Chapter One

In the Beginning


THERE WAS THIS KID I USED TO KNOW WHO ALWAYS sat in class with his head propped up in one hand. He always looked tired or mad about something, or sometimes just sad.

His name was Jamie Marks. But everyone called him Moony.

I'm not sure when or where or why he got the name, but I think it had something to do with him being fifteen years old and still a Boy Scout. It wasn't a good nickname or anything, and I sometimes wondered why, when guys in the eleventh and twelfth grades would sometimes shout in the hallways, "Hey, Moony! Moony Marks!" and laugh like idiots, Jamie didn't do anything to stop them. He'd just pretend like he hadn't heard. Sometimes there'd be a scuffle. One of the jerks wouldn't be satisfied with his silence, so they'd push him into a locker and say stupid shit like, "Speak when you're spoken to, Moony!" But he must have been a Boy Scout through and through, because he never did anything in retaliation. He just slid further down into the bottom of his existence, far away where they couldn't reach him.

When we were freshmen we started sitting next to each other in our computer classes. I didn't understand computers much beyond playing games on them, so he sometimes helped me. I never asked. Whenever he saw me stuck, he'd just offer his services. His voice was soft, not hard like I'd imagined it would be after everything. He was a good kid, really. I wished I knew how to be friends with him.

That summer I turned fifteen, and when fall came around again, I was put on the varsity cross-country team. I was a good runner. I did a mile in under four and a half minutes. My mother always called me her b