lost in the last 18 months, it seemed.

He continually found himself apologizing for wolfing down his food. It was a habit he’d tried to break himself of, but he had to admit this was the best thing he’d tasted in a long time.

Leslie just took it in stride.

“It’s nice to see a healthy appetite,” she said with a smile. “My girls just pick at their plates. They both eat like birds.”

Jenny blushed as she nibbled on her salad.

“Or like rabbits,” Leslie concluded.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had a home-cooked meal,” Brock admitted. “I can fix hamburgers and hot dogs, but lasagna is pretty much out of my element. Basically if it doesn’t come off a grill, I’m out of luck.”

Brock tried to keep the conversation neutral but he found it increasingly coming back to his past.

“I moved here from the central part of the state,” he said when asked. “A little town called Monroe about 50 miles from anywhere.”

Leslie didn’t pry into his life, but she searched for details where she could. The boy was obviously intelligent. He could hold his own on a variety of topics and he seemed better read than even her bookish daughter. But there was something about his answers that bothered her. Finally she put it down to a lack of adult supervision.

“Where I lived was very small and very isolated,” he told them later. “I didn’t like it there and I moved as soon as I had the chance.”

Brock thought he was doing pretty well at evading the questions. Everything he told them was the truth. But it wasn’t the whole truth and it didn’t give them the whole story. Still, it was all they needed to know. That part of his life was in the past.

Jenny seemed captivated by her new neighbor. She was pretty in a wholesome way, with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Brock found them adorable. But he’d always had difficulty feeling comfortable around girls and Jenny was no exception.

He and Jenny seemed to be having a contest about who could blush the most, Leslie thought. I need to pay close attention to them, especially with no parents next door for the most part.

Finally one question came that Brock had trouble with.

“Where’s your mom?” Leslie asked.