Page 1 of Something Good
PROLOGUE
SAMMY
Once upon a time,there was a boy… A boy with dark hair and blue eyes who smiled easily and laughed often. He was sweet and kind and beautiful. And though he’d grown up without a father, just like me, his mother had loved him enough to make up for it, while mine…had not.
This boy hadn’t shared the same jaded, bitter outlook I’d developed, yet he’d been my very best friend.
With the exception of coming from a single-parent household, we were opposites in nearly every way. My unruly blond curls contrasted with his clean-cut dark-brown style. I was lean and slender, while he was stockier with a more muscular physique, even at the age of eleven. Everyone gravitated to him. He was effortlessly popular with both the boys and the girls in our class, while most everyone avoided me and my prickly nature. And yet, he never faltered in our friendship.
We spent summers riding our bikes, hanging at the pool or the park, or exploring the woods that backed up to the creek behind his house. He was interested in sports, video games, and other typical things boys our age were into, while I was into drawing and building things with my hands. Still, we neverfound a shortage of things to talk about during our summertime adventures.
Everything changed at the end of fifth grade. The day after school got out for summer, I rode my bike to his house, dumping it in the yard near the curb and bounding up to the storm door to knock. The school year had been harder than usual, not because of anything academic but because shit had been rough at home with my mom and her dickhead boyfriend. I was looking forward to the freedom that only came with summer break.
I felt my smile light up my face as the door was pulled open, but it immediately fell when I saw the look on Will’s face. He looked positively dejected as he came outside and sat on the front step without saying a word.
I plopped down next to him, not sure how to ask him what was wrong, uncomfortable with the sense of foreboding I felt deep in my gut. “I’m moving next week,” he said, his words tumbling out in a rush.
The blood drained from my face, leaving me dizzy with the rush. With four words, my entire world shifted on its axis.
“What?” It was a stupid question. I’d heard what he’d said. But I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around it. I hadn’t seen this coming. Not at all.
“Jeff asked my mom to marry him, and she said yes. We have to move to Grand Island because he got a job as a principal there, and I guess he has to start right away.” He refused to look at me, staring at the ground, and I watched as a tear hit the sidewalk between his feet.
“But…” I couldn’t finish that sentence. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say. I just couldn’t believe this was happening. “How can you move so fast? Doesn’t it take, like, forever to sell a house?”
“I guess he proposed like a month ago, but Mom didn’t want to tell me we were moving until school got out. She didn’t wantto ruin the end of the school year.” Another tear fell, adding another dark splotch to the concrete below us.
“What are we gonna do?” There was a knot in my chest, making it hard to breathe, and my initial shock turned to anger. This was bullshit. I lived in a dirty, rundown house with a mother who cared more about her boyfriend and booze than me or my little brother, and now the universe was taking the only person who mattered, the one good thing in my life, away from me.
Suddenly, unable to bear the tangle of emotions roaring through me, I hopped up, ran over to my bike, and pedaled away as fast as I could. I heard Will calling after me, but I kept pedaling, the spokes of my wheels a blur as I sped down the street. I just needed to get out of there.
I stopped twenty minutes later, out of breath and exhausted. I wiped the wetness from my cheeks as I bent over the handlebars, gasping for air. I dumped my bike at the edge of the tree line, picking my way through the brambles and overgrowth until I found the trail that wound its way through the forest. This was the same path that ran behind Will’s house, about a mile farther down. It ran alongside the creek that eventually flowed into the Missouri River.
A little way down, I came upon one of the larger boulders that dotted the forest. I climbed up on it, then sat, folding my legs into my chest and resting my cheek on my knees.
I hadn’t been there very long when I heard footsteps approaching. Will climbed up and sat next to me.
“How did you find me?” I asked. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. He knew me better than anyone. He was the only one who’d ever tried.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve come to this spot when you were upset.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” We sat quietly for a moment. “I’m sorry I bailed.”
He shrugged. “‘S alright.”
We continued to sit side by side with only the sound of the forest between us. After a while, he laid his head on my shoulder. I didn’t think I’d ever seen other boys our age sit with each other that way, but it felt right, so I didn’t question it.
“Do you think we can still be friends?” he asked.
“How?”
“I don’t know. We could write letters or something,” he said, his voice hopeful.
“Sure. Yeah, we can do that.”
“Good.”
I put my arm around him, and he leaned closer, pressing himself into my side. I was smaller than him, so it was a little awkward, but I didn’t want to ever forget the feel of him, so I held him long past the discomfort. I savored the warmth of his body and the scent that was uniquely his. I didn’t know if it was odd to be thinking those things, but it didn’t matter. It was just him and me, and I knew that, for as long as I lived, I’d always remember the boy with the blue eyes and easy laugh. The only true friend I’d ever had.
