Page 1 of Cheering For The Castaway (Rejected 1)

Prologue

Alec

Age 12:

“Dean, it will be okay, I promise,” Joey tries to reassure a beaten and bloody Dean.

“Yeah, man, we’ll stay in the clubhouse together tonight. You won’t have to go back home if you don’t want.” I try to put him at ease as well. We would all stay here forever if we could. Unfortunately, life gets hard, and we have to suck it up by making an appearance with our fucked up families.

“I hate them, and I hate living here. I’m ready to blow this fucking town forever,” Canaan says, arms crossed and furious. If we let him, he would make it his mission to beat the shit out of Dean’s father for giving him that black eye. It’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last, but none of us is old enough or big enough to take on any of the Rents.

“As soon as we’re eighteen, we’re all out of here. Right?” Parker asks everyone in our group.

“As soon as I’m out of high school, I’m leaving,” Landon says softly.

“No, we all leave together. We’ll stick it out and then get the hell away from here as fast as we can. Forever. Either we all do it, or none of us do. Deal?” Griff says to the group.

We stay silent, but all look around, meeting each other’s eyes and nodding our heads, mutteringDeal.

“Y’all can go, guys. I’ll stay with Dean in the clubhouse tonight,” Brody says, but we all know we aren’t leaving. We spend most nights here, anyway.

Our one and only safe place is our clubhouse.

The clubhouse is actually an old, run-down school bus in the middle of the woods. It’s huge, and when we found it, we made it our own. We took all the seats out, put up dividers and beds, and even a small portable heater I stole from my mom’s trailer. The heater might be small, but it heats the clubhouse enough for us to be comfortable enough.

We all live in the trailer park about a mile from here, but it’s worse than this makeshift home we made. Staying here, we at least escape our home lives and just live day-to-day. We’ve all lived in worse conditions before, but at least this is on terms equally claimed by all of us.

We will get out of this damn place, though. There’s no other choice. If we don’t, we’ll die in this hellhole of a town, or worse, turn into our parents. That is not a choice. I would rather die than turn into the drugged-out junkies who think they have a say over our lives.

No, as long as we stick together, we can andwillget through anything.

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