Some Kind of Normal

Somehow we gelled, and our band is, or rather was, the hottest act in the area.

One mistake. One stupid-ass mistake and I ruined his life.

I would switch places with him in an instant if I could. Maybe then the guilt would go away. Maybe then I could look in the mirror and that empty hole in my gut would fill up with something other than loathing.

It should have been my future in the gutter. But I was Jack and Linda Everets’s son, and around these parts, that meant something. Around these parts, it meant special treatment or a second chance, even when you didn’t deserve it.

I’d gotten off easy and I knew it. Everybody knew it, except they used all kinds of excuses to cover up the fact that Trevor was lying in a hospital bed and I should be locked up.

Nathan is a good boy.

He’s never done anything like that before.

They can’t be perfect all the time.

They all make mistakes, even the good ones.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

None of it changed the fact that I’d screwed up huge, and I wasn’t sure what made me more bitter—the fact that I should be riding a bench in juvie and wasn’t, or the fact that I should be the one lying unconscious in a hospital bed with broken bones that would never play a guitar and a brain that might be scrambled for life.

My cell buzzed and I grabbed it from my pocket, frowning when I saw my uncle’s name pop up.

Shit. I knew what this meant.

I started walking.

“Nathan, I’m going to be late.”

The Oak Run Plantation was about thirty minutes down the road, and though the air was thick with humidity, anything was better than sitting on my front porch, staring at a car I couldn’t drive and thinking about stuff that made me more depressed than I already was.

“I’ll head over,” I answered.

“It’s hot as hell out there, boy. I don’t want you to have heatstroke. Your mother will tan my hide if that happens.”

My parents had gone north for the week in a bid to escape the heat, so at the moment, I was stuck home with no wheels and no one to take me anywhere. I could die of heatstroke and they wouldn’t know until Sunday night when they returned, because they never called when they were away—and I knew not to call them unless the house was on fire.

I could say it was because cell reception was bad, but the simple truth was, my parents really dug each other—still—and they kinda forgot about the world when they went away.

I used to think it was gross—the way my dad would paw my mom—but now I realize they have something special, and that’s a hell of a lot more than I could say for a lot of my friends’ folks.

“I’m good.” I grabbed a bottle of water from my bag and emptied it over my head. It soaked through my hair, which hung down to just above my shoulders, and splattered drops of water across my white T-shirt. My dad hated my hair, but Mom and my girlfriend, Rachel, loved it.

Rachel had told me once that if I ever cut it off, she’d dump me—she was joking, of course, but for a while there I wasn’t so sure.

It was hair; I didn’t see what the big deal was, but Rachel thought it made me look like some guy on TV, and Rachel was, if anything, all about looks. I guess when you are a hot little blonde, it’s not surprising.

“Thanks, Nate. You’re a good kid.”

Tell that to Trevor, I thought.

“The paint and brushes are already there, so you just need to get started and knock off around five, or earlier if need be. It’s Friday, you got plans?”

Rachel had left for the lake about an hour ago with a group of friends we hung out with, including one of the guys in my band, Link.

I could still taste her cherry gloss in my mouth. She’d come by, wearing the skimpiest bikini top you can imagine, along with the shortest jean shorts she owned. If I cared enough, I would have given her crap about it, but since I didn’t anymore, I said nothing.

She’d jumped from the car and into my arms, wrapped her legs around my waist, begging me to reconsider and come with them. She seemed almost desperate—as if she knew something that I didn’t.