Page 1 of Kings of Westbrook High

Chapter 1

Callie

He’s gone.

My piece of shit father is dead.

Put a bullet in his own temple, it seems.

Just like that.

Quick and painless.

I bet he didn't even feel it.

I don’t want much in life, so long as I have a little cash and a place to lie my head at night, I'm good to go, but I wanted this, wished for it, even, so why am I so disappointed?

Dissatisfied might be the better word.

I've imagined his death more than a few times in my seventeen years on this planet, fantasized about it while getting my ass handed to me on the regular - among other things - but none of those fantasies were as simple as a gunshot to the head.

He should have suffered.

Leaning back in his favorite brown leather armchair, I blow out a hit of my joint and stare at his now covered body on the other side of our dingy, two bedroom apartment in one of the dirtiest neighborhoods of Vegas, allowing my thoughts to wander for a moment.

Why is he on the couch?

Why didn't he end his miserable life in the place he slouched day and night, watching his old football tapes, drinking his cheap whiskey and smoking his dirty cigarettes?

Doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

Jason O'Conner wasn't a suicidal man.

I won't deny life kicked his sorry ass in more ways than one. Despite his dead parents and his abusive upbringing in foster care, he wanted a good life for himself and he worked his ass off to make it happen. In high school he was the prom king, the captain of the football team, an up and coming star on his way to the NFL, worshipped by most and envied by many. Then everything went to shit when he knocked up the prom queen and injured his knee on the field the summer before college. His career crashed and burned, he was abandoned by his gold digging high school sweetheart and left with nothing but a broken heart, a broken dream and a newborn baby daughter to raise. He spent his days in this old chair, reliving his glory days on a constant loop and cursing the world for taking everything he ever wanted. But still, he was never suicidal.

Because he had me.

I was his vice, his punching bag, his source of enjoyment, his only purpose in life. I'm the person he blamed for everything he lost, and fuck if he ever let me forget it.

“Miss O'Conner.”

I blink away the thought, sliding my eyes to the middle aged female cop who's currently half way through taking my statement.

“Is that a cannabis cigarette?” She fumes, tapping her pen on her little notebook.

“No.” I shrug, inhaling another hit. “It's a joint.”

“You do realize it's illegal for persons under the age of twenty one to smoke cannabis in this state?”

I pop my mouth open and feign shock. “You don't say.”

She glares at that, opening her mouth to say something else but snapping it shut when one of her colleagues walks over to us. The man gives me a look, you know, the sorry about your dead daddy but I'm a little confused as to why you're not sobbing like a grieving daughter should be look, then he turns to the woman and leans over to speak in her ear. She frowns, listening to whatever he has to say, so I move my eyes back to the dead body on the couch, still struggling to make sense of what happened here tonight. None of these idiots would tell me anything when I got back and walked in on this shit show. Instead they sat me down and asked where I'd been and what I'd been doing for the last few hours. I lied, of course, told them I fell asleep at a friend’s house, because if they knew what I was really doing, I'd be in a lot of fuckin’ trouble right now.

“Callie!”

Speak of the devil..

I look to the front door and grin like an asshole when my good friend Officer Anderson walks over to me. Short brown hair and eyes to match, packed with hard muscle and those bulgy veins guys get when they take too many steroids. He looks more like a male stripper slash gang leader than a cop, which isn't actually a far stretch from the truth.

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