Page 1 of All Roads Lead to You

Chapter 1

Logan

Vienna, Virginia - June, 1987

I grabbed the cheap six-pack of beer and the pack of smokes I’d just bought at the sales counter and left the store, stepping into the balmy early summer night. Cars filled the main drag in town, driven by teens who’d recently graduated on the hunt for chicks or parties. We had little else to do around here unless you wanted to hang out at the mall, which was closed for the night.

Hunter waited for me in my battered pickup with the windows rolled down since the air conditioning was busted, but once I started driving, the breeze would cool us down.

I’d saved up money for two years for that piece of crap truck, determined not to let Dad pay for it, even though he could afford something better. I just wanted something to call my own with no conditions, and parents always had conditions.

I climbed into the driver’s seat, tossed him the beer and cigarettes, and started the truck. The engine, desperate for a new muffler, rumbled to life after the third try, and I drove off.

“Light me one, would you?” I asked.

I glanced at Hunter as he slipped a cigarette between his thin lips and lit it up, cupping it to protect the flame, fingers covered in silver skull rings and chipped black nail polish. He handed me the lit smoke, and I took a drag, exhaling out the window, not wanting to smell like smoke when I got home. My dad and stepmom knew I smoked, but they constantly lectured me about it, and I didn’t feel like listening.

Despite being the same height, Hunter and I couldn’t have been more different. I was the jock, and he was the punk. He loved theater and art while I was the varsity football quarterback. While it could be fun, I didn’t play because I loved the sport or anything. Football was just another mask I wore.

Hunter and I hadn’t always been so different, but during our junior year, he shaved his head into a mohawk and dyed his ash-brown hair black. I kept mine shaggy and over my ears.

Tonight, he wore a black paisley button-up, buttoned all the way to the collar, paired with black jeans rolled up at the ankles and Doc Martens, along with black eyeliner around his eyes. I sported my usual worn T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, exposing muscles I’d worked my ass off for, white Nike sneakers, and Levi’s that squeezed the hell out of my nuts.

Hunter and I had been best friends since kindergarten, and we’d lived in Vienna, Virginia, our entire lives. My football friends didn’t get him or why we were friends at all, but I didn’t give a shit. Friends come and go, but he and I were friends for life, no matter how much we’d changed over the years. Hunter was my ride-or-die. He was my brother through and through.

We only graduated a week ago and were headed to Berkeley in the fall to start new lives in a new state.

Living near San Francisco and Oakland would be a massive change from Vienna. Our small town sported two elementary schools, one high school, one grocery store, and one movie theater. While small, we lived just a short drive away from Washington, DC, but still, this would be an epic change that I desperately needed.

“That movie was pretty awesome,” he said, smoking his own cigarette as he rummaged around in the shoebox holding my collection of mixed cassette tapes.

“Fucking righteous. I kinda wanna see it again.”

“Totally.”

“How much longer will it be in the theater?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Two weeks maybe?”

We’d just left the movie theater after watching Full Metal Jacket—the best Vietnam War movie ever. Now I drove us somewhere to drink, smoke, and talk about life and shit. Sometimes, we didn’t talk at all. We could hang in complete silence and not have it get awkward. I didn’t talk all that much, anyway.

Once Hunter found the tape he was looking for, he popped it into the cassette player in my car and cranked up the volume until it caused my shitty speakers to vibrate and rattle, wheezing their last breath of life, kind of like my truck every time I started the ignition.

Hüsker Dü’s ‘Don’t Want to Know if You Are Lonely’ filled the car with a heavy beat as I drove toward Wolf Trap Park. There weren’t any events going on over there tonight, so we could hang out and drink some beers in peace, surrounded by thick woods, away from traffic and people.

Hunter and I drove in silence while the music played. He tapped his fingers while holding his cigarette on the open window, staring out at the town drifting by. I mouthed the lyrics to the song while tension gripped me as tightly as I held the steering wheel.

He was fucking off tonight. I knew Hunter better than I knew myself, and my gut told me he was about to lay some heavy shit on me I wouldn’t like. The negative energy just rolled off him. Even though he wore all black, he was the more upbeat one between us. I hadn’t hammered him with questions, knowing he’d tell me when he was ready, despite my impatience.

Ten minutes later, I pulled into the empty parking lot at the park and turned off the engine, plunging us into silence other than the crickets and the swaying trees in the light late spring breeze. I always loved the soothing sound, but tonight, I was too on edge and tightly wound.

With a silent sigh, I climbed out and jumped on the warm hood of the truck. Hunter followed me with the beer and smokes in his arms and sat with me. He handed me a can, and I pulled the tab off, chugging a third of the cheap, bitter beer back before lighting another cigarette.

The night was pleasant and balmy as always, but not bad for this time of year. Stars clustered over the cloudless sky, and the woods twinkled with fireflies, just like the stars above. The world all around me turned to glitter. It did nothing to keep my mood from turning morose, my impatience growing.

“Let’s hear it, man,” I finally said.

Hunter huffed a laugh. “Fucking mind reader.”

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