Page 1 of Just This Once

PROLOGUE

PARKER

September 2014

If I’d learned anything after eight months of silence, it was that words were basically unnecessary.

I hadn’t said a damn thing since being told my parents were dead, and I was still kicking just fine. All my necessities had been met: food, water, shelter, clothing. I had air in my lungs and, I was likely going to make it through many more tomorrows.

I just had no desire to talk.

Because I’d also learned that some words carried so much weight that when strategically placed together, you could destroy entire families with them.

Like,I hate you.

Three little words. Eight letters. I’d said them one time. And now I was an orphan.

No one was ever going to make me wield that kind of dangerous power ever again.

A lot of people sure knew how to waste their words, though. They could rattle on aimlessly. About nothing. They made wordsso dry and brittle and incomprehensible that their meanings blurred in my ears until they were nothing more than static.

Take Matt, for example.

“Good morning, Thane. Morning, Parker.”

I’d been focusing on the back of Thane’s shirt as I followed him into the aquarium-decorated meeting room, but I glanced up when I heard my name. Matt, our counselor, sent me a small wave in greeting, to which I shot him a short frown for daring to address me withhiswords.

I had no patience for Matt. He flung sentences around like Jackson Pollock had colors of paint: just slopped them everywhere, hoping they’d stick in some semblance of order and significance.

Matt sucked with words.

“Hey, Matt,” Thane answered him, however, smiling with his usual chipper enthusiasm, which made me roll my eyes. Thane could get along with anyone, I swear.

Now, Thane…

Thane was one of those people who should talkmore. Thane’s words were like teddy bears and security blankets to frightened children. You could take hold of the things he said and wrap them around you when you felt like hell. There was actualwarmthand compassion in his words. The world was a better place when Thane planted sentences in it.

“Parker’s still not talking, huh?” Matt asked Thane the obvious.

No, I wanted to smart back.I’m talking perfectly fine. You just can’t see or hear me because I’m practicing my silent ventriloquist act.

Moron.

Of course, I wasn’t talking yet. And I wasn’tgoingto. Not ever.

As if hearing my thoughts, Thane sent me a warning glance. Because he didn’t need me to say shit to know what I thought about Matt. That’s why Thane was the best friend I’d ever had.

Well, that and the fact that he’d talked his parents into taking in a worthless orphan like me after I’d killed my own mom and dad with my horrid words.

I’d already been spending the night at his house when we’d received the news that my family was gone. So I’d pretty much just stayed on from there, as if it were some kind of extended sleepover, but still… The Eisners could’ve turned me over to the state and let me fall into the foster care system.

Except they hadn’t. All because Thane and his precious words had convinced them to keep me.

He was my hero.

Turning back to the counselor, he told Matt, “No, sir. He hasn’t said anything yet. But he will soon. I can feel it.”

I scoffed.

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